The Influence of Business Ethics in Entrepreneurship in the Era of Covid-19 Pandemic

Entrepreneurs in the current era are facing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which has caused a decline in sales, raw materials and capital difficulties. This research aims to analyze business actors in understanding the values and rules of business ethics and confirm conformity with the principles of business ethics as well as the application of business ethics during the covid-19 pandemic. This research uses qualitative methods as well as interviews by telephone and meeting directly with business people but still applying health protocols, the respondents in this study were 8 people as entrepreneurs. This research uses qualitative descriptive data analysis. The application of business ethics and business strategies is carried out to realize the sustainability of a business during the ongoing global pandemic and also when the pandemic is over in order to strengthen business management. The results of this study can be used in providing debriefing to every company leader when considering making strategic decisions related to complex morals.


INTRODUCTION
Covid-19 or corona virus disease-2019 has become a pandemic that is spreading throughout the earth (Connors & Levy, 2020;Rajkumar, 2020;Webb Hooper dkk., 2020).Detikhealth revealed that as of April 14, 2021 there were 5,656 cases of covid-19 in Indonesia and the total positive cases were 1, 583,182, 1,431,892 recovered, and 42,906 died.Specimens examined reached 77,522 and there were 58,450 suspects (Harapan dkk., 2020;Pahrudin dkk., 2021;Rasjid dkk., 2021).The total active cases today are 108,384, a decrease of 215 cases compared to yesterday.In East Java alone, according to the Ministry of Health, there are currently an additional 249 new cases (Aldila, 2020;Pramukti dkk., 2020;Setiawati dkk., 2021).With this addition, the total number of positive cases in East Java is now 143,054.
Covid-19 first entered Indonesia in early March 2020 and continued to grow until finally in mid-March the government set a lockdown for all regions in Indonesia, WFH (work from home) for company, office and government employees, and Daring (online) for educators, universities and school students, not to forget the implementation of PSBB (Large-Scale Social Restrictions) especially for the DKI Jakarta area and followed by densely populated areas (Abdy dkk., 2021;KRISTIANA dkk., 2021;Roziqin dkk., 2021).It cannot be denied that entrepreneurs, both large and small scale, must face obstacles where sales decline, difficulty in obtaining raw materials, obstruction of production and difficulty in capital, but it is known that in these difficulties, business people do not think about how their business is still running but instead turn their brains to look for opportunities in narrowness by taking advantage of existing opportunities, such as selling medical masks and hand sanitizers at very fantastic prices, hoarding masks for personal gain, hoarding food and basic necessities to be resold at unreasonable prices.
Reporting from CNN Indonesia, since the beginning of March 2020 panic buying has spread throughout the world, all people have flocked to buy and even hoard masks and hand sanitizers both in pharmacies and online shopping for personal needs.Based on data collected by Telunjuk.com(one of the e-commerce hubs in Indonesia), the total sales of masks from a combination of three e-commerce sites namely Shopee, Bukalapak and Tokopedia from March 2 to March 11, 2020 have reached Rp652,964,118.The coronavirus itself entered Indonesia on March 2, 2020 and mask sales transactions reached up to Rp130,076,970 and for the March 2 sales transaction volume of 203,294 and the last transaction volume data on March 11 reached 118,056.Telunjuk.comalso revealed the mask brands that were in demand by buyers, namely the N95 mask priced at Rp209,000, even though before the corona virus appeared the price of this mask was only Rp65,000, the second best-selling mask brand, namely Sensi, containing 50 pieces, was set at a price of Rp164,000, the previous price was only Rp75,000 and the last is N95 KW, usually priced at only Rp5,000 but currently the average price is Rp77,000.
Business cannot be separated from ethics, because first, business is not free from values.Second, business is part of the social system.Third, business applications are identical to professional business management (Manuel & Herron, 2020;Ogbuke dkk., 2022;Sholihin dkk., 2020).According to (Robert dkk., 2020;Volarevic dkk., 2018;Winfield & Jirotka, 2018), ethics are the values and moral norms that guide a person or group of people in regulating their behavior.Ethics plays a role in determining what an individual should do or not do.The purpose of ethics is to create a harmonious, harmonious and mutually beneficial relationship.According to (Harriss dkk., 2019;Martin, 2019;von Haehling dkk., 2021) ethics are the values adopted by a society, based on their habits.Business activities are motivated by various perspectives of business people.For this reason, businesses must adapt to their environment.So that business goals must consider the interests and phenomena and culture that prevail in society.
The application of business ethics in business activities must be carried out continuously for the realization of a business during the ongoing global pandemic and when the pandemic has ended to strengthen business management (Becker, 2018;Satterfield & Abel, 2020;Todorović, 2018).According to (Suriyankietkaew & Kantamara, 2019), it states that every business actor must apply the principles of business ethics, especially during a pandemic like this, for example, business actors must not hoard goods.Meanwhile, according to (Jabbar dkk., 2018), it states that business people are expected to use digital platforms as a medium for marketing their goods and services as an opportunity to expand the market and increase sales turnover.
Therefore, this research aims to find out how far business actors understand the values and rules of business ethics and confirm whether or not they are in accordance with the principles of business ethics as expressed by (Dierksmeier & Seele, 2018)which states that business ethics has five principles, namely the principles of autonomy, justice, honesty, mutual benefit and moral integrity and the extent to which business actors apply these business ethics in entrepreneurial activities in the current Covid19 pandemic era.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this study, researchers used a qualitative method with a descriptive approach.This research data source uses the direct interview method.The questions in the interview include This research uses descriptive qualitative methods, namely research techniques research technique that describes and explains the data that has been collected by paying attention to and recording as many aspects as possible paying attention to and recording as many aspects as possible so that get a comprehensive picture of the actual conditions (Azungah, 2018;Cheng & Metcalfe, 2018;Coldwell dkk., 2020).Information obtained from respondents will be processed by: Reviewing all data from various sources, reducing data and categorizing.Meanwhile, to deepen the discussion, researchers also add literature review from various sources, including scientific articles, books, and other sources that are in accordance with the research discussion.how the application of Ethics in Business in the current pandemic era.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Data that has been collected, reduced and then presented in a way that is easier to understand, so that conclusions can be drawn based on the data collected way that is easier to understand, so that conclusions can be drawn based on thorough observations from the results of interviews with respondents.During the research process, the data obtained from entrepreneurs, studied and processed and then analyzed.In the process of data analysis, the data is found information that is then correlated with theories or previous research then relied on existing theories or previous research as references as a reference.
The results of respondents' interviews related to "The Influence of Business Ethics in Entrepreneurial Activities in the Era of Pandemic Entrepreneurship in the Era of the Covid-19 Pandemic": The Covid-19 pandemic immediately caused various problems in the world including in Indonesia itself.The impact felt is quite significant, especially in the economy, within two weeks all public facilities, shopping centers, or places that invite large crowds to gather have been destroyed, shopping centers, or places that invite large crowds to gather have been closed so that no one can escape the emergence of the Covid-19 virus (Pokhrel & Chhetri, 2021;Singh dkk., 2020;Wang & Su, 2020).This pandemic has hit the economic conditions in Indonesia, many business founders have suffered who experienced the term setbacks or considerable losses (Caraka dkk., 2020;Malahayati dkk., 2021).This is due to the decline in sales turnover so that the due to the decrease in sales turnover so that business people must find ways to continue to survive during the pandemic ways to continue to survive during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly affected businesses in times like these.One of the causes is consumers who rarely leave the house, only shop as needed, the rest do via online.In addition, social restrictions also cause various business activities to be carried out remotely.Workers must also do WFH (Work Form Home), this policy was taken because it saw the number of cases affected increasing.This was revealed by one of the fried food seller participants, Mr. At, regarding the question of "what are the conditions for your business profits and losses in the covid-19 pademi era?" "The pandemic at that time had a very big effect, because consumers were reduced and in the end, income also decreased.Because of the pandemic we have to be able to adjust, think about how to keep our merchandise sold, keep the business running.When there was a regulation that everything was completely closed, we were also confused, but thank God now it has started to run normally again " Business ethics is a way of conducting business activities covering all aspects related to individuals, companies and society.relating to individuals, companies and society.In the business world that is happening with the corona outbreak the role of business ethics is very important.Because business ethics aims to help business people make the right decisions in doing business in the current situation.decisions in doing business in the current situation.This business ethics also aims to encourage moral awareness for business people.The following is the impact of of the coronavirus on business continuity: 1) Some business sectors experience a downturn and a decrease in revenue.2) Many consumers are starting to switch to using non-cash payments to prevent the spread of the corona virus.3) There is a threat of massive layoffs for employees who work in the business sector.4) Slowing down the growth rate of startup companies because investors are hesitant to inject their funds in pandemic conditions like this. 5) Decrease in buying and selling activities.
Responding to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, business actors must try to find other alternatives to keep their business running (Shen dkk., 2020).In addition, business actors must apply ethics in doing business such as: 1) Honesty, in business activities this is the most basic principle that must be done because it will maintain customer satisfaction.The implementation of the principle of honesty includes conformity between business actors and consumers overwriting the products sold and purchased.2) It is not allowed to compare their own products by demonizing other people's businesses, this principle many business people who already have a name, so they want to greatly affect the "good name" or brand of the business itself.3) Not hoarding goods with the aim that the price one day rises and large profits are obtained.4) Businesses that will and are being run should not cause environmental damage.5) Business must be carried out without coercion, in the implementation of the business there must be an agreement between the two parties.
In the world of business during the pandemic, the role of business ethics is very important.Because business ethics is a segment of applied ethics that tries to control and examine the moral and ethical arrangements of companies and explore how well or badly companies address moral issues in doing business (Fassin, 2022;Reeves & Sinnicks, 2021).The application of the principle of autonomy such as the implementation of health protocols during the pandemic in their business, the application of the use of masks and the provision of hand sanitizer before making transactions, things like this are done as an application of moral responsibility for decisions made by business actors during the pandemic.
Responding to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, business actors are required to find other alternatives so that they can continue to run their business so that they do not experience sustainable losses.The position of entrepreneurs during the pandemic is to develop the right marketing strategy to meet sales targets and better productivity.The following are alternative strategies that can be carried out by business people during a pandemic: Product Innovation The existence of government regulations for social restrictions makes people have to reduce their activities, making business people have to rack their brains to make new innovations (Bustinza dkk., 2019).In the midst of a pandemic like this, many people have experienced a decrease in income or even been laid off by the company.To survive in this day and age there must be a new breakthrough from the company, innovation is still carried out while maintaining product quality.Even in the production process, business actors must still implement health protocols where washing hands using soap before or after activities.Service Quality Improvement Service quality is something that must be maintained and improved.Service quality must continue to be developed and updated by following the evolving era.Business actors in using services must continue to be carried out directly from the place of business or from home with the concept of work form home as recommended by our government (Tortorella dkk., 2019).From this strategy, business actors can use delivery services such as gojek, grab, and others to deliver goods ordered by consumers.As for other strategies by using a pre-order system or products made according to the number of orders and the specified order time.predetermined order time.
This strategy model is able to minimize losses in business because business actors already know the exact number of products that will be made/delivered in contrast to daily sales which are not certain how many items will be sold.Meanwhile, from the consumer side, this strategy is also profitable because consumers do not need to worry about running out of a product they want.
In addition, business actors can ask consumers' social media to be used as an evaluation of the services provided whether the service is satisfactory or not, so that if there is an unfavorable assessment from consumers, business actors can see what the shortcomings of the business are and then improve service quality.The following is a statement from Uni Yanti, the owner of the "My Hijab Shop" shop regarding the question of "with the social restrictions imposed during the pandemic, what about the services you provide to consumers so that they continue to serve optimally?":"Because of the corona at that time, our shop was only open from morning at 08.00 am to afternoon at 17.00 pm.Because if we still apply the old shop hours, we will be subject to sweeping from Satpol PP.In addition, customers before entering our store, we have provided a place to wash their hands or hand sanitizer and check the temperature in front of the store.Usually when approaching fasting or holidays, there must be a spike but due to the pandemic we have experienced a decline, to overcome this, the services we provide are by opening online shops on several online shopping platforms, such as Shopee, Tokopedia and Lazada."

Use of Digital Platforms
In the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, business actors should have started to transform to digital trade either through e-commerce or social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and Whatsapp, even though they still offer some regular subscriptions that have often shopped (Akyazi dkk., 2020;Lim dkk., 2021).The use of social media is currently used for sales promotion of a business because it can reach all corners of Indonesia.Sales like this are very suitable to be applied during a pandemic, this is also responded positively by business actors by using e-money as a means of payment even though at the beginning of running sales like this, they felt overwhelmed.
The actions of business people using digital platforms as a place to promote and communicate directly with consumers have yielded good results.By using methods like this, business people can see that online sales have good prospects for the future and are able to maintain their business and finance all operational needs every day and month.Because if business people do not apply methods like this, especially during a pandemic, it is very unlikely that they will be able to survive their business even though they have not returned turnover as before, at least online sales are able to cover the operational costs paid by the company.

CONCLUSION
Based on the research results obtained, entrepreneurship and business ethics have a significant have a significant effect.This means that if entrepreneurship and business ethics increase it will increase the business success of business people.With previous experience previous business owners learn a lot from others and learn from their own experiences.his own experience.This fact is in accordance with the opinion of Pinaryo, (2014: 60) have an entrepreneurial spirit and disposition.The entrepreneurial spirit and disposition influenced by skills, abilities, or competencies.
The pandemic outbreak requires entrepreneurs to be able to adapt to the current conditions.one of which is that they must be able to take advantage of existing technology, such as selling online using technology.technology, such as selling online using social media, increasing the quality of service to consumers and making diversified quality of service to consumers and diversifying products and services to improve business performance.to improve their business performance.
Based on previous research, the results that our group has compared and drawn conclusions are that traders or business people should apply business ethics as well as possible so that their business activities remain stable.apply business ethics as well as possible so that their business activities continue to run smoothly and do not disappoint their customers.running smoothly and not disappointing its customers, the positive impact of the the positive impact of the implementation of business ethics has a very big influence in terms of doing business, especially balanced with the use of digital platforms to sell online.with the use of digital platforms to sell online to expand the market and make profits easier.and get profits more easily.