Organizations are governed by ethics of practice and adherence to the law. Legal rules are part of the external factors that are considered in the process of planning organization running. All organizations exist subject to adherence to the law of country and the international laws governing organizations. On the other hand, Ethical responsibilities are internal guidelines an organization sets to direct the business practice and protect the organization (Doucet, 2010). In the course of running the business, legal rules and ethical responsibilities may conflict rendering legal rules insufficient in fulfilling ethical issues or vice versa. In such cases, a business person may be legally right and ethically wrong or vice versa.
Legal rules are sometimes insufficient to fulfill ethics should they be applied to meet their responsibility. Various factors cause insufficiency of legal regulations. Firstly, ethics are wide and broad and may cover the extent to which the law is yet to cater for. The nature of business provides a wide range of outcomes requiring ethical responsibilities. The law includes common occurrences in business while ethics provides for the extreme possibilities. Thus, legal rules are insufficient to fulfill the moral duties of the extremes. Secondly, legal rules are silent on certain ethical matters hence inadequate in delivering ethical responsibility (MacDonald, 2011). For instance, respect for employees is an ethical responsibility while in law it is unrequited.
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There are instances when a business person practice is legally right but ethically wrong. For example, business practices that take advantage of population illiteracy to run a business are legally right, but ethically wrong. Manipulation is the main element of business which is legally right but morally wrong. In other cases, a practice may be illegal but ethically correct. For instances, breach of contract is illegal under all circumstances, but in some situations in business, it is ethically right (Ingram, n.d).
In conclusion, the law and ethics are different in that the law is based on set statutes while ethics are about the morality of the practice. Ethics cover a greater scale of possible situations in business practice while the law is narrow. For this reason, the law is insufficient to facilitate performance of ethical obligations. Therefore, ethics supersedes law when it is insufficient.
References
Doucet, J. (2010). Legal social and ethical responsibilities in Business. Wordpres.com . Retrieved on 7 March 2018 from https://jennadoucet.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/legal-social-and-ethical-responsibilities-in-business/.
MacDonald, C. (2011). What's legal isn't always ethical. The Business ethics blog . Retrieved on 7 March 2018 from https://businessethicsblog.com/2011/12/22/whats-legal-isnt-always-ethical/.
Ingram, D. (n.d). Examples of legal but unethical situations in Business, AZ Central Publication . Retrieved on 7 March 2018 from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/examples-legal-but-unethical-situations-business-21719.html.
