Profitability as Constraint or Creative Factor from the Ethical Perspective

Summary

The object of this paper is to reflect on the advantage concern for profitability can have on the promotion of ethics. While it may be widely agreed that the economic aspects of management impose constraints with respect to ethics, it is equally evident that the ethics of management places constraints on economics. It is less common, however, to see if, how, and to what extent the meeting ground of a company’s business interests and its ethical concerns can be a source of creativity — as well as a means of overcoming constraints -, and can thereby satisfy both economic and ethical criteria.

The reflections made in this paper should cast some light on the central aspect at issue here, which is frequently vague or obscured. From all appearance the general surge in privatization of enterprises, both in East Europe as well as in the West, manifests a trust in profitability as the criterion of resource allocation. Deregulation of all sorts in western countries has been following a similar course. However, some people continue to see profitability as an obstacle to human fulfilment. From this emerges the question of whether profitability, in its ethical implications, is a solid hope or a deceptive illusion.

The question is to know to what measure profitability prevents or favors human fulfilment. To begin we shall look at profitability as constraint from the ethical point of view by drawing on certain ideas based on theory. The second part of the paper will examine profitability from the ethical perspective as a creative force, as has been observed in recent cases.