Ethics for social entrepreneurs

Is there a code of behavior for social entrepreneurs?

Turn inwards where morality meets ethics, and you'll likely find some sense of what lines cannot be crossed, a moral sense -- but if you look around outside, can you also find a code that's agreed by your peers, that guides you in cases where your personal sense of morals may be conflicted -- and perhaps even instructs you to a narrower range of choices on occasion?

Does the community of entrepreneurs answering a social vision have a formal code?

Professor David Batstone offers ten Principles for entrepreneurial ethics. Reading them, I wonder how far they go towards converting an "entrepreneurial venture" into a "social entrepreneurial venture" by their very nature:

1. Company directors and management will consider their work force valuable team members, not merely hired labor.
2. A company will think of itself as a part of a community, not just a "market."
3. A company will take every possible care to ensure the quality and safety of the products it brings to the public.
4. A company will treat the environment as a silent "stakeholder," a party to which it is wholly accountable.
5. A company will strive to diversify the kind of people who lead and manage its affairs.
6. A company will pursue international trade and production based on reciprocal exchanges that respect the same rights accorded its own people.
7. A company will nurture an organizational culture that encourages its employees to give critical feedback on unethical practices, and even "blow the whistle" when their voices are ignored.
8. A company will protect the privacy rights of its suppliers, customers, and employees.
9. A company will deliver what it promises, and promise what it can deliver.
10. A company will not seek to generate any revenue from practices that threaten life.

What further principles would be required for social entrepreneurs?  Do any of Dr Batstone's principles seem impracticable or not relevant in the culture you are working in? What stories can you tell about ethical problems, lapses, and successes in the field (you may want to read Leila Chirayath Janah's experience)?

• Does your social enterprise have a code of ethics? Formal or informal?
• If not, would it help to have one?
• If informal, would it help to formalize it?
• If formal, is it ever a problem rather than a solution?

• Does the world of social enterprise have a code of ethics?
• If not, would it help to have one?
• If informal, would it help to formalize it?

What should such a code contain?

How would it address the very different circumstances (ranging from government support to active governmental opposition, persecution or suppression, from richest and most advanced to least advanced and poorest, and from the purely local and marginal to the global and widely supported) in which social entrepreneurship is practiced?

Bribery, for instance:  is it ever even remotely acceptable -- or is it sometimes a necessity if you intend to get food supplies to the starving?

Dive in, have your say -- join Charles (hipbone) Cameron in discussing the ethics of social entrepreneurship.