The Managerial Wisdom Of "Ethic Takes Precedence" And Its Modern Values

As we know, the backbone of Chinese traditional ethics is the Confucian ethics whose core roots quite in ethic takes precedence, a classical moral principle. This research is to probe into the managerial values of this principle in modern enterprises. The findings of qualitative research on systematic literatures related show that ethic takes precedence are perceived as rule by ethics in organization, which is to achieve the goal of employees' very best identification with their organization through the managers' self-discipline on ethic which affects the organizational effectiveness and the employees' behaviors. And the concepts of ethic takes precedence employed as leadership philosophy can be epitomized as benevolence as postulate and self-discipline and stabilizing others , and the equivalent as operation philosophy can be summarized as justice outweighing benefit and faithfulness and credit.On the basis of the qualitative research and the findings of face-to-face interviews with HR managers on topic of ethics, a questionnaire was compiled about the managerial thoughts of ethic lakes precedence and its modern values, which was designed depending upon the concept of enterprise-running by ethics, a modern understanding based on research findings of ethic takes precedence. Particularly speaking, all the items of the questionnaire come from such four dimensions mentioned above as self-discipline and stabilizing others, benevolence as postulate, faithfulness and credit and justice outweighing benefit. And the organizational effectiveness was used as the validity criterion in order to weigh the managerial effect of ethic takes precedence on the management and operation of organization. All the respondents are from enterprises located in Suzhou. The findings of data analysis are: (l)the male and the female are significantly different at the level of justice outweighing benefit ,and the female prefer justice to benefit;(2) variances are shown for varied ages at the level of justice outweighing benefit ,and faithfulness and credit, with the middle-aged being more inclined to justice outweighing benefit ,and faithfulness and credit than youth; (3)variances are not shown for varied positions at the level of ethic takes precedence, but the average employees and the senior managers are significantly different at the level of benevolence as postulate, for the latter pay more attention to hurnan;(4)different enterprises are different in faithfulness and credit, with that state-owned enterprises, non-governmental enterprises prefers faithfulness and credit;(5} variances are shown for the enterprises with various cultural backgrounds at the level of faithfulness and credit, and the employees from China mainland prefer faithfulness and credit;(6) questionnaire of ethic takes precedence correlates with the questionnaire of organizational effectiveness , which validates, to a certain extent, some modern values of the principle of ethic takes precedence. Deployment of the principle could help modern enterprises to strengthen their internal integrity, heighten morale of employees, and to greatly improve productivity and efficiency. Thus, the enterprises related are able to better adapt themselves to external changes and thus to gain more external support as well.