As I’ve researched my next book series on Applied Business Ethics about Entrepreneurship, I’ve noticed a number of ethical responsibilities that we, as entrepreneurs, have. Entrepreneurs often overlook our ethical responsibilities and I feel that understanding these responsibilities can be beneficial.

Let us look at the entrepreneurs’ ethical responsibilities.

The first ethical responsibility is to have money. This is essential for an entrepreneur. Money is a gauge of how successful we are, as well as the health of our business or enterprise. Money is necessary to invest for a viable business to start. If we start with a small amount of money, we can start making sales. We require money in order to purchase the items necessary to start our business. This is an ethical responsibility since having our own money is essential. Having debt requires paying interest. This makes the borrower the real owner, not the entrepreneur. Even shareholders or venture capitalists can be the real owners if they only have a debt stake in our endeavour. We must have the freedom to develop our business or enterprise. Many entrepreneurs wrongly quote, “money is the root of all evil”. It is really, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” If you don’t believe me – contact me!

Without sales we can never develop our business or enterprise. This is an ethical responsibility since sales give us the power to pay for facilities, equipment, staff, expansion, and other items. Sales are the engine that moves free enterprise. Entrepreneurs utilize sales as an objective criterion of how successful our business or enterprise is. How many of us realize what the criterion is for a small business? Most of us have no idea that a small business or enterprise is defined as having annual revenue of less than $15,000,000. That’s fifteen million dollars! Most of us may actually be micro businesses or enterprises which is defined as having annual revenue of less than $3,000,000. That’s just three million dollars! We need to be realistic about where we are as far as being successful. Only sales can produce objective standards for success. We can only be successful through being ethical.

Entrepreneurs have an insatiable appetite in resolving problems. All entrepreneurs see ways of resolving problems simultaneously. For example, Famous PEOPLE Players’ President and Founder, Diane Dupuy combined her entrepreneurial goal of establishing a world-renowned black light theatre with the possibility of allowing disadvantaged people with performing anonymously. The initial result was headlining with Liberace in Las Vegas. Now Famous PEOPLE Players (FPP) operate a unique Dine and Dream Theatre (www.fpp.org), where one can dine and see FPP perform black light in their own theatre. There are always problems requiring resolutions for entrepreneurs.

Another entrepreneurs’ ethical responsibility is perseverance. When we are successful, we require perseverance in order to assess our situation. In researching, I discovered that one of the reasons Rosa and Spencer Clark, the creators of the Guild Inn, were so successful during the Great Depression was that they were persistent.  To be successful, they were required to find a greater source of water for their guests. They considered and researched numerous ways of overcoming this shortage. A solution was found in an old history of Scarborough, published in 1896. The book mentioned the location of wells on their own property. Pumps produced clean and good tasting water. The answer was right there, but they had to persevere in their research to find the answer.

Creating wealth is a reality for entrepreneurs. This ethical responsibility can be observed through the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in 1670. HBC was founded due to the discovery of numerous beavers found by the eccentric entrepreneurs Pierre Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers. HBC brought goods to trade for beavers trapped by indigenous peoples, such as the Cree nation. HBC then shipped the beaver skins to their head office in London (U.K.) where the skins were used to produce water-proof top hats. Both sides felt they were gaining the advantage over the other. The indigenous people saw little benefit for beavers and were happy to receive useful items in exchange. The indigenous people received knives, guns, and point blankets. HBC were able to provide shareholders with tremendous dividends as a result of trading for beavers. Wealth was created for both groups. This is the essence of creating wealth. This is a reality of creating wealth according to entrepreneurs’ ethical responsibility.

These are ethical responsibilities since no one can pass a law requiring entrepreneurs to do what we do to in order to fulfill these realities: money to commence operations; sales; resolving problems; perseverance; and creation of wealth.