Business Ethics: Personal Reflection on Moral Development

This essay provides a personal reflection on the evolution of the author's understanding of moral complexities and ethical dilemmas, influenced by life experiences and education. The author explores their personal value system, highlighting values like discipline and helping mentality, while ack...Read More

Business Ethics

Table of Contents
Personal Reflective Essay ...............................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Personal Reflective Essay
Ethics are the moral principles that governs behaviour or the way an individual conduct
any activity. Moral values includes values like helping mentality, truthfulness, loyalty,
determination etc. that express ideas regarding good life (El Garah and et.al., 2012). This
reflective essay is based on personal reflection on understanding of moral complexities and
ethical dilemmas that grows as life experience and education grow. It is a fact that as an
individual grow, the complexities of life are also grows. An individual needs to think sensibly
before taking any decision. When I am a child, there were no complexities in life. I played,
enjoyed and do whatever I want to do but, as I grow, the complexities of my life also increases.
In my experience of life and education, I faced various moral complexities. According to me
money is a secondary thing, but when I come across the reality of life, I found that it is the
primary thing that is required by an individual in order to ensure his/her survival in society.
Moral values can be defined as the values that defend life and are honorific of the double
life value of self as well as others (What are Values, Morals and Ethics, 2012). As per my view,
ethics and moral principles are the crucial part of an individual's life. When I was in school, I
thought that it is very easy to earn money ethically. But, as I grow up and face the practicality of
life, I understand that it is not easy to earn money in an ethical way. An individual requires to
follow various ethics and principles in order to earn money ethically. During my school time, my
teacher always thought me the importance of education and hard work and its significance in
personal and professional life. At that time, I never listened to what she said. But, as I grow and
my knowledge and learning increases, I understand the importance education and hard work. As
the competition in market is constantly increasing, it becomes very difficult for me and other
individuals as well to get a good job. This leads to make me understand the importance of
education and hard working in a person's life as these are very crucial in order to get succeed and
attain high growth. Good qualification and ability to work hard will makes it easy for me to get a
good job (Ferguson, 2016).
In current scenario, it is very difficult for me or any individual to follow a path of
loyalty and truthfulness for earning money ethically. As I grow, the dilemmas of life are also
constantly grow. In my childhood, no conflicts were there in my mind and I was not require to
think about anything. As I grown up, I faced dilemmas in which I required to select from two
possible solutions. I believe that each individual has its value system which includes set of

principles that guide their behaviour. It provides a person with purpose and structure by helping
them what is important and meaningful to them. Each aspect of an individual's life is impacted
by the personal values that can be demonstrate by their work and personal behaviour, decision
making process, way of interaction with friends, family and colleagues, the overall life quality,
their well being and happiness etc. (Kaur, 2015).
Values are the basis of ability of a person to judge between what is right and wrong. It
involves deep rooted systems of beliefs which have intrinsic worth (What's the Difference
Between Ethics, Morals and Values?, 2019). As a person, my personal values includes loyalty,
discipline, commitment, respect, selflessness, love, kindness and forgiveness that helps me in
following ethical path and protects me from wrong doings. In my life, from childhood till now,
my personal value system helps me in expressing myself and determine the purpose of my life. It
helps me in taking logical decisions in the difficult situations. It improves my understanding of
seeing things from all perspectives and enables me to reach to the consensus. Among all the
values, there are some values which are becoming more important to me. One of the value is
discipline which is very important to have in an individual. I personally believe that discipline
brings stability in my life. It teaches me to be systematic towards accomplishment of my life's
goals. An individual can not work without having discipline in his/her life. It teaches me to be
respectful and responsible. Without discipline, a smooth flow of life can not be possible.
As I grow up, I learnt that having discipline in live is very important not only in personal
life, but in professional life also. Self discipline motivates an individual and leads him/ her
towards success (Tsalikis and Fritzsche, 2013). The another value which is becoming important
to a me is helping mentality. I love to help others as it provides me inner satisfaction and I feel
happy after helping someone. I personally believe that each individual should help the person
who is in need. However, in professional life, it may not be possible for me or any other
individual to always help others as this may hamper the personal work. In order to gain success,
it is very necessary to think and takes decisions logically, instead of being emotional. For me,
moral values and principles are very important part of life as it guides me in each path of my life.
It leads me to choose right path and take right decisions by analysing all the aspects of an issue.
According to me, the moral value selflessness is not seems so important now as I believe that
there are some situations in which an individual requires to be selfish. Sometimes, selflessness
may puts an individual in difficult situation (Trevino and Nelson, 2016).

As a person, I strongly believe that moral values are the most crucial part of life. Moral
values like integrity, hard working, discipline are very crucial because if an individual has never
learned about these then, he or she is not able to decide between good and bad. A person's
spirituality and character are reflected by the moral values of an individual. These helps in
developing good relationships in professional and personal life. I believe that a person's moral
values have never changed. However, there may some circumstances in life when an individual
may requires to change these. My moral value of selflessness seems to differ from my family
and friends as I believes much in selflessness, whereas my family and friends do not. According
to me, there are some values which will affect my professional life too. I am not working yet in
any organisation, but I am now thinking about it and in future I want to work in a reputed
company that provides me various opportunities for my career growth. In future, when I enter
into professional life, I believe that my moral values will help me in attaining success in life. It
will help me in adopting right practices and doing work ethically. As per my views, commitment
and ethical working are very crucial principles that highly contributes in growth and success of
an individual or an entity. From the overall experience of my life and education, I learn that it is
very necessary to follow principles and ethics in life, as without these an individual can not get
success in his or her life. Moral values provides me with right path and helps me in taking right
decisions. These will also assist me in my personal as well as professional life and in future
career growth.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
El Garah and et.al., 2012. Toward applied Islamic business ethics: responsible halal
business. Journal of Management Development.
Ferguson, J., 2016. Moral values in the ancient world. Routledge.
Kaur, S., 2015. Moral values in education. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science.
20(3). pp.21-26.
Trevino, L. K. and Nelson, K. A., 2016. Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do
it right. John Wiley & Sons.
Tsalikis, J. and Fritzsche, D. J., 2013. Business ethics: A literature review with a focus on
marketing ethics. In Citation Classics from the Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 337-
404). Springer, Dordrecht.
Online
What are Values, Morals and Ethics, 2012. [Online]. Available through:
<https://managementhelp.org/blogs/business-ethics/2012/01/02/what-are-values-
morals-and-ethics/>
What's the Difference Between Ethics, Morals and Values?, 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://examples.yourdictionary.com/difference-between-ethics-morals-and-
values.html>