When no clear moral purpose is articulated, a company acquires a de facto amoral purpose: expediency. It becomes the kind of company that professes, “We are here only to make money.” This can be very successful in the short run, but companies without a clear moral purpose cannot endure; they do not survive the changes they will face in their markets or business environments. Even so, this type of company is preferable to the company that pretends to follow a moral purpose, such as excellence or altruism, but actually practices expediency. This gap between real and professed moral purpose breeds cynicism among employees. Companies that profess moral purpose but do not display it become crisis-ridden and paralyzed, precisely because employees have inconsistent, even contradictory, guidance for their decisions and cannot set priorities.
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