Everyone has faced an ethical decision sometime in life, whether or not she or he
has realized it. Ethics is a rational procedure in which an individual makes decisions
based on what they believe is right or wrong. Individuals are not the only ones who can
make these decisions. Large corporations and even small businesses can find themselves
facing many ethical dilemmas in the workplace. It is obvious that the public does not
respond well when it comes to an unethical business practice. The public’s attitude in the
matter may be so some may find themselves being directly affected.
In 2008 a man named Bernard Lawrence was convicted of fraud. Lawrence was a
stockbroker, an investment advisor, as well as a chairman of NASDAQ.
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The U.S. government became much more involved when regulating corporate
laws after many of these unethical practices . Organizations such as The PCAOB (Public
Company Accounting Oversight Board) were developed to promote ethical practices. The
Association for Financial Professionals is another organization that was developed to
promote ethical practices within business operations. The association has a code of ethics
that provides members with guidelines for ethical practices in finance professions. They
explain that finance professionals have an obligation to others that work in the industry,
and to uphold this obligation, one must hold ethical standards to a higher level. The three
main principles of ethics that they stress are competence, confidentially, and integrity. All
of these human characteristics must be maintained in a business setting during situations
where ethics come into question. Many professional organizations and companies have
similar codes of ethics for employees and organizational members to follow.
Organizations and large corporations such as Google have shown to take
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Like some other large corporations affected by ethics and business laws, the
company created a code of ethics. The company’s code of conduct or ethics is expected
to be followed by its employees including the board of trustees. The code of conduct
varies from following the law to acting respectably within employees and customers. In,
fact the company’s motto “don’t be evil” has impacted how the public views the
company. Many people are impressed that such a large company that holds ethical
integrity and standards to be one of the world’s top brands.
Ethical and moral decisions may be difficult to identify at times since people have different views on what is right or wrong. Malpractice decisions made by wealthy organizations have affected many people, including the decision makers. The Subprime Mortgage Crisis was a specific factor created through unethical practices and resulted in a huge financial crisis affecting so many homes and financial sectors within the U.S. and the globe. As some employees in the workforce have learned ethical decisions are made so that events such The Great Recession and other occurrences can be
At times in a person’s life, they might come across a few situations that leave them with a major decision between two or more options that challenge what they believe or what they might think is wrong or right. These are known as ethical dilemmas. Be it seeing a friend steal something and choosing between being honest and speaking up or letting it go. It can also be getting paid more than you earned and deciding if you’re going to be greedy and keep the money or return it. We run into these situations in our lives, some bigger and more influential on our destiny’s while others are small with no real consequences.
Ethical decision-making is the responsibility of everyone, regardless of position or level within an organization. Interestingly, the importance of stressing employee awareness, improving decisions, and coming to an ethical resolution are the greatest benefits to most companies in today’s world (Weber, 2015).
Throughout your life, you’ll face tough decisions where you'll have to decide possibly against your ethical beliefs. Ethics don’t necessarily always have to involve law abiding. It’s rather about trusting your moral path and doing the right thing. Dori Meinert is the author of “Creating an Ethical Workplace” she explains the thought behind the never black or white decision making when it comes to businesses. Can businesses truly trust those individuals hired to steer their companies? It was mentioned that last year 41 percent of U.S. workers said they observed unethical or illegal misconduct on the job, according to the Ethics Resource Center's 2013 National Business Ethics Survey. Meinert’s article was not only eye-opening but very truthful since we’ve all been faced or witnessed unethical decision making. Once employees see individuals breaking the rules and regulations others will then think it's okay, which could result in employees leaving or major hoops for companies to jump through. When we tolerate misconduct we lower productivity and diminish the reputation of a company. Meinert mentioned that if
Most organisations begin the method of establishing organisational ethical projects by introducing codes of conducts. It helps to generate public trust and improve
For a company to be successful ethically, it must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture. A corporate code of ethics can be a very valuable and integral part of a company’s culture but I believe that it is not strong enough to stand alone. Thought and care must go into constructing the code of ethics and the implementation of it. Companies need to infuse ethics and integrity throughout their corporate culture as well as into their definition of success. To be successfully ethical, companies must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture.
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
As legal scholar and philosopher David Luban explains, “You can’t teach good judgment through general rules, because you already need judgment to know how rules apply. Judgment is therefore always and irredeemably particular” which means, ethics are not alone enough to make a legal organization. Though ethics are morally influences us lot it is needed. Ethics in business is very important because it affect not only to the employees and employers of the organizations but also to the whole society is affected by it. Though ethical organization can attract and keep investors it is not the only benefit of it. Investors can invest their valuable money peacefully with confident of their money is save. Employees know that they are not allowed with unethical behaviors and finally customers can buy products which are worth to the money they spend. Ultimately, one of the most difficult assets of the company, reputation, can be built through ethics very easily without wasting extra money on unnecessary promotional
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.
,dishonesty ,substance abuse and absenteeism. Would all play a part in the ethical violation of
From reading this case, we realize the company did not apply the managing ethics competency in building its goals and structure. Managing ethics competency involves the o...
The movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” presented a series of ethical dilemmas that surround a group of salesmen working for a real estate company. The value of business ethics was clearly undermined and ignored in the movie as the salesmen find alternatives to keep their jobs. The movie is very effective in illustrating how unethical business practices can easily exist in the business world. Most of the time, unethical business practices remain strong in the business world because of the culture that exists within companies. In this film, the sudden demands from management forced employees to become irrational and commit unethical business practices. In fear of losing their jobs, employees were pressured to increase sales despite possible ethical ramifications. From the film, it is right to conclude that a business transaction should only be executed after all legal and ethical ramifications have been considered; and also if it will be determined legal and ethical to society.
Nowadays, society is governed by the implications of rules and legal restrictions. All of these rules were created to uphold and maintain the idea of ethical and moral values. Even children growing up were taught by some very important codes of ethics at school. These lessons learned as a youth growing up carry over into adulthood, as an employee or manager. Managers and workers both follow a similar code of ethics within the work place. Today, as a management consultant, I am going to prepare a code of ethics for my clients as they have recently started a restaurant called Knox, it is important to have a code of ethics in every company for their employees and also a circular by explaining the purpose and benefits of a good ethics. And finally, a brief report on the steps of strategic formulation and implementation.
Many managers and organisations make the mistake of assuming that what’s wrong is illegal and what’s legal is right and if it’s legal it must be ethical. Yet many ethical dilemmas present themselves before the decision makers where right and wrong can not be clearly identified. They involve conflict between interactive parts – “the individual against the organisation or the societ...
Ethics is central for any organization in treating employees fairly and helping the organization advance its mission. There is no single best way for dealing with ethical challenges, but it is very important for managers to develop ethical policies and procedures for implementation. To minimize possible unethical decisions by staff members, it is important to incorporate written standards grounded in organizational values in the code of conduct.
Many companies have a code of ethics or better known as a policy statement. A code is a form