Business and society: how a new ethics of relations is born during a crisis

The question “what is good and what is bad” is not new, but it becomes more acute during a crisis. What is happening with the ethical side of life, how can business and society cope with difficulties and what can be useful from them?

Participants of the online conference “Ethical dilemmas: will the crisis write everything off?” shared their theses on these and other issues. as part of the Antifragility project of the SKOLKOVO business school.

Ekaterina Shapochka, executive director of the analytical center “Forum”:

In business, the crisis is unraveling bottlenecks that have not been resolved for years – this concerns the speed of decision-making and transformation, as well as ethical dilemmas. The crisis forces us to accept a new standard as the norm. One possible choice is not to betray your ethical values, but to meet the demands of the situation and other stakeholders.

Yaroslav Glazunov, managing partner of the Russian office of Spencer Stuart:

What to do in a crisis – for many, there is little choice here, but there are variations on how to do it. Treat people the way you want to be treated – if every leader proceeds from this principle, then cost reduction, termination of contracts with partners, parting with people will take place in a more productive manner.

Alexey Komissarov, General Director of ANO “Our Country is a Country of Opportunities”:

Most importantly, you need to be ethical, and not seem like it, linking your decisions to some formal recommendations. The crisis makes all our mistakes more conspicuous – visible and understandable. And what you are inside will surely come out during a crisis.

Alexey Kornya, President of MTS:

Good deeds do not always lead to good results. Sometimes not very ethical actions lead to very good results. Life and history tells you what you never know. At the same time, it is very important for companies to follow the sequence and avoid double signals – so that what is said corresponds to what is done.

Andrey Sharonov, President of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO:

In American films, the phrase “Nothing personal, it’s just business” is often found. This is a watershed: ethics is ethics, but if you are a serious businessman, you cannot, but must behave according to this principle. Many companies use the crisis for aggressive growth, and here the question of ethical framework arises: what is ethical in dealing with a direct competitor, and what is already beyond the bounds of reason. Every CEO has a different answer to this.

Andrey Elinson, Managing Partner of A1:

Business reputation is beginning to take an increasing place in the assessment of the value of any company. Before the crisis, reputation was about 10% of the cost, but I think that in a year we will see that in the valuation of any business it will be at least 30%. Ahead is a qualitative change in how the role of business in human life is assessed.

Andrey Elinson:

The demand for justice has grown and there has been a sharp increase in horizontal ties in society and business. These elements help build a barometer for making decisions in a given difficult situation. We see that companies are beginning to join efforts where they applied them in the opposite direction – to compete. We get the opposite effect when intellectual resources are combined. And if everyone came out of previous crises on their own, in the current crisis everyone is on the same side.

Dmitry Yampolsky, Chairman of the Managing Board of the Vera Charitable Foundation, co-founder of the Friends Foundation, lawyer and entrepreneur:

Before the crisis, we were divided, each was essentially doing his own thing. And now there are many examples when people unite for mutual assistance in order to close painful points – this has become a pattern of behavior in society. A lot of people offer help to charitable foundations that have started working 24/7 and are still in great need of it.

Ekaterina Shapochka:

The scales have shifted towards safety due to the coronavirus, and this can affect daily activities: the value of saving lives is higher than economic freedoms. The state is now taking away some freedom, and society is going for it – more than 30 countries have already introduced digital surveillance of citizens. The question is what will happen after the crisis: will the state return the former freedom?

Dmitry Yampolsky:

Now the state is acting in a state of emergency to protect society from even more harm. These protective measures will be forgotten. I see no possibility – neither technical nor ethical, nor, most importantly, rational – to continue such restrictions in the future.

Alexey Svet:

I don’t think we’re going to be post-cyberpunk in terms of features. Social self-responsibility will grow and become an acquired skill. If, as a result of the crisis, social compliance becomes not high, but at least average, this will already allow society to solve a lot of problems, including in social communication and assistance.

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