Recently in class, we’ve been talking about ethics and profits in business and how it’s hard sometimes to distinguish what is morally right and wrong in business. As entrepreneurs, our goal is to make a profit. What matters is how I make that profit. Entrepreneurship is about creating value for a product or service that your customer can benefit from. The actions that took place in “Wall Street” are not entrepreneurship for this reason. There is no product or service taking place but instead the transferring of money through the buying of businesses and people, and the liquidation of those businesses. The movie “Wall Street” shows how hard work and persistence can get you to the top. It illustrates the role ethics plays in business and what can happen if the moral code is ignored.
In the movie “Wall Street” there are some questionable methods of conducting business and liquidation of companies that could be more profitable if they were kept running and invested in. Bending the ethics of business is what gives businessmen a bad name. I think that entrepreneurs separate themselves from the stereotypical businessman and create a product that their consumer values and builds trust with their target market. This movie reminds me of the film we watched earlier this semester “Other People's Money” There were very questionable business methods in that movie as well and the relationship with society was very similar. The business elite is not looked upon as honest men in society and I think that a lot of the time for good reason. Entrepreneurs, especially big entrepreneurs, can fall into this category, but regardless of what society thinks about a successful entrepreneur, that entrepreneur still has to make a product valuable to its customer. The wolves of wall street guys like the ones in the movie can be threats to the businesses that entrepreneurs create. They buy and liquidate businesses for profit, destroying the businesses the entrepreneur worked so hard to create and putting a lot of people out of a job.
The movie illustrates the importance of ethics in business. It shows that although you might get on top by cheating the system your success won't last. Entrepreneurs are trusted by their customers because they focus on creating value for their consumers through their products. Entrepreneurs don't cut corners with their consumers because that leads to the loss of customers and the credibility of their products. In “Wall Street” it's easy for the business elite to conduct business because they don't take the well-being of other people into account. This is where entrepreneurship differs from events that took place on Wall street. Good ethics in business are important and determine the trustworthiness of your company and how people view your product. Wall Street is a great movie and does a great job of illustrating the importance of ethics in business and the consequences of poor ethics in business. It shows that cheating your way to the top doesn't pay off and the time you spend at the top won't last long. “Wall Street” shows us the unethical side of conducting business and how society views the business elite allowing us to learn from the mistakes of the characters and be entrepreneurs that create value for its customers in order to benefit society.
