Working in a Company and Industry with Many Ethical Issues - Assignment Example

Supplemental Case 2 Acme Title Pawn Student’s Name Institution Affiliation “What decisions need to be made when an individual discovers that he/she is working in a company and industry with many ethical issues?” When an individual discovers he or she is in an ethical dilemma or a firm with many ethical issues, such as Acme, he/she is placed in a situation in which he/she will have to decide. An individual has to take an action that assist another individual or group of person (s), which is the morally right thing to do, although doing so might be contrary to his or her self-interest. When an individual faces such a situation with two different courses of action, back in his/her mind, he /she is sure that his /her decision will cause damage to one individual or group of person (s) and will be a gain to the other party. Therefore, an individual is supposed to weigh which decision will be morally right and most effective. When an individual discovers he/she is dealing with ethical issues, his/her moral scruple comes in to play and form the basis of individual questioning and reflecting on which is morally right or good action to go for. Moral scruple refer to the inner feeling and reflections that judges a person when his actions are right or wrong and form a part of a person’s ethics (Alexandra, 2010). Ethics are the inner- reflection, discipline, principles, and values guiding an individual in dealing with situation and deciding what is morally right and wrong (Hadot, 1998). Ethics help an individual in deciding when his/her action is morally right or vice versa and deter causing damage to other people. The foundations of ethics are natural laws, religion, family influences, life and education experiences, and cultural/societal expectations. There are no specific or fixed set of principles and rules that determine whether an action is ethical or un-ethical because different principles are set by different forces and by different people according to their beliefs, attitudes, values and even owns selfish interest. Therefore, that is why, business and companies have different set ethics policies according to the environment for all employees to act accordingly. Ethics in business or companies is the application of discipline and principles that guide the business or firm to achieve its mission. Ethical behavior in a business setting is very significant because when a business is charged with infractions and legal investigations are carried out on those employees, questions about moral behaviors of the firm are always raised. Therefore, organizations operating with no set ethics principles can be at risk. Even though practitioners, academicians, and government regulators set ethics in business and companies over the decades now, there is still unethical, immoral, as well as illegal behavior carried out in the commerce world globally. For example, the case of Acme Title Pawn is an example of many companies and business with un-ethical and illegal behaviors, which outweigh business ethics. These companies in the long-run suffer public humiliation, financial losses, and even dissolution. On the other hand, employees suffer job losses, and some even go to prison and shareholders lose their stocks and savings. Although the case of Acme Title Pawn involves fraud in financial and accounting, ethics in business cross cut in all fields and departments; thus, it is advisable for every individual to weigh his/her actions and consequences before taking the action and decide on what is morally right. “If the organizational culture at Acme Title Pawn cannot be changed, can Joe continue to work there and avoid involvement in activities that are ethically questionable or possibly illegal?” Since ethics is a compilation of principles and practices used by organizations, firms and business to administer their policies in case of choosing what is right and wrong. Acme Title Pawn has its own culture; therefore, Joe has to choose the actions, which will be morally right and of benefit to most people. He has to follow some approaches and theories for him to reach to ethical decisions of whether to continue or not. The first approach would be to consider the consequences of his action also known as consequentalist theories (Alexandra, 2010). Consequences are in terms of his self-interest or egoism. In this case, Joe will determine how to give out the check only if the clients will complain and if other professional issues will affect his physical, mental, professional, or emotional wellbeing. He should choose the best decision that serves him ethically. Even though it may seem an un-ethical behavior, pursuing self-interest is perceived the first step to benefit the society. The second strategy for Joe is to stress on the overall amount of the benefit or what is referred as the utilitarian approach. If the wife has a job, the welfare of his children’s education and extra job from the universities is more beneficial, cost effective and outweigh the harm his decision to either leave or not would be ethical on utilitarian grounds. Although many may argue that, it is hard to measure benefit and cost and it overlooks minority rights, it is similar to egoism although it focuses more on the greatest number of beneficiary. Thirdly, Joe has to focus on the right of all people and his motive must not be out of malice. His actions should perceive fairness of all even the company. Nevertheless, before taking any decision, he has to comprehend the issue and its ethical component, his judgment of whether right or wrong should be based on morals and hence comes up with a decision of what to do. “How could Acme Create an Ethical Organizational Culture?” Since ethics are not fixed principles, Acme can change its culture because ethics works hand-in-hand with firm’s mission and aims, especially about behavior to give employees, outsiders and collaborates the way forward on their behavior and what the firms stand for or believes in. Ethics flows from the top management down to the employees but in most cases, the design of the firm’s structure affect ethics either positively or negatively. Acme should put in place measures and authority relationships that advocate for ethical behavior and in case of violation of those codes of ethics, one should receive a penalty or sanction depending on the framework of the violated code. For example, in Acme, some employees have the behavior of backstabbing and undermining some levels; this should be shunned and measures put in place to respect any authority and those who skip those levels should be persecuted in accordance to the framework. Policies regarding treatment of rude office communication, language, billboard messages, and whistleblowers to be put in place to avoid displaying the wrong information. In addition, Acme can employ chief ethics officer or lay down procedures of how all employees can channel wrong doings to respective officers. These officers will be responsible for implementation and adoption of those policies and assist all employees in making good ethical decisions. On the other hand, managers and top management should influence their juniors to have ethics in their behaviors. For example, charging personal expenses on credit card of the company, by the company’s executive portrays a bad image to junior staff (Alexandra, 2010). In addition, borrowing un-refundable monies lead junior staffs to embezzle funds in the executives’ name. Managers should portray organizations ethical positions thus promoting moral values and principles that employees use to make decisions. By being honest, role models, and keeping customers and partners informed of Acme ethical values and consequences of failing to abide by them, managers will attract more investors in the company, improve its reputation, reduce the case of theft, and influence its employee. References Alexandra, A. (2010). Ethics in practice: Moral theory and the professions. ReadHowYouWant.com Hadot, P. (1998). The inner citadel: The meditations of Marcus. Harvard University Press. Read More