Business Ethics Quotes

Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!

A new model of heroic capitalism based on principle-driven, free-market entrepreneurship deserves a central place in business-ethics thought and action.

It is a commonplace executive observation that businesses exist to make money, and the observation is usually allowed to go unchallenged. It is, however, a very limited statement about the purposes of business

There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees which are falsehoods on the other

Why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel anyway? Social media touches every facet of business and is more an extension of good business ethics.

Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose.

Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.

The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.

Many business leaders are asking fundamental questions about what business they're in, why they are doing it and how it can be used as a means of healing human and natural communities.

We have to shift our emphasis from economic efficiency and materialism towards a sustainable quality of life and to healing of our society, of our people and our ecological systems.

The market has no morality

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.

The more moral the people are in their business dealings, the less paperwork you need, the more handshakes you can have, the more the wheels of capitalism work better because there's trust in the marketplace. Business ethics is not a joke. And, in fact, I think most businesses that I've dealt with encourage exactly that type of behavior.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

Living up to your commitments is part of business ethics. My word is my bond.

There's no such thing as business ethics; there's just ethics. And ethics makes no concessions for the real or imagined necessities of making a profit.

Being good is good business

If you build that foundation, both the moral and the ethical foundation, as well as the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won't crumble.

There is no such thing as business ethics. There is only one kind -- you have to adhere to the highest standards.

If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.

Using the phrase business ethics might imply that the ethical rules and expectations are somehow different in business than in other contexts. There really is no such thing as business ethics. There is just ethics and the challenge for people in business and every other walk in life to acknowledge and live up to basic moral principles like honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and caring.

If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization.

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

We don't think of ourselves as do-gooders or altruists. It's just that somehow we're trying our best to be run with some sense of moral compass even in a business environment that is growing.

Participant (Productions) is the only production company in town that has a double bottom line: social good plus financial returns. It's too early to tell how our returns are going to look - though all signs are promising - but social good is what we're really after.

The question is where are business ethics and morality if one of the parties wants to dishonor a binding contract, just because in retrospect it realizes it could perhaps have got a better price!

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

Play fair, be prepared for others to play dirty, and don't let them drag you into the mud.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress

The harder I work the more I live.

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.