Ethical Decision Making - Essay Example

The paper "Ethical Decision Making" is an outstanding example of an essay on business. In considering the situation wherein an individual working under my attempts to give me a watch as a gift, I recognize that there is a significant conflict of interest. In accepting the gift, I would run the risk of alienating other people who work for me, as they might believe that I would be more apt to give the person favorable treatment because they gave me a watch. In these regards, I would have to tell the person that I could not accept the gift. Rather than making a big deal out of the situation I would instead play it off in a casual way. I would wait for an opportunity when no other employees were around, as doing this would save the person from embarrassment and ensure the issue is kept contained. In a light-hearted way, I would tell the person that while I greatly appreciate their sentiment, that it is the company’s policy that I do not accept gifts. This way the person does not feel offended, the issue is resolved, and the issue is kept contained to a few individuals.
Within the business world, it’s clear there are a number of situations where conflict of interest arises. As articulated above, gift-giving is one major conflict of interest that must be avoided. This reflection considers three other types of conflicts of interest within the business context. The first conflict of interest is inter-office relationships, particularly those between manager and subordinate. Similar to gift-giving, the nature of such a relationship could be such that the manager might be led to give favorable treatment to the person in question over other employees working under them. Another potential conflict of interest in the business environment is outside employment. In this situation, a person may have two jobs that conflict with each other. For instance, a college football coach would not be able to work for another school because of the potential conflict of interest. A third example of a conflict of interest can be witnessed in terms of self-dealing. This occurs when an individual controls an organization, and also controls an outside business entity; the individual then has the organization do business dealings with the outside business entity. An example of this would be if the President of the United States had the government donate substantial sums of money to his father’s oil company. Such an activity would not necessarily be in the best interest of the organization the individual is in control of.