Why Ethics matter

9/17/2019 (Permalink)

What is ethics?

Well, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is a federal law that set new standards for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms.

The bill was enacted as a reaction to several major corporate and accounting scandals. These scandals cost investors billions of dollars when share prices of affected companies collapsed and shook public confidence in the nation’s securities market.

Ethics is defined as

• The principals of conduct governing an individual or a person the discipline dealing with what is good and evil or right and wrong or with moral duty and obligation

Ethical is defined as

• Of or relating to ethics
• Conforming to professionally endorsed principals and practices

We teach each other these about ethics because throughout time, not only do things change. As things change, we occasionally need to be reminded sometimes of how we should be behaving. As humans, we are not born being ethical or understanding what being ethical means. In these classes, we are taught that being ethical consists of having good judgment, being honest, loyal, compassionate, being trustworthy, having integrity, having accountability, and being respectful of others. These are important to know not only to function in society but also to function peacefully as an employee.