Ethical and Moral Principles in a Business Environment - Essay Example

Ethical and Moral Principles in a Business Environment Introduction: Ethics and morals play a very important role in the working of every business. Every business has a number of different aspects in the business which require to have set principles. This report will deal with a very essential aspect of which every business need to consider i.e. the Workplace privacy in the company. This is a very important aspect and can impact the business to a great extent. The following section will discuss about workplace privacy, following which a company – Wal Mart has been considered to analyse the workplace privacy in the company. The major aim of this study is to analyse the ethical and moral principles in the business environment. Workplace Privacy: Workplace privacy is a very essential part of every organization. This mainly deals with the safety and security of the information of the individuals and selectively allowing access of the information. There are a number of different boundaries that have to be considered. This is mainly because the privacy levels are different for different individuals. It is to be noted that if something is considered to be private to a person that is main because the piece of information has some kind of personal relevance and importance in their personal lives (Maxwell, 2003). Hence information like this requires having some level of privacy, which can differ from time to time based on the situation and the consent of the owner of the information. All companies have different levels for the privacy of the employees and for everyone within the organization (Snoeyenbos, et.al., 2001). However the levels do cause a number of issues within the organizations and also affects the working of the employees within the organization. Wal Mart: The chosen company for this study has been Wal Mart. Wal – Mart is one of the biggest retailers in the world and stands at the first position in the list of the fortune 500 companies. Wal-Mart has been in the industry since 1962. Wal – Mart has wide operations spread across 14 markets, 7390 Wal – Mart stores. They company employees over 2 million associates. It is the largest employer in America. The company was started with a vision of becoming the world leaders in retailing. Over the past years the company has been able to gain the position of the world’s largest retail company and is thrice as big as its closest competitor. The company’s mission has always been to provide the customers with best products and services at reasonable prices. The company’s main values and beliefs are – respecting individuals, service to the customers and striving for excellence. The company’s signature for almost five decades has been ‘Everyday low prices’. The company has been said to keep a watch on the reporters and critics as well. However this is not a goo idea as it cannot repair the reputation of the plaguing company. Wal Mart has a serious health issue and the thug – like tactics only create a bigger scope for the critics of the company. The company has been known to take a lot of interest in the spy toys and the criticism of their business is not well received by the company. The company has also led up the extent of recording the calls of the employees to spy on them. However the company has highlighted that this is mainly in the case of extreme cases and this is in accordance with the legal department. The company has been intercepting the calls and emails of its employees and the company receives a list of phone numbers and email addresses with which the employees have had any communication. This however when checked legally, has been considered to be legal. As per the law the companies have rights to keep a check on all the employees provided they use the office provided computers and phones (Zimmerman & McWilliams, 2007). It is illegal for companies to intercept personal calls or personal emails of the employees and the personal computers of the employees. However in the case of Wal Mart the company has taken this a step further and it intercepts even the personal emails and phone calls of the employees. With the growing availability of different technologies, the company accesses even private emails like the ones sent or even received from Hotmail, or Gmail ids. Also as a response as to why the emails and calls have been intercepted it has been reasoned to be a precautionary measure to ensure no sensitive business information is leaked out of the company and that it is as a security measure, as stated by Sarah Clark (Zimmerman & McWilliams, 2007). However, this is not a good enough reason for the company to intercept the calls of the employees as it invades into the private lives of the employees and hence can break the norms of privacy for the employees. Also these steps encroach into the rights of the employees. Normative Ethics - Utilitarianism and Deontology Ethics: Considering the company under the normative ethics, it is clear that no one benefits when the company undertakes such steps to keep an eye on the employees. The employees only feel insecure and violated. Ethics in a company mainly are to ensure that the happiness and security of an individual are not violated or encroached upon for the simple need for pleasure of the company (Snoeyenbos, et.al., 2001). It is essential when any steps are undertaken to consider how many people would benefit out of the decision being made and how many people would be harmed in any way. The main aim of any ethics that are incorporated within a company is to make sure that the number of people benefiting from any decision is higher than the people suffering due to the decisions made. In the case of Wal Mart, the only beneficiary from the decision of including a spy on the employees, or even on the critics, is the company. The employees of the company do not gain anything from this instead this leads to a feeling of annoyance and invasion of private space. Also the right of the employees is being affected strongly and the company in a number of ways moves into the rights of the employees. The major rights like Human rights, civil rights, and even the contractual rights. Consider the case of Wal Mart the company has violated all the rights of the employees and even of people outside of the company. This results to the violation of human rights and is not an acceptable behaviour from any company. It is the moral responsibility of any company to ensure complete confidentiality of the employees, customers and even any person related to the company (Winstanley & Woodall, 2000). However if the companies themselves start violating the laws and try disturbing the personal space of people that they deal with, then the issue is very big and requires strict and immediate action. Conclusion: In the case of Wal Mart, there has been a serious ethical issue that has taken place within the company. This is not an acceptable behaviour, specially, considering the size of the company and the number of employees that it provides jobs too. This case provides a strong example of a company where the ethics and the morals are not given importance and the company violates not only the employee’s privacy but also the privacy of many other that deal with the company. Principles are very important, both in the case of individuals as well as in the case of companies. Businesses which do not have strong ethical and moral principles should have serious action taken against them for the safety of any people working for or even dealing with the company. Bibliography Maxwell, J.C., 2003, ‘There’s no such thing as ‘Business’ ethics: There’s only one rule for making decisions’, August 2003, p. 1 - 19, Center Street, Thomson Nelson, Inc., Publishers, United States of America Snoeyenbos, M., Almeder, R., & Humber, J.M., 2001, ‘Business Ethics’, 3rd edition, Prometheus Books, New York, Winstanley, D., & Woodall, J., 2000, ‘Ethical issues in contemporary Human resource Management’, 15 January, 2000, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, London Zimmerman, A., & Mc Williams, G., 2007, ‘Wal – Mart spies on Wal – Mart watch employees’, 4 April 2007, Accessed on 18 April 2009, Retrieved from http://walmartwatch.com/press/releases/wal_mart_spies_on_wal_mart_watch_employees/ Read More