WHAT IS ETHICS?
Ethics, broadly speaking, encompasses fundamental concepts and principles that guide and evaluate decent human behavior – both individually and corporately. When ethics concepts and principles are applied to a specific context to answer specific questions, it is called ‘applied ethics’.
Examples of applied ethics include:
| business ethics |
| bioethics |
| organizational ethics |
ETHICS + COMPLIANCE
Although being compliant with public policies (i.e. laws, statutes, regulations) is foundational to business ethics, compliance alone does not encompass the full scope of ethics.
To comprehensively address ethics, compliance must be partnered with applied ethics judgment. Applied ethics judgment can be utilized in three important ways:
To guide development of public and private policies;
To aid comprehension of and subsequent compliance with established policy; and
To provide guidance when a policy is ambiguous or when no policy exists.
Why does it matter?
Because TRUST matters.
Trust is essential for all strong relationships.
Living up to stated values contributes to customer and investor trust.
To build and maintain trust, values must be incorporated into action.
To consistently move values to action, biopharmaceutical leaders need to be agile with bioethics and organizational ethics.
TRUST is an intangible business asset that can take years to build and minutes to lose.
– LUANN VAN CAMPEN
CURRENT STATE:
In the business world, it’s common for people to talk about compliance with public policies as ‘ethics’.
That, however, is only one aspect of ethics. In the healthcare business sector, bioethics and organizational ethics also must be addressed for a comprehensive approach to ethics.
SOLUTION:
EthicsMatters LLC bioethics and organizational ethics consulting and training tailored to the contextual needs of biopharmaceutical leaders.
What is your current state?
