Bizcuits: The problem with ethics

Leanda Lee

Talk about ethics in business in Macau and you’re likely to be met with a wry smile and a look that reads “oh, you’re a naïve one, aren’t you.” Elsewhere, there is a generally accepted, perhaps idealistic, view that people want to behave ethically. Even those who maintain a cynicism about ethics in business likely view their own behaviours to be ethical, or at least maintain a stance that they would be if they could.
They argue that if the competitive environment comprises unethical behaviours, behaving ethically comes at a cost. To maintain one’s integrity – to comply with our own value system in the face of social and competitive pressures – they say, can risk relationships, jobs and wealth.
Thus, to teach ethics in business is a thankless task. This is one of those areas of the curriculum that has a real disconnect for particularly the more experienced business students. They’ve seen what happens out there in the ‘real world’ where avarice, narcissism, ambition and desire for the benefit of self or, more readily defensible, one’s kin are powerful forces against which sustainable behaviours for the common good stand in far weaker position. Short-term gains give businessmen the resources to garner even more resources and supportive friends in influential places.
So teaching ethics is either preaching to the converted or facing an antagonistic hoard of pragmatists who will go through the motions required to pass the class. How can the irony be missed by a student who plagiarises paragraphs from sources on professional ethics? Assuming he had been educated in and effectively socialised to the norms of academic honesty I adhere to, the benefits of cheating on his assignment most likely outweigh the risk of being caught by an overzealous academic.
Ethics are founded upon values and are therefore contingent: Different people(s) hold different values. These vary due to a) education and levels of awareness of consequences of behaviour to self and others involved; b) the short- and long-term view of benefits; c) likelihood of being caught; d) the specific values imbued through socialisation and also e) personality attributes such as avoidance of risk. Conflict of values isn’t just about whether a behaviour, such as over-charging a taxi-passenger (MDT Aug 11, p.6), harms others or not but about which of the values we hold takes precedence.
Some groups in Macau have derided the ‘scamming’ by so-called un-ethical taxi-drivers (MDT July 21, p.6). But, based upon the premise that people act in certain ways when the benefits outweigh the potential costs, there will certainly be a number of mitigating factors that should be addressed rather than label the perpetrators as inherently ‘bad’. It may be that they haven’t been trained in appropriate professional norms and are therefore not aware of the role they play in Macau, or the effects they have upon the community and Macau’s tourism industry (some drivers are not local); there may be little risk of being caught, with relatively minor penalties being metered out for misdemeanours; and there is usually an over-riding system of (dis)incentives driving such behaviour. Ignoring cost of funds, conservatively, the cost of a taxi-license works out to be just over MOP12,000 per month (MDT June 2) even before capital expenditure on the vehicle, labour costs and operating expenses are taken into account. If the licenses are sub-let to drivers or middle-men, there is all the incentive in the world to remove the income ceiling imposed by the meter and taxes, if you can get away with it. In fact most mainland tourists would not find it odd to negotiate a no-meter charge, and noisy foreign locals with differing expectations would be seen as a waste of time. Ingeniously, the drivers might just be implementing a more effective system of wealth redistribution than the government has been able to achieve in a town with a per capita GDP of over USD87,000.
It’s not about forcing taxi-drivers to ‘do the right thing’. It’s about maintaining a just and well regulated system (MDT Aug 1, p.4) of incentives so that each of the parties – the drivers, the passengers (local and tourist), license and sub-license holders, the government and the destination proprietors – is enabled to act ethically and benefits equally.