5C - Ethics

Ok so ethics are much more complex than I first thought, with so much history of right and wrong, no one actually knows the answer. It is the morals we have grown up with and the expectations of our employers. Everyone has a different opinion on what it morally right and wrong but before we know which one, we have to analyse the situation and find out whether the circumstance lead to the actions being made.

Here are my findings after reading the reader 5.

Professional Ethics 5B

Ethics :-  system of moralprinciples. The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.:medical ethics; Christian ethics.

My professional community is based within a company called White Desert Production. I work as an actor with this company as well as a training Theatre Director and a co-creator. It is a brilliant place to start with my Inquiry as I am working my way to the top. It is also a New Company with a lot of potential. However, because it is a young company, it has a lot of professional ethics that need to be followed to keep it creating a good re-pore with colleagues, clients, theatres and many others. I will use this company as my place of work as as that is where I will be spending the majority of my time.

Looking at the code of Ethics for Companies, I can clearly see that I was being extremely general with my assumptions and that there are many more ethics and legislation obligations in place. There is mot just one type of ethics to follow, they vary at your position within the company. So if you were the Director of the Company, it your job to create the ethics for others to adhere to and follow them yourself. Whilst an actor employed by the company would have their respectful ethics towards those employing them.

When working for a company you are often given a contract to sign which will have stated the professional ethics that are to be follow. Such as punctuality, presentation and respect. It is vital to abide by these ethics otherwise you will be breaching the contract, however, the unwritten ethics are often more complex to acknowledge. These include:-

reliability
trustworthy
confidentiality
honesty
courtesy
friendly

It is important to consider the Professional ethics within a Business  because of the environment I work in I will need to acknowledge this. These are much more specific towards a Company but are beneficial to  anyone.

time management
understanding
efficiency
morals

There is a difference between the morals we are brought up with and ethics that need to be followed but they both help each other out. If you have morals you are more likely to understand the reason for professional ethics and are likely to proceed further into your career.

http://www.ecgi.org/codes/documents/ica_coe_en.pdf

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethics

http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/pointsbasedsystem/code_of_practice_for_perfor1.pdf

5a

Trying to look at the ethics of my professional community I can see that there are many 'unwritten rules'. When you go into a professional community they don't hand you a list of ethics they give you Healthy and safety instead. Yes, that is vitally important too, but how you treat someone is more so, because how you and others are treated is imperative to whether you work well together.

Everyone has a different view on what is right and wrong and we all step out of line sometimes but ethics are guidelines there to follow to keep us on track. If we choose to ignore them, then we know about it. Also right and wrong is not always as simple as black and white, we choose which path we choose and what we see as right or wrong and it is very personal to us.

The way I have been brought up, I have been taught to treat others how I wish to be treated! however, now I am older, I realise this isn't completely true. I have discovered that not everyone understands ethics and even when most people abide by this 'unwritten rules' others choose to ignore them. These are more personal ethics like, respect for others but I feel that this is vital for professional ethics

Professional ethics include things like confidentiality, responsibility and honesty. Within my professional community these are the  mutual ethics between Director and actor/presenter which creates a better working community.

These are somethings that we individually need to put in like
Punctuality
politeness
Attitude
presentation
Respect
organisation
equality

However, we can not solely rely on good ethics to get us work. Our industry is very discriminating for minor things like sex, age, height so it can be difficult to see the point of being professional. But we must keep up our professional ethics because as soon as we step out of line there is someone waiting to take our place.

I think that Personal ethics create professional ethics