ABSTRACT: (ETHICS IN BUSINESS THEORY AND OPERATIONAL TOOLS). Very often the media spread news about corruption in organizations of all kinds; the importance of ethics in the economy remains a very topical issue. The study investigates particularly the relationship between ethics, on the one hand, business theory and its operational tools, on the other. The question concerns if lasting value can be created and maintained and if internal controls can ensure an effective and efficient administration outside of a strong ethical environment. The inquiry analyses firstly some major corporate theories and then the most widespread internal controls standards. Pietro Onida’s theory on the need to pursue simultaneously the maximum value of several business quantities shares with the Stakeholder theory strong ethical foundations. In both cases, ethical and economic principles are connected in a symbiotic mode. Since the relationship between ethical behaviour and business performance is not demonstrated, the normative approach reveals itself as the very core of the theory. The COSO Report and the INTOSAI standards are instruments for the good administration and to fight against corruption; to this end, they suggest the spread of solid ethical principles at all levels of the organization, starting from the example given by the senior management – the tone at the top. Ethics and economics are not in opposition to one another; not only the first seems to be a prerequisite for the implementation of the second, but the economic principles can be functional to ethics. Efficiency is, first of all, an ethical principle, if we think about its opposite. Inefficiency in private businesses brings about lower profits, losses, the destruction of wealth and jobs. It, in public organizations, results in services not rendered and needs not satisfied. When dealing with the health of people and their lives, in the extreme case of National Health Service, inefficient behaviours result in suffering not avoided and lives not saved.
KEYWORDS: Ethics, Lasting value, Internal control
