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Following are a few definitions of ethics from a variety of sources.

Ethics are “moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior; the moral correctness of specified conduct.”*

“Ethical standards are not the standards of the law. In fact, they are a higher standard. Sometimes referred to as normative standards in philosophy, ethical standards are the generally accepted rules of conduct that govern society…. Ethics consists of those unwritten rules we have developed for our interactions with each other.”**

“Ethics in a business context; a consensus of what constitutes right or wrong behavior in the world of business and the application of moral principles to situations that arise in a business setting.”***

*Oxford American College Dictionary, 2002, p. 463.

**Jennings, 2006, p. 3.

***Miller and Jentz, 2006, p. 47.

The preceding definitions provide a variety of meanings, and you might find others if you do an online search. However, they will have similar qualities and views.

Making ethical decisions in the general business environment often comes down to making choices. For example, making a choice that favors the design firm rather than the client. In legal terms this can sometimes be construed as a conflict of interest. According to Black's Law Dictionary, conflict of interest is “a real or seeming incompatibility between one's private interests and one's public or fiduciary duties.”⁴ Fiduciary duties, by the way, are responsibilities assumed when one person acts in a position of trust or confidence for someone else. When a client hires an interior designer, the designer has fiduciary duty to act in the client's best interests.

In many instances, conflict of interest hinges on some sort of monetary issue or motive. An example is the designer asking for a special price from a vendor in exchange for a promise of future business. Another might be consistently recommending to clients a specific vendor who happens to be a relative of the designer. Putting personal gain above the good of the person or the organization that the designer is supposed to represent is an example of unethical behavior.

Interior designers in the course of a project learn many private things about the client or the client's business. This information is considered proprietary. Proprietary information comprises a wide variety of data or information, graphics, or designs that belong to a particular person or business. Information about the family and the family residence is also proprietary to the client. It is expected that this information not be shared with anyone who is not authorized to learn the information.

A client's proprietary information such as the operations of the business might be exposed during the process of space‐planning of a facility. Financial information that could be of use to a competitor of the client will likely be shared with the designer, at least to some degree. When doing design work for the government or even some private businesses, the designer might be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement. A nondisclosure agreement means that the person—in this case the designer—cannot tell anyone not connected with the project any private or sensitive information about the project or the client.

Even one's employers own all sorts of propriety information that employees must keep in confidence. Financial data, client lists, and discounting policies are a few examples. Firms try to combat this issue by having employees sign nondisclosure agreements. In addition, employees are not allowed to take proprietary information with them upon termination or voluntary separation. Such information may range from binders of information provided to employees to design work done by the employee.

Whether the proprietary information belongs to the design firm or a client, the owner of the proprietary information would not want an interior designer—or anyone else—to divulge the information to competitors or to the public. If the employee shares that information with someone outside the firm, the employer could both fire and/or sue her. This behavior can also result in an ethics complaint against the designer.

Issues related to competition can also involve ethical consequences. The free‐market system creates rivalry between businesses—in other words, competition. When there are many businesses that offer the same or similar services or products, the competition can be intense.

Many interior designers feel that there is not much of a problem with competition in interior design. However, this is not really true. All design firms are in competition with each other, in one way or another. Architectural firms, retail stores, and vendors who sell directly to the client are also competitors of interior designers. In a practical sense, they are not likely to be pursuing the exact same clients, but some are. And when the economy is slow, even more designers are competing for the same clients. Regardless of the size of the interior design firm and how well the local economy is doing, plenty of competition exists among interior design firms.

When competition is fierce, temptations to bend ethical and even legal rules can and do arise. Many respond to this by saying “What goes around comes around,” meaning that if someone yields to the temptations of unfair competitive practice, eventually it will catch up with him. For example, a designer who does not obtain the contractor's license required by local laws to sell certain products will one day be reported to the registrar of contractors and possibly put out of business.

An ethical crossroad concerning a competitive market can be arrived at from another direction. Rather than designers disregarding competitive ethics, clients can put designers into a position that tests the interior designers' ethics. Some clients shop around for design ideas and prices, which in some ways is fine. Sometimes, however, a client who has a contract with designer A takes drawings prepared by designer A to designer B so as to get a lower price on merchandise specified for the project. What is designer B to do?

Of course, there are many other kinds of actions that can be considered unethical. One issue that is addressed in the codes of ethics is representing an individual or the company as member of an association when it is not true. Dishonesty is an ethical issue. When applying for a job, providing false information on a job application about work experience is an example. Perhaps the designer tells the client that he has the proper credentials to prepare the working drawings needed for the job as required by local laws—but the designer does not have the credentials.

Why do some people behave unethically? According to Brown and Sukys, it is because people (1) are motivated by self‐interest, (2) are careless, and (3) see no harm in the behavior.⁵ When someone places his own interests before those of others, he may be behaving unethically. Consider the case of a design student who includes work in her portfolio that has been done by someone else but represents to a potential employer as her own. In reality, she cannot do that quality of work, so she has put self‐interest first. The employer at some point will figure out that something is not right.

These issues provide a background for looking at professional conduct and ethical behavior in the interior design profession. The demand for ethical behavior does not apply only to interior designers who have joined one of the professional associations. Rather, ethical behavior should be practiced by anyone involved in this profession and in business in general.