Business Ethics in the Age of Globalization - Essay Example

College: Wall Street Journal Ethics The Rainmaker is a novel by John Grisham. In this novel, a case of fraud by Insurancecompanies is brought out. It shows just how crass the behavior of those charged with the responsibility of providing health insurance is. Many people who make regular contributions to health care insurance unable to access basic health care due to the failure on the part of health insurance companies to honour their end of the bargain (Matten & Crane, 2010) The matters of ethics are not only limited to the Insurance Industry but this affects all companies as well. In the Rain Maker the main bone of contention conflict is a lawsuit filed by an attorney known as Rudy Baylor. The case is filed against an extremely corrupt insurance company, which has denied the claim made by his client. To make matters worse, the client is dying from leukemia. The insurance company has wrongfully failed to honour his client’s claim. The option is to file a suit. It is unfortunate that it is now too late for the client to get the bone marrow transplant that would have saved his life. In his final semester at law school Rudy Baylor is required to provide pro bono legal advice to a group of older citizens. He meets the first of clients who happen to be couple by the name Dot and Buddy Black. The couple has a son, Donny Ray. The couple’s son happens to be dying of leukemia. Their insurance company has blatantly failed to pay for Donny’s medical treatment. Rudy is skeptical to begin with but he soon realizes that the Black citizens had really been mistreated by the large insurance company. He also thinks that he may have come upon one of the largest insurance frauds ever and one of the most profitable and vital cases in the entire history of civil litigation (Matten & Crane, 2010) Protection procedure for employees who have ethics concerns There should be a disciplinary committee which is established to deal with staff members who are accused of engaging in unethical behavior. The committee will be tasked with receiving complaints regarding any member of staff who is alleged to have engaged in behavior which the claimed to be unethical. The board should is tasked with making of decisions on a matter reported to it anonymously by any person who feels aggrieved by the conduct of the employee. The employee affected should be notified in writing of the charges against him or her and also given a date in which he or she should appear for a hearing. The employee should be afforded adequate time to prepare his or her defence and also get a free and fair hearing. There should also be a review board which would act as an appellate tribunal. The review board would have the task of handling the appeals of an aggrieved employee. The composition of the disciplinary committee should include all cadres of staff. Thus there should be a representation from both the management and those employees who hold lower positions. This would make them it more representative and competent to handle all the cases from the different departments. The Management of the company should not be too involved in the disciplinary process. The management should however be represented both at the disciplinary committee level and also at the Review board level so that their views may be taken into account because they a very vital position in running the affairs of the organization. An outside consultant should only be involved at the review board level. They should sit at the board and give their opinions to the board of what they think the decision should have been. However the Review Board should reserve the right to reject or accept the findings of an outside consultant but there must be compelling reasons for the Consultant’s findings to be rejected. The review board is required to act without breaches of confidence. They thus should not divulge any information which would be prejudicial to the employee concerned and also information which would cause harm to the complainant should not be released to people who ordinarily are not concerned with the matter at hand and thus have no locus over the case being handled. Releasing such information should attract a penalty for breach of trust. The concerned party should face disciplinary action(Matten & Crane, 2010) The review group should propose changes which should be made in the code of ethics. This should be communicated to both staff and management so as to ensure that the process is all encompassing. After the changes, this should be brought to the attention of all members of staff and management. However the changes in the code of ethics should not be applied retrospectively to punish those who committed breaches before the new requirements came into force. If an employee is improperly dismissed, he should be reinstated. It should however be put into consideration whether the person acting on the ethical concern acted in good faith. If discipline is found to be appropriate with regard to actions from the people in the top levels of management in the company, then a tribunal should be formed which composition should include people who are outsiders and thus neutral being the majority. If the issue regarded middle level management or other officers of the company, then the issue would competently be handled by the disciplinary committee with the option of the decision being reviewed. There should be a reward system for those employees who are found to have been the most ethical in carrying out their duties. When deserving employees get rewarded they are likely to continue with the good practices, however, if they are not motivated, they get demoralized. Rewarding employees should carried out based on feedback which is received from clients and also appraisal from the company management (Matten & Crane, 2010) Work Cited Matten, Dirk and Crane, Andrew . “Business Ethics: Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization” London: Oxford University Press, 2010. Read More