Ethical Sustainable Development for The Betterment of Humanity: Management Ethics’ Perspective

Abstract

To attain sustainable development for the betterment of humanity there is need for the balancing of its three dimensions: Economic growth, social progress and Environmental stewardship. Though Legislations relating to each of the three dimensions have been enacted by governments of various countries of the world, there is growing evidence that they have failed. The various scandals, undesirable business activities such as pollution of water bodies through disposal of industrial waste, exploitation of workers, giving bribes to government officials, fraud against consumers and egoistic decisions of some organization’s top management are some examples of managers omissions and commissions which needlessly stresses the outrageous ways that they use in their quest to maximize their company profits. An Equally important contributor to unsustainable development is omissions and/or commissions, refusal to listen to wise counsel of science and experts on the part of political leadership who manages state affairs. This calls for a paradigm shift to ethical approach. The ethical reasoning promises to be a panacea where legislations have so far failed. The purpose of this work is to discuss the concept of sustainable development viewed through the lens of management ethics, the role of management ethics in shaping the quality of decisions made by managers in furtherance of organizational or state  goals which have a bearing on the triple bottom line, ethical dilemmas in management and attempts to suggest ethical framework and strategies for use by managers in making decisions that will bring about sustainable development.

Key words: Ethics, Sustainability, Green management, Utilitarianism ,Deontology, Teleology

DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/58-06

Publication date: August 31^st 2019