Business Ethics VS Morality, the debate rages on

The much publised resignation of South African born Greg Smith from one of the USA largest banks Goldman Sachs again raises the question whether creating shareholder value (profit) as opposed to stakeholder value (shareholders, employees, environment, customers and broader society) is ethical and moral.

In an ever more competitive economic trading environment, corporations often loose site of their core values pushing for a more "survivalist" approach of profit before all else  while their P.R/Management. teams go to great lenghts to promote internally within their organisations as well as in the externally media what fantastic corporate citizens they are.

Is it fair on business to have to publish quarterly results? Any seasoned business executive will tell you that any strategy/sales forecast within a large organisation takes anywhere between 9 - 12 months to bear fruition. The only people to benefit from this form of "pressure cooker" forecasts are the business executives in the form of profit bonuses and stock market speculators. This at the expense of their customers (given the wrong advise) and often employees (salary cuts, retrenchments etc.)

This style of thinking is not unique to the USA, there are organisations in this country (SA) who practice the same philosophy as they are governed by the same rules.

• Our banking institutions have of the highest banking charges in the world and despite an investigation by the competition commission has led to nothing. 
• The legal fraternity get to charge what they want for services and as long as they work within the framework of the law (which is open to interpreation), I have a client who has paid a substantial amount to a legal firm on a matter that could have been resolved using common sense and intuition, but that doesnt lead to many billing hours - three months later and tens of thousands of Rands later the matter continues.

Recent history is filled with examples of blatant exploitation on the part of large western corporations all in the name of profit, at what point do we the consumers of the products and services of these corporations say enough is enough?