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Ethical issues in organizations
Ethics in an organization
Ethics in an organization
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Business ethics ensure that a certain required level of trust exists between consumers and various forms of market participants with businesses (Dragonette, 2017). It is evident in the Wells Fargo case that the issues raised in the CNN Money report released on the 9th of September, 2016 that Wells Fargo employee’s were unethical in their actions. Wells Fargo employee’s in 2016 and past years were creating accounts in their customers names without their approval or knowledge. The employee’s were not worried about the impact this would have on their customers, company and stakeholders. Opening over 1.5 million fake deposit account cost the company $185 million in fines and a possible loss of 30% of their customers (Cox, 2017). This just helps prove that this case has ethical problems but mainly focusing on the …show more content…
The employees that have been set those goals might have to go against their moral principles to achieve them which is evident with the Wells Fargo case. The Employee’s were set a sales target and a target to receive a bonus which they went around the wrong way to achieve. The organisations staff opened up the accounts in order for them to reach such a high target. Many of them would’ve gone against their moral principles as they know what they are doing is unfair, illegal and against the values of their company. This would then become the ‘norm’ in a company and people doing it would feel less immoral and more convinced that they are being forced to do these things so they can reach their targets. Conformity and groupthink is when in the workplace you follow the traditional or socially expected methods of doing business (Mayhew, 2017). With over 5,300 employees fired it makes you believe that there conformity in their business, meaning it being socially expected for people to take money and open up unauthorised
Wells Fargo account fraud scandal One of the most recent white-collar crimes involved Wells Fargo, a banking and financial services provider. In 2016, San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without permission of their customers. Opening about 1.5 million fraudulent deposit accounts and submitting 565,443 credit card applications allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales targets and receive bonuses. Consequently, customers were wrongly charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. In this business crime scenario, Wells Fargo is involved in paying $185 million in fines and refunding $5 million to affected customers.
One of the most recent white-collar crime involved Wells Fargo, a banking and financial services provider. In 2016 San-Francisco based bank Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without permission of their customers. Opening about 1.5 million fraudulent deposit accounts and submitting 565,443 credit card applications allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales targets and receive bonuses. Consequently, customers were wrongly charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. In this business crime scenario, Wells Fargo involved to pay $185 million in fines and refund $5 million to affected customers. Also, around 5,300
Employees were using the cross-selling which is a concept of attempting to sell multiple products to consumers. This concept led to fraudulent actions, in fact employees were encouraged to order credit cards for pre-approved customers without their consent, and to use their own contact information when filling out requests to prevent customers from discovering the fraud. " The Wells Fargo scandal was far different. Instead of a select few doing bad things, the unethical behavior was widespread at the bank, with thousands of employees engaged in secretly creating new bank and credit-card accounts for customers without their knowledge, resulting in overdraft and other fees." (Kouchaki, 2016). According to the Los Angeles City Attorney, employees were opening and funding accounts without customers' permission or knowledge in order to "satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards under the bank's incentive-compensation program." This means that the board members of the bank were aware of that it wasn't by the employees' own wills. In fact, they were pressured by aggressive goals and performance which led them to immoral behaviors. Facing this problem, Wells Fargo bank had to take some measures to avoid bankruptcy, losing customers, or loosing brand
on September 8, 2016 Wells Fargo’s unethical behavior was reveal when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Wells Fargo $185 million because over 2 million credit card and bank accounts were fraudulently open or applied for in customer names without their knowledge (Blake, 2016).
I certainly agree to the author and McNerney that the unethical dysfunctional company norm is the root cause of the ethical issue. It is this norm created by the predecessors who never set good ethical examples that influences the employees. They believed the politically safest way of executing tasks would be mimicking how their superiors get their jobs done.
They said to the people who support Wells Fargo, “if you feel like you received an account that you didn’t want, come in and see us and we will make it right” (Peter Conti-Brown, “Why Wells Fargo Might Not Survive its Fake Accounts Scandal”). I believe that Wells should do more than just talk to their customers if they experienced one of the fake numbers. It seems like they were and still are taking about this scandal like it wasn’t a big deal, when the case is still relevant today. Like I briefly mentioned above, the most unethical behavior about this is the fact that not just a couple members were involved. There were a couple thousand employees involved who created new bank and credit card accounts for customers without their
This concern of integrity and organizations like Wells Fargo to do what is right stems from our personal ethical framework. We all have one which helps us decide what is right and what is wrong. It is this decision that is a concern for organizations that must be managed on a day to day basis. Company’s such as Wells Fargo are so big that bad ethical behavior may be overlooked and not dealt with until the damage has already been done. Other organizations need to learn from Wells Fargo and start addressing their own organization ethical framework. This would include the organizational culture, business strategies, employee ethics concerns and the overall ethics and decision-making
(Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in a business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or complying with their companies ethical standards. In some instances, some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interests of the company.
The selected issue for the paper is where an employee has not given their current or potential customers accurate information when opening accounts or requesting new services from Washington Mutual. When a person is in the workplace proper business ethics is used on a daily basis. An employee can make ethical decisions by applying their critical thinking skills to the situation they can ensure that the decision that they make is the right decision. The decision process can be very tiresome process but with the proper procedures one can become a better decisions maker.
The term “ethical business” is seen, by many people, as an oxymoron. This is because a business’s main objective is to make as much money as possible. Making the most money possible, however, can often lead to unethical actions. Companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Satyam have been the posterchildren for how corporations’ greed lead to unethical practices. In recent times however, companies have been accused of being unethical based on, not how they manage their finances, but on how they treat the society that they operate in. People have started to realize that the damage companies have been doing to the world around them is more impactful and far worse than any financial fraud that these companies might be engaging in. Events like the BP oil
During the past year Wells Fargo, a well-recognized bank of the United States, has been trying to clean its name and the mess it got itself into, when it was brought to the public that the bank was involved in generating fraudulent checking and savings accounts for its clients without their knowledge or their authorization. “The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent”
To provide an example of a breach of ethical conduct in the workplace, we may remember the case of a financial manager in a corporation that decided not to pay overtime to some employees. After a deep outside investigation, the company was summoned with thousands of dollars to remedy the payment that was supposed to be paid to all employees who worked more than forty hours per week. Again, it is needed more than just a booklet stating that the company adheres to the code of business ethics. It is needed serious managers that can run the company with the most seriousness as possible. Consequently, any written codes of business ethics, regardless of how well it has been crafted, need people that adhere to its internal content with a serious desire to do the right thing.
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2007). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right Fourth ed., Retrieved on July 30, 2010 from www.ecampus.phoenix.edu
Business ethics are a set of moral rules that govern how a business operates, how people should be treated within an organization, and how business decisions are made. They are a crucial part of employment and in managing a sustainable business, mainly because of the serious consequences that can result from decisions made with a lack of regard to ethics. Even if you don’t believe that good ethics don’t contribute to profit levels, you should realize those poor ethics have a negative effect on your bottom line in the long-run. Every business in every industry has certain guidelines to which its employees must stick to, and regularly outline such aspects in employee handbooks.
Managers are the ones that should be setting the example.... ... middle of paper ... ... Ethical Resource Center, (2007, February).