THE PRESENCE OF ETHICS AND THE RECOGNITION OF THE OTHER IN THE ENTREPRENEUR FOR DECISION MAKING1
LA PRESENCIA DE LA ÉTICA Y EL RECONOCIMIENTO DEL OTRO EN EL EMPRENDEDOR PARA LA TOMA DE DECISIONES
Abstract
To analyze the importance of ethics in entrepreneurship processes, from the perspective of entrepreneurs, as well as to validate the need for training and support in issues of this nature, the following hypotheses are proposed that allow us to question if ethics is seen as a set of rules and how this component is addressed in the entities of this type of ecosystem. Those who have passed through entities of this guild concentrate more on profitability than on the Other; having partners reveals the value of that Other and those who confirm its importance hesitate to make an unethical decision. To recognize the presence of the Other in entrepreneurs, an instrument reviewed by fourteen experts was developed and applied to 411 entrepreneurs in the city of Medellín and its metropolitan area. The results show that it is necessary for this ecosystem to design methodologies to address ethical issues, since it is essential to have adequate tools. There is also evidence of a sensitivity towards the Other that tends to disappear when talking about profitability.
Key words:
ethics, responsibility, Other, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ecosystem..Resumen
Con el fin de analizar la importancia de la ética en los procesos de emprendimiento, a partir de la mirada de los emprendedores, así como validar la necesidad de la formación y el acompañamiento en temas de esta índole, se plantean las siguientes hipótesis que permiten cuestionar si la ética es vista como un conjunto de normas y cómo en las entidades de este tipo de ecosistema se aborda este componente. Quienes han pasado por entidades de este gremio se concentran más en la rentabilidad que en el Otro; tener socios revela el valor de ese Otro y quienes confirman su importancia titubean a la hora de tener una decisión poco ética. Para reconocer la presencia del Otro en los emprendedores, se elaboró un instrumento revisado por catorce expertos que fue aplicado a 411 empresarios de la ciudad de Medellín y su Área Metropolitana.Los resultados permiten evidenciar que, se hace necesario para este ecosistema diseñar metodologías para abordar los temas éticos, ya que es fundamental contar con herramientas adecuadas. Se evidencia, además, una sensibilidad frente al Otro que tiende a desaparecer cuando se habla de rentabilidad.
Palabras clave:
ética, responsabilidad, Otro, emprendimiento, ecosistema de emprendimiento..INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurial activity is more than a simple intellectual act, it lies in the ability to carry out practices that allow economic and social development, embodying a high responsibility towards what is understood as a human being. This research seeks that the business creation exercise not only manages to go beyond productivity and competitiveness based on purely financial results, but also involves an ethical look as a constituent element in decision-making, which invites to improve the human being. in himself and in the Other. Taking as a reference that “unethical conduct affects people and puts the integrity of companies at risk” (Estrada-López et al., 2020, p. 24).
The change that society is experiencing today has meant a transformation in the values we cultivate and the way we do it, entering a selfish world where the main axis is our own benefit. However, “it is a banality to say that we never exist in the singular, we are surrounded by beings and things with which we maintain a relationship. By sight, by touch, by sympathy, by working together, we are with others” ( Levinas, 1993, p. 17). The human being sometimes forgets that he is not alone, and that the end is not the unrestrained search for happiness with a selfish gaze, a tendency that leads to ignoring the Other. However, in the company the Other is important to the extent that he is a co-worker, collaborator, client, user, an influenced community or an unknown being who is still inevitably being impacted by the products or the result of the use of the products. themselves.
Business ethics should not only be necessary, but even mandatory “Fortunately, a good part of the new generations have become aware of the need to exercise “good practices”, not only from the environmental point of view, but also from the human behavior in the way of conducting business” (Gemma, 2021, para. 16). Also seen as the principle that “articulates a series of practices, from which individuals are questioned as ethical subjects, and that demand the adherence of the subject to a new moral code with which to regulate and judge themselves” (Santos et al, 2021, p.8).
And it is there, in that recognition of the Other, that ethics, beyond the norm, is consciousness, since “the being of the person cannot be reduced to being a subject of rational acts subject to certain laws” (Heidegger, 1971, p. 60). Therefore, it is going beyond the norm with the awareness and responsibility that one has not only as an entrepreneur, but also as a creator of socioeconomic conditions. And that awareness is developed in different ways, “the school can develop the student’s ability to see the world from the perspective of the Other, especially those people that society usually represents as objects“ (Nussbaum, 2010, p. 73), other fundamental actors are the entities of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, through support programs , which also play an important role in looking beyond productivity and competitiveness.
To understand how to work ethics from the recognition of the Other, it is essential to identify how the entrepreneur thinks and, consequently, how he acts in relation to: his beliefs, training both at home, as well as professional and business, in the same way, knowing the motivations that define their management style for decision making; To do this, the research defined an initial sample of entrepreneurs located in the city of Medellin and its metropolitan area, with heterogeneous characteristics that make it possible to identify the differences in thinking at different ages, different typologies, and levels of maturity of the company.
The research, with a mixed approach, was based on a cross-sectional design, through which the verification of the content validity index was carried out at first, through the calculation of the Lawshe index , according to agreements, by number of experts with whom questions were identified that should be removed from the instrument for its increase and its calculation for the global instrument as represented by Tristán (2008), and as can be seen in Equation 1.
Equation 1. Expression for calculating the global content validity index (2008).
In a second moment, the validated instrument was applied to 411 entrepreneurs, this is considered a significant sample as it accounts for Equation 2.
Equation 2. Expression for the calculation of the sample Hernández et al.(2003)
It is observed in equation 2 that, when considering a confidence level of 95% with an error of 5%, for a population size not specified a priori, the value of n is approximately 385 people. From the above, a sample of 411 entrepreneurs exceeds the minimum acceptable value. The survey had questions on a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5, in which 1 represents a minimum level of affinity with the statement and 5 represents a maximum level of affinity. From the application of the survey, the calculation of Cronbach’s Alpha was generated in third place as a measure of construct validity, this index obtained a value of 0.844, which is considered an adequate value (Qero Virla, 2015).
Fourth, an analysis was carried out by factoring principal axes with direct oblimin rotation, in order to identify associations between the variables that may be susceptible to explanation within the framework of the context and the problem of study. As reliability measures, the KMO index was calculated, which gave a value greater than 0.7, which accounts for the possibility of performing this type of analysis. From the identification of the factors and their associated variables, Spearman’s bivariate correlation coefficient calculations were made, identifying significant correlation values greater than or equal to 0.4. These results, together with the generation of hypothesis tests for some of the variables, gave the possibility of exploring in greater depth the intrinsic relationships of the survey data as an approach to a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon under study.
Investigation development
After the literature review, in order to identify the presence of the Other in the entrepreneur and how it impacts their decisions, a battery of 83 questions was initially created, which were validated by fourteen experts and, after the review, the final instrument consists of 52 questions that were applied to 411 entrepreneurs with heterogeneous characteristics, taking into account different ages, economic sectors, accompanied or not by entities of the ecosystem, at different levels of maturity of the companies, among other aspects, in order to characterize by groups population their view of ethics and the recognition of the Other in their daily lives.
Starting from the bibliographic review of the texts of Emanuel Levinas and his understanding of the Other, it is possible to conclude that knowledge or recognition of the other is not necessary or obligatory to act correctly, since the gaze goes beyond not only presence, also of that Other who is in the light and I can see him, but even in the dark the Other is there, so omitting his presence just because of the inability to see does not make him non-existent. The Other ceases to exist when I omit his existence, when I erase his face. Therefore, “it is necessary that I rediscover the indiscreet face of the Other who questions me. The Other is absolutely Other” (Levinas, 2002, p. 188), taking into account that “I see the other, but I am not the other” ( Levinas, 1993, p. 17). It is from that Other that “the fact occurs, that the movement of attention is not only to rescue the Other or the Other, but also oneself” (Esquirol, 2006, p. 14), which allows having a ethical look beyond the norm or behavioral guidelines , which fall short when making decisions in the entrepreneurial process, because they prevent transcending responsibility with the Other, since “the-one-for-the -another as the-one-guardian-of-his-brother, as the-one-responsible-for-the-other. Between the one who is me and the other to whom I respond, a bottomless difference opens up, which is also the non-in-difference of responsibility” (Levinas, 1974, p. 12).
After the recognition of the Other and its implications in the decision-making of entrepreneurs, and with a view to understanding the beliefs that they have in different situations and their motivations, an instrument was developed that allowed identifying if those who are in the city from Medellín and its metropolitan area have been accompanied by some entity of the ecosystem and during the accompaniment they have worked on ethical issues; additionally, what they understand about the topic and if in a simulated scenario they make decisions of this type, this to show if their answers are coherent both in the understanding of the topic and in their decisions.
Regarding the general data of the surveyed population, we found that 43% are female and 57% male, a high population between 18 and 25 years old, due in large part to the methodology used to collect the information. , carried out from entrepreneurship talks given by different entities of the ecosystem, this age range being 44% of the entrepreneurs who answered the survey, followed by 25% aged between 26 and 35, 14% between 36 and 45 and finally 17% for those over 46 years of age. Regarding the number of partners, we find 38% of entrepreneurs who work alone, 38% of projects with two partners and 24% of entrepreneurs who have two or more partners.
The average time of existence of the enterprises is 29% less than one year, 27% from one to two years, 20% from two to four years and 25% from four years onwards. Regarding the state of maturity of the company, it can be seen that 8% are in the ideation stage, 23% in the creation stage, 45% in strengthening and 24% are in the acceleration stage.
Of the 411 respondents, 49% have not yet been accompanied by entities from the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and 51% have been accompanied by some entities such as Valle del Software, Medellín Mayor’s Office, C3+D, CDE UPB, Cedezo, Ciudad E, Comfama, Coomeva, Creame, Envigado Economic Development, EAFIT, El Pauer, Emprender Fund, Innpulsa, Interact, Manizales+, Entrepreneurship Park, Route N, Route N Orange, Sena and University of Medellin.
Based on the premise that “forgetting the ethical aspect of the entrepreneurial initiative leads to an incomplete knowledge of the reality of entrepreneurship with all its consequences” (Carné 1999, p. 14), the following hypotheses are proposed:
Ethics is seen as a set of rules
To validate the hypothesis, two approaches are addressed: Ethical standards are prohibitive and mark the limit of decisions with an average of 3.4 in the responses, with 60% agreeing, 20% moderately agreeing and 20% agreeing. % disagree and the following approach is: Business ethics is the set of guidelines that I cannot transgress, there we find an average of 4.4. 60% agree, 20% moderately agree and 20% disagree and 100% of the people who answered what are prohibitive norms, express agreement that ethics is a set of guidelines that I cannot transgress . Being validated the hypothesis that ethics for the entrepreneurs surveyed is a set of rules that they must comply with in their exercise, although this does not necessarily mean that they know and comply with them.
The entities of the entrepreneurial ecosystem do not work the ethical component in their support processes
Ethical training is fundamental, to the extent that it is necessary to know the rules in order to comply with them, because as Levinas expresses, “it is necessary to draw a line to see the line (...) the line is the limit of a thing” (Levinas , 2002, p.104). However, these limits of business ethics are not always thought of in terms of the Other.
To analyze this hypothesis, only those entrepreneurs who have actually been accompanied by some entity of the entrepreneurial ecosystem are taken from the sample, which of the total sample is equivalent to 210 entrepreneurs, of which 24% have never had ethics training; 60% have had training in professional ethics and only 15% have had training in business ethics, which shows the lack of the presence of the ethical component in the support processes in the entities. Subsequently, those who have been accompanied and have had training were selected to cross with the question: In the accompaniment processes is the ethical component always worked on by a teacher or advisor? Here it can be evidenced that 53% have not worked on business ethics with teachers or ecosystem advisors, 19% say that they have moderately worked and 28% affirm that they have worked on the ethical issue in some process, the data coincide in that the participants who claim to have worked on the subject with a teacher or advisor are those who have been part of processes with universities. Analyzing this same group of accompanied entrepreneurs, who have had business ethics training by an advisor or teacher, we find that 44% state that there are no methodologies specifically designed to work on these issues, 19% consider that there are optional classes and 37% say they recognize methodologies in the entities that accompanied them, but not in the consultancy, but in a topic addressed in the training during the accompaniment process.
Those who have passed through some entity of the ecosystem concentrate more on profitability than on the Other
To analyze the hypothesis, the factors with which the entrepreneurs measure the results are taken into account, with the following variables being the options given in the instrument: sales, profitability, staff development, ethics, productivity, utility and social innovation; As an option to measure business results, we find that the first three choices are: profitability with 20%, productivity with 17% and sales with 16%, followed with a lower percentage: social innovation, utility and, the lowest percentage, ethics with 9%.
As for the entrepreneurs who have been accompanied by some entity in the ecosystem, we find that the options are distributed as follows: the highest variable with 43% is sales, followed by profitability of 34%, these are the highest, which is consistent with the indicators that must be increased in the monitoring process and therefore the way in which the success of the process is measured. Subsequently, we found three variables with the lowest score: productivity with 9%, utility with 8% and social innovation with 7%. In the case of accompanied entrepreneurs, the ethical and personnel development variables are not significant as a result of the entrepreneurial exercise. These are two variables not prioritized by the entrepreneurs surveyed who have been accompanied by entities from the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Those who have partners recognize the importance of the Other
For the analysis of this variable , we initially selected from the universe only those who have partners, to compare them with the results of those who undertake alone. To validate this hypothesis we took the following questions: number of partners in the company; When I accept the other and integrate him as part of my existence, does ethics, beyond what is good or bad, become conscience? Am I responsible for others, even if I don’t know them; taking care of oneself is a collective act and not an individual one? Does the typology not matter, the priority will always be the other; freedom is limited by responsibility for the other?.
The sample is distributed in 156 entrepreneurs who work alone, 156 who are with another partner and 99 entrepreneurs with companies with three partners or more. After crossing the variables, we found that there is no significant difference between the variables, for which it could be concluded that being the sole owner of the company does not necessarily mean not thinking about others, nor does having partners necessarily mean that one has present to others in decision making.
Entrepreneurs who affirm the importance of ethics are hesitant to present them with an unethical decision
With a view to reviewing the hypothesis, 374 entrepreneurs were taken who affirm that ethical training is important in business practice and they come across the following questions: In a hypothetical case in which you are going to make a decision that is not ethical, would you Are you worried that others will notice? In this case, we find that 68% ratify their concern not about the type of decision to be made, but about the image it can generate if it is made public that it is unethical; 18% are somewhere in the middle where they do not define whether they care or not and 27% say it is not relevant whether they find out or not. For the following variable, allusion was made to the Gyges ring of Plato’s Republic, (Platón, 2008)which proposes the possibility of having an object that, when used, would allow you to take advantage of your company without anyone finding out. Would you use it? 52% say that they would use it, 21% are not sure about using it or take a position more from the convenience of the situation than in a firm position regarding the ethical decision and 27% say they would not use it. Finally, for the question: In a scenario where your company is not ethical to make decisions, are you more concerned about the legal consequences than affecting others? It is evident that 47% of the entrepreneurs affirm that they are more concerned about the legal issue than the consequences of the decision. Of those who are concerned that an unethical decision will be noticed by others, 51 % would use the ring, 21% do not take a position and 28% say they do not use it.
Next, the results of the main axes factorization analysis are presented, with oblimin rotation for the instrument, twelve factors were found, to which a descriptor name is given from a theoretical reference:
Factor 1
-
Always thinking of others when making decisions can put you at a disadvantage.
-
If you are in a work team and they have the same decision-making power, you anticipate events and try to make decisions before it is too late, instead of waiting for a consensus to be reached.
-
You consider that to think about the well-being of the other it is necessary to know him.
Descriptor: recognition of the Other
Theoretical reference: in entrepreneurship one always works with others and for others, the fundamental essence of the company is inevitably the Other, call it client, work team, community, authority, which leads us to the importance of recognizing the other taking into account account that “the concrete individual can only be rescued by an exit towards the other that at the same time is ethical” (Levinas , 2002, p. 19).
Factor 2
-
You monitor the ethical behavior of your collaborators or partners permanently.
-
You have a company code of ethics and it is known by the work team.
-
You feel motivated to act ethically in a competitive market where profitability prevails.
-
You turn your competitors into allies of your company
-
Your products or services improve the living conditions of your customers.
-
Business ethics is the set of guidelines that I cannot transgress.
Descriptor: responsibility
Theoretical reference: “From the ethical point of view, it is considered that all sources of wealth are social and therefore imply social responsibilities in those who benefit from it, all the more the more profit they obtain” (Savater, 2015, p. 16), The look of each of the six questions that group factor number 2 is related to the responsibility that is assumed with the Stakeholders.
Factor 3
-
Ethical guidelines determine your management style.
-
Your ethical orientations define how and with whom you relate.
-
Ethical behaviors are determined by the dynamics of the industry.
-
Freedom is limited by responsibility for the Other.
-
If you can do something to be awarded a million dollar contract in which you are competing with other companies and nobody will realize that you won it for that reason, would you do it without thinking?
-
If you are about to close the company because you entered the valley of death and an opportunity of N billion pesos appears that is not ethical, but there is a loophole in the law that allows you not to have consequences, would you take it without thinking?
Descriptor: ethical standards
Theoretical reference: when ethics is seen as a set of rules and not as the possibility of welcoming the other, one inevitably enters into the dynamics of what the Colombian Constitutional Court (2015) in Judgment C-150 calls “competitive markets ” in which “an accountability process under the same conditions as the rest of the entities could be problematic” (Constitutional Court, 2015) and it is because of them, that in the name of these competitive markets, unethical actions are created but they transgress the norm since “the state of war suspends morality (...) and casts its shadow in advance on the acts of men” (Levinas , 2002, p. 47).
Factor 4
-
If you had an object that, when used, would allow you to take advantage of your company without anyone finding out, would you use it?
-
You have been tempted to make decisions that only benefit you and can affect others.
-
In a scenario where your company is not ethical to make decisions, you are more concerned about the legal consequences than affecting others.
Descriptor: blurring the face
Theoretical reference: In factor 4 we find the blurring of the face as a coincident aspect in the questions, since, if I omit the other, I can easily make unethical decisions, as evidenced in Plato’s ring of Gyges (Plato, 2008), no However, omitting the other does not mean inexistence, “invisibility does not indicate an absence of the relationship, it implies relationships with what is not given, of which there is no idea” (Levinas, 2002, p. 58).
Factor 5
-
When you attend a meeting where you don’t know anyone, you generally end up with information about who contributes to your project and not about the others.
-
You have given a commission or incentive to someone to benefit from a sale or contract.
-
Acting ethically has the purpose of acting correctly within the law instead of thinking about seeking the common good.
Descriptor: selfishness
Theoretical reference: the personal good over the common good is part of business dynamics, this if one considers that “capitalism does not seem to support morality, except in the Machiavellian style, that is, to use it and use it for their own purposes.” purposes, because the fundamental motive consists in obtaining the greatest possible profit and also presupposes a vision of man as Homo oeconomicus, which basically establishes selfishness as the anthropological and moral basis of the system” (Curtain, 2003, p. 55).
Factor 6
-
Social entrepreneurs are those who focus more on the other than on the profits of the company
-
No matter the typology, the priority will always be the other.
-
We live in a competitive world where our education at home, society and in the educational institutions we go through throughout our lives teach us that we must be the first, the best and that the priority must be me.
Descriptor: ethical perspective
Theoretical referent: each one believes that his own truth, his own ideas, are unique, the totality is the belief that first there is his own and then that of the Other totalizing himself, making himself the whole and that is where we exclude to the Other “so that the ethical perspective is exercised in the business game at various levels. First at a personal or individual level according to the task that each one performs” (Savater , 2015, p. 1).
Factor 7
-
When I accept the other and integrate him as part of my existence, ethics beyond what is good or bad becomes conscience.
-
In the accompaniment processes, the ethical component is always worked on by a teacher or advisor.
-
The entities of the ecosystem have methodologies designed to work on ethics.
Descriptor: accompaniment
Theoretical reference: “forgetting the ethical aspect of the entrepreneurial initiative leads to an incomplete knowledge of the reality of entrepreneurship with all its consequences” (Melé, 1999, p. 28) , therefore, it is considered fundamental in the processes of accompanying the entrepreneurial ecosystem work ethics as a constitutive part of the process.
Factor 8
-
In a hypothetical case where you are going to make an unethical decision, you worry that others will find out.
-
You consider the company as a commercial activity and not as a human activity, with a social purpose.
Descriptor: relationship with the Other
Theoretical reference: ethics seen as the possibility of relating to the other, allows “a path without return to the sameness, a way out towards alterity, which allows philosophy to be read as the wisdom of love understood in the ethical sense, that is, how relationship with the other” ( Levinas , 1998, p. 26).
Factor 9
-
You are constantly looking for alliances with other companies to develop your business
-
Ethics is purely subjective to the extent that it seeks compliance with the norm and not the well-being of the other
Descriptor: Fraternity
Theoretical reference: “it is necessary for society to be a fraternal community to adapt to the measure of loyalty, of proximity par excellence” ( Levinas, 2002, p. 228) in order to seek the common good beyond the fulfillment of the norm and seek the well-being of the Other.
Factor 10
-
Taking care of oneself is a collective act and not an individual one.
-
When the other is not in equal conditions, he is not an interlocutor from reciprocity.
-
Ethical norms are prohibitive and mark the limit of decisions.
Descriptor: irreducibility
Theoretical referent: “the proximity of the Other showing me his face, in partnership with me, and the implications of this reunion turn the logical and ontological game of the same and the other into ethics” (Levinas , 2014, p. 64), understood irreducibility as the condition of otherness, taking into account that I am with the other and the other, since we do not exist in the singular.
Factor 11
-
Acting ethically in a competitive market pays off.
-
In the business field there are disinterested relationships.
-
I am responsible for others, even if I do not know them
Descriptor: proximity
Theoretical reference: this factor shows the human need for proximity where the other prevails and “proximity as a human category is the result of approaching without touching, without manipulating, without subjugating, without dominating” (Esquirol, 2006, p. 64 ).
Factor 12
-
Ethics training can develop the ability to see the world from the perspective of the other.
-
The teaching of values was repetitive in your childhood.
-
Ethical training is important in business practice.
-
I feel totally involved in my task when I work with a group of people with whom I share similar values.
Descriptor: ethical training
Theoretical reference: In this factor, the need to train entrepreneurs in ethical issues is evident, laying the foundations for decision-making that allows a market that does not confuse subjectivity with a lack of ethics, since “the problem of The neglect of ethics or its superficial consideration is, in my opinion, the intellectual rupture between two inseparable aspects of human action: what is produced (results) and what the action causes in the subject (improvement or personal deterioration)” (Card, 1999, p. 196).
Additionally, the correlations are analyzed taking exclusively those with a value greater than 0.50 (table 1).
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 1. : Correlation 1.
Correlation 1 shows that those who are willing to engage in behavior outside the ethical guidelines are those who are willing to save their company at the cost of any decision and consider that what determines the orientation depends on the industry they are in. ethics.
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 2: Correlation 2.
Correlation 2 is associated with personality aspects that involve relationship issues, taking into account that personality determines the management style and, in turn, the type of alliances and relationship with peers, customers and suppliers, showing that, If the entrepreneur is clear about his ethical behavior, he will seek closeness with those who have the same ethical orientation regardless of what it is.
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 3: Correlation 3.
Correlation 3 allows to identify a decision based on the survival of the company. However, it should not be the motivation to act ethical or not, additionally, those who agree with justifying the unethical decision for the sake of survival justify their decisions by the behavior of the industry, turning ethics into a purely subjective element. where it applies to convenience.
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 4: Correlation 4.
According to correlation 4, those who have been tempted or are willing to make decisions that only generate one-way benefits are those who could take advantage of becoming invisible so that others do not notice what they are doing, hiding behind the object and erasing the doubt of selfish decisions, reflecting the fear of being judged for their decisions, which shows that they are aware that they are not ethical decisions, but they would still make them if they had the opportunity.
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 5: Correlation 5.
In correlation 5, ethics is clearly identified, understood in terms of responsibility with the Other and for the Other, as that in which the protection or reception refer precisely to request and care for the other, what is protected is that that can grow and bear fruit, to protect is to protect, it is a gesture that makes sense when we review our actions in front of those for whom we are responsable
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Tabla 6: Correlation 6.
Regarding correlation 6, we can find that those who turn a negative situation into a positive one are those who care about the other, work in coordination with the work team, care about the living conditions of their clients, feel motivated to act ethically , although this does not affect their business development. A close relationship is generated between those who recognize that it is not possible to have a solipsistic view because it is precisely the position that the other exists that allows it to be as a company since ethics is not a selfish discourse, this if one considers what Levinas: “the ethical relationship that sustains the discourse is not, in effect, a variety of consciousness whose radius starts from the self. Question the self. This questioning starts from the other” (Levinas , 2002, p. 209).
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 7. : Correlation 7.
Correlation 7 allows us to identify that those who seek to improve the living conditions of their clients are those entrepreneurs who feel motivated to act ethically, which shows that they care about doing the right thing “that is why the relationship with the other or discourse is, not only questioning my freedom, the call that comes from the other to summon me to responsibility, not only the word by which I strip myself of the possession that constrains me” ( Levinas , 2002, p. 226) and although the relationship with the other is discourse, that essence in the relationship is already ethical.
Source: own elaboration (2021).
Table 8: Correlation 8.
In correlation 8, it is clear that those who monitor the ethical behavior of their collaborators are those who, in effect, have a code of ethics that has been socialized with their work team and that ethical practices are so internalized in their organization that they feel motivated and It is not concerned about acting ethically, although sustainability prevails in the market.
Conclusions
In the subsequent review, beyond the hypotheses that were intended to be validated, it was found that although young people between 18 and 25 years of age could be a little more daring when answering the questions in which ethical action was validated from of a hypothetical question, it is observed that their choice is prudent, to the extent that they consider that they would not do so, however, and since they are still outside the dynamics of the industry, questions to be asked of the same respondents could be considered once they have been in the market for 3 to 5 years and have entered into the dynamics, in order to know if these people really behave in the same way when faced with the decision-making experience.
On the other hand, we found a high percentage of responses valued at 3, taking into account that the options 1 (completely disagree) and 5 (completely agree) were preferred options. In questions like: Can thinking of others put you at a disadvantage? If you could do something to be awarded a contract without others noticing, would you do it?, are questions in which option 3 prevails (neither completely agree nor completely disagree) where a position is evident that does not allow identifying the real inclination towards the answers, a closer approach to 1 or 3 would be expected, taking into account that , it is on an ethical issue where it is requested to take a position. In this case, and for the objective of the research, which is the gaze of the other in decision-making, it is analyzed from another area, but interesting results could be found in a later analysis if a characterization is made by ages, typologies, time with the company, among other variables.
The results of the research make it possible to identify the pressing need to design support and training programs on ethical issues with a view that goes beyond the set of values, norms and principles that reflect the company’s culture, which although they are currently important, are not they are working with the intensity that the entrepreneurs themselves manifest, working on ethics from the perspective of the other as a principle of responsibility in decision-making.
For future research, important topics appear such as codes of ethics in nascent companies, industry dynamics that motivate unethical decisions, societies based on ethical correspondence and ethics as a virtue in the entrepreneur. Los resultados de la investigación permiten identificar la necesidad apremiante de diseñar programas de acompañamiento y formación en temas éticos en una mirada que va más allá del conjunto de valores, normas y principios que reflejan la cultura de la empresa, que si bien son importantes actualmente no se están trabajando con la intensidad que los mismos emprendedores manifiestan, trabajando la ética desde la mirada del otro como principio de responsabilidad en la toma de decisiones.