ABSTRACT
Professional values and ethics are imperative to having and establishing career success. Understanding the difference between professional values and ethics can determine an individual’s career success. What exactly does it mean to have values and ethics? Both terms are extremely broad and we need to focus in on both aspects to having successful careers. Professional values can be defined as those things that are important to or valued by someone; Ethics is something that encompasses proper conduct and good living. (Wikipedia.com, 2009) What we will define first is values and ethics; second, the three sources of professional values and ethics; third, how professional values and ethics can impact career success.
Ethics is defined in many different ways some feel that it is a philosophy for proper conduct and good living, but one individual style of living might not be ethical to another individual and in some aspects be completely different. (Wikipedia.com, 2009) Others feel that ethics knows what is good and bad, in other words knowing that robbing a bank is wrong and returning the million dollars to its owner is the right thing to do. (Merriam-Webster.com, 2009)
In today’s work environment being ethical and having strong professional values can play a major role in an individual’s career success. From an early age people start to develop their individual ethics based on the environment that they are raised in, they carry those ethical ideals with them from home to school and finally into the work place. While young those ethical ideals are ever changing, influenced by decisions based on parental advice, peer pressure, teachers at school, and the need to fit in. When a person finally reaches the work environment those ideals that were changing, at a young age, have taken shape and drive us towards our goal of career success. The development of a strong sense of right and wrong is what leads us as a people towards our...