The ethical enterprise as a condition for a renewed administration

Abstract

This theoretical article deals with the debate about the ethics in enterprises. The discussions about the ethics in enterprises have experienced a significant increase in recent years. The current organizational context has undergone a series of major scandals. This context is based on the traditional administration of enterprises, in which the discipline, the hierarchy, status differences, the separation of roles of concept and of design and realization, individualism, the belief in a scientific management based on sophisticated tools and the belief in  virtues and possibilities of an indefinite growth are the supporting pillars (AKTOUF, 1996). However, to make a renewed administration, where the appreciation of the human being is a central element, it is necessary to make viable an ethical enterprise (PATRUS-PENA and CASTRO, 2010) which implies a questioning of numerous assumptions, ideas, principles, and, above all, attitudes that founded the managerial tradition. An ethical enterprise is the one that seeks profit, but not at all cost, and is economically viable, for it also takes into consideration the social and the environment in their activities, with the focus on the long term. The understanding that the ethical enterprise has the human being as a fundamental value becomes urgent, recognizing in him his intellectual and emotional capacities.