Business and Professional Communication Ethics

This chapter focused on how businesses need to conduct themselves in order to be ethical and more importantly, how to survive in a changing market. Admittedly, I have not worked a lot of jobs, so my personal experience dealing with business ethics is limited, but I still was able to see how when ethics are used correctly, businesses can thrive in this postmodern world. The book really emphasized the importance of having a direction and being open to change, but also, articulating this and having conversation. The book defines the dialectic of direction and change as the "willingness to follow a particular path with the courage to move in a different direction when necessary" (174). The book reiterates many times that if a business is not open to changing their direction as change is needed, the company will fail. I think that this is very evident when our country has experienced so much change from the economy and technology. Of course, some businesses with fail even when they do accept change and reformat, but some companies had only one fixed direction and never accounted for variability. "Business and professional communication ethics works with the assumption that direction and change together make it possible to respond creatively to ever-changing market conditions" (176). When I think of companies and businesses that have survived the test of time, it's clear they have accepted this notion of ethics for longevity.

Like I said, I personally do not have a lot of experience in the professional and business world, but I still can see how to applies to the success of businesses. While I read this chapter, I thought of an episode of The Office that I just watched. Obviously, The Office is not a real world example, but it highlighted the needs to change in order to survive a changing market. In the episode, Dunder Mifflin has lost a lot of business from the big paper chain companies and the Dunder Mifflin recognized that they needed to change the direction in order to stay in business. The company decided to create a website to make their product easier and more accessible to customers, but Michael Scott was very resistant to this change when the company articulated the change to the employees. The book mentions this resistance from some people to change saying, "Clarity of direction invites a particular group of persons and moves others to another place" (182). Michael eventually changed his mind to the change and switched his direction, but when companies change their direction from change, some employees will not be attracted to the company anymore. Dunder Mifflin needed to change their direction to stay in business or their good would no longer be protected which results in displaced jobs and employees (183). Even though Dunder Mifflin is a fictional company, it a perfect example of how a company ethically changed their direction as a result of a changing market to help protect the good. Overall, I fixed, rigid company direction will not survive the test of time and will violate the 'good' resulting in disruptive behavior.