Upper-Int Business Ethics Activity

What are ethics?

A simple definition for "ethics" is those standards or morals a person sets for himself or herself regarding what is good and bad
and right and wrong. If something is "ethical", it does not necessarily mean that it is legal, and vice-versa. This is partially
because ethics are "subjective" that is, each person's ethics are unique to that individual. For example, Sally, who works at
Becker's, may give a carton of milk to a young mother with a baby who has no money for food. Though Sally believes this action
is ethical, it is not legal. Another employee may not see Sally's action as ethical.

Business Ethics

Business managers face ethical dilemmas (ethical questions) almost every day. Ethical dilemmas occur when a manager is faced
with two or more conflicting ethical issues, and has to make a choice.
1. Business to Employee. A business has a responsibility to act ethically towards its employees. Most importantly, employers
must hire and fire people in ethical ways. Wages and working conditions are a second ethical issue. Businesses must
ensure that employees are paid a fair wage, and that working conditions are reasonable. For instance, paying a worker $1
per day is considered unethical. The same could be said of having an employee work in a room filled with toxic fumes that
would cause illness
2. Employee to Business. Employees have ethical responsibilities towards their employers. For example, taking a part-time
job with a competitor; leaking company secrets; wasting company time; and theft from the employer.
3. Business to External Environment. Because businesses exist within a community from which they take resources, some
ethicists believe that businesses have ethical responsibilities to the community. This obligation to protect and enhance the
society is called Social Responsibility. This also includes responsibilities to the customers from which they earn profits. The
main areas of Social Responsibility are:
Ecology and environmental quality - preventing and cleaning pollution, noise control, recycling, preserving land.
Consumerism - truth in advertising, warranties, control of harmful products.
Community needs - helping charities, aid with health care and urban renewal.
Governmental relations - elimination of bribery of officials and lobbying, following laws.
Minorities and disadvantaged persons - providing training and opportunities for these groups.
Labour relations - permitting unions, negotiating fairly, providing fair working conditions and compensation.

Financial Disclosure

By law, corporations must disclose (reveal) financial information to the public, so the public and its investors can make sound
financial decisions for themselves. This poses an advantage and disadvantage for corporations. If the company is doing well
financially, then they will be in greater demand for investors to take a risk in their company. If the company is doing poor,
financially, then they will lose out to competitors and be in less demand for investors to take a risk.

Enron, an energy distributing company was in a partnership with Arthur Anderson, an accounting firm. Arthur Anderson was
responsible for auditing the financial books of Enron. This means to examine, inspect, and report proper financial information to
the public and Enrons investors. Executives from both businesses secretly knew that Enron was in financial disaster and
changed the numbers around in the financial books to show that the company was doing quite well. They shredded documents to
hide the fact that Enron was in financial trouble. Enron executives later told their employees through emails that the company is
growing and in good financial status. Enron employees were encouraged to invest in the company through their 401K, a
retirement account. Several months later, Enron filed for bankruptcy and their stock price fell from $65 a share to $0.60 a share.

1. Is this action illegal? Explain your reasoning.

2. Does the action violate company or professional standards?

Upper-Int Business Ethics Activity
3. Who is affected, and how, by the action?

Who Owns My Time?

Employers and employees have a unique relationship. The employee agrees to provide the employer with a fair days work. In
return, the employer agrees to provide a fair days wage.

Situation 1: Kendra Nickel is a receptionist for Media Technologies. After the company installed voice mail, Kendras workload
became lighter, so her supervisor assigned additional responsibilities, including some accounting tasks. Even with these
assignments, Kendra is not always busy. To fill the time, she plays computer games.

Situation 2: At Cooks Corner, a kitchen equipment store, most employees work less than 40 hours per week. However, only
employees who work a minimum of 40 hours per week are eligible for health insurance.

1. Is this action illegal? Explain your reasoning.

2. Doesthe action violate company or professional standards?
3. Who is affected, and how, by the action?

Technology Temptations

Along with many benefits, technology also presents us with new temptations. Technology allows us to access information for
many legitimate reasons, but it can also create ethical dilemmas. What do you think about the situations presented below?

Situation 1: Melissa Hoebbel collects overdue accounts for a large credit card company. She has access to records of all
transactions for any customer. Melissa sometimes looks up the records of famous people. She checks to see where they use
their credit cards and how much money they spend. She sometimes tells her friends about the buying habits of entertainers and
politicians.

Situation 2: Chris Piekarski works for a not-for-profit organization. Recently, he found a list of computer passwords near a
photocopier. He started using these passwords to look at other employees email files.

Situation 3: Azure Nelson is in college and works as a sales clerk in a bookstore. Occasionally, the scanner in the store is
unable to read a bar code on a customers selection, and the clerk must enter the code using the keypad. Azure sometimes
makes mistakes when she enters the code. As long as the customer does not object, Azure thinks its unnecessary to correct her
mistakes.

Is this action illegal? Explain your reasoning.

Does the action violate company or professional standards?

Who is affected, and how, by the action?

Is Anyone Listening?

The Berman Company enjoys a reputation as a good place to work. The company strives to provide quality services for clients.

Situation 1: To improve customer service quality, employees telephone calls are monitored. Monitoring is random and
employees do knot know when a quality manager is listening to a call. Customer service representative Ryan Ward made a
personal phone call while Megan Burke was monitoring the line. During the call, Ryan made plans for his weekend activities.

Situation 2: Darrin Moy used his office computer to prepare his resume and some cover letters. Darrin worked on these
documents after hours and provided his own paper for printing. He later learned that his supervisor knew about his job search.
The supervisor, Eric Forton, found the computer files while looking for a report that Darrin had prepared.

Is this action illegal? Explain your reasoning.

Does the action violate company or professional standards?

Upper-Int Business Ethics Activity

Who is affected, and how, by the action?