Business Ethics Issues - Essay Example

?Business College: Business Ethics Business ethics refers to the guidelines that are adopted in a business environment to regulate the interrelationship between employees and the business. The essence of business ethics is to maintain a warm relationship between employees and the business environment by regulating their morals and behavior towards one another. Professional ethics are necessary to enhance business development among a cohesive people. In an organization, there exists a legal affairs board that facilitates professional behavior standards by defining rules that need to be followed by all employees. One of the ethical issues that emerge occasionally in a business environment is treatment of lost and found properties. This essay seeks to evaluate a case study in which a student finds a lost iPod and is faced with the decision of whether to keep it or not. The essence of this essay is to identify the contentious issues that must be observed while settling a personal dispute. The issue of keeping a lost and found property has garnered a lot of ethical analysis with the controversy arising of whether such a person should be equated with a thief. However, business ethics are grounded on the ability of a person to assess whether an action is good or bad depending on the results of the action. Any action that has a negative effect to another person or to the business is considered wrong and punishable. In such a scenario, the student who found the iPod, their friend and the judicial member all have must use critical decision making approach to arrive to the right course of action. The student who found the iPod has a choice to either keep the gadget it to the legal body of the school. Their friends have a role to advise the student on the ethical course of action to take when they are consulted. The best strategy to make a worthwhile decision is to weigh the effects results of keeping the gadget. In corporate ethics, the best course of action is one that does not hurt any individual in the organizational environment (Hartman, 2008). Handling of lost property in an organization is an ethical issue that can attract a legal action or even punishment. In an organization, if a person finds a lost item, they have a role to find the owner or submit the property to the legal committee of the institution. According to organizational ethics, taking a lost property is a legal issue that is equivalent to stealing. The legal issues that arise from an act of stealing include loss of business trust, lack of transparency and criminal guilt (Hartman, 2008). On religious grounds, if one finds lost property, it is ethical to put an effort to establish the rightful owner, rather than keeping it. In this view, if the student keeps the property, they defy the moral responsibility that is expected in an organization and hence can be accused of stealing. If the student opts to keep the found items and is eventually reported for theft, the student representative in the judicial board members has a role to provide a ruling on the case. To do this, the judicial member would require getting the material facts associated with the dispute. For instance, the cost value of the object, in order to determine whether the gadget was valueless when found. Any valueless object voluntarily abandoned is regarded as trash and if a person who finds it is not guilty of theft (Hartman, 2008). If the item is found to have a value and it is proven that it was abandoned involuntarily, then the student is guilty of stealing for not submitting the iPod to the judicial body. In this scenario, the student can only defend themselves if there is evidence that he or she submitted the lost item to the legal body and efforts to establish the owner were futile. Other stakeholders in this case would include the friend of student who kept the device as well as the rightful owner The student representative in the legal affairs has several decisions to take in settling the dispute in this case. The first option would be to return the iPod to the rightful owner and to punish the guilty student according to the legal standards set by the institution. However, this would require that he or she identifies legal constructive ownership right of the iPod by the person who claims to have lost. In this case, the owner of the device would be reinstated while the accused would learn the consequences of acquiring lost property. If it proves impossible to establish ownership of the iPod, the legal board member would have the choice of keeping the gadget under custody until enough evidence is provided (Hornsby, 2013). This decision may be unfair to the legal owner of the gadget but fair at that point given that there is tangible evidence to provide a judgment. Another alternative available to the student in arriving to a conclusive decision is handing the case to the jurisdiction of a court of law. The court of law has clear rules that stipulate how judgment should be conducted in a case of a lost property. For instance, the California Penal Code 485 states that the finder of a lost property has the responsibility to find the owner if at all there exist any lead to the possible owner. For instance, if there exist an ATM card, the subject should trace the named person and return the item. However, if there exists no such lead, the finder has the right to keep the item for themselves (Kluwer, 2008). In business ethics, it is allowed to forward the case to a higher level in order to allow room for a comprehensive decision. In brief, business ethics are important in maintaining a healthy environment for all the stakeholders in an organization. The ability to settle disputes depends on the ability of an individual to establish the moral and ethical implication of an action. Actions that have negative effects to people or business are considered ethically bad while those that have positive impacts are regarded as good. While settling disputes, it is necessary to establish the matters leading to the dispute, the available decision options and consider the consequences of the possible decisions to the stakeholders in the dispute. The objective of legal decisions should be to restore organizational stability by exercising fairness, transparency and honesty. When the matter is beyond ones jurisdiction, it is crucial to handover the dispute to the next level to allow the opportunity for a more comprehensive decision. References Hartman, D., (2008). Chapter 2 Ethical Decision Making: Personal and Professional Contexts. London: McGraw-Hill publishers. Hornsby, R., (2013). Theft of Lost or Abandoned Property in Florida. Retrieved from: Kluwer, W., (2008). Criminal Law: USA: Aspen Publishers. Read More