Business_Ethics

Business Ethics Norma Swenson University of Phoenix Steve Jessup August 14, 2010 Business Ethics Introduction To everyone in the working world, ethics is very important no matter what type of business they may work for. The ethics each person has are beliefs, values, and morals. These ethics come from each individual’s family, church, or other sources. Today, however, some people go against their ethical beliefs to get further ahead in business. By doing this, they are not being true to themselves or their families or churches. This paper will give the definition of business ethics and explain some ethical issues in today’s environment. Definition of Business Ethics Business ethics is applied to all aspects of business conduct. It is part of the conduct of each individual, as well as the business as a whole. According to BusinessManagement.com (2010), business ethics is a form of applied ethics that scrutinize ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that occur in a business environment. In keeping promises and being fair and honest with everyone, a business has to have good ethics to keep them happy and treat them with respect. Stockholders expect to be treated with every obligation they have been shown, because a business has their money. The employees, vendors, customers, and communities deserve to be treated with respect, as well. They deserve to have the word given by business executives to be kept and honored. Executives and managers have to remember their moral philosophy of any given situation does affect their ethical beliefs. A persons’ moral philosophy has to do with their Ethics, the people do it has to remember how they would want things to be for themselves. Code of Ethics Companies today develop and hands out a code of ethics to the whole organization. According to BusinessDictionary.com (2010), Code of ethics means “Written guidelines issued by an organization to its workers and management, to help them conduct their actions in accordance with its primary values and ethical standards”. Although, some ethical issues still arise in the workplace, organizations have been implementing the code of ethics to use as a guide. Ethical Issues Although, there are many ethical issues in the workplace today, this author will be discussing discrimination, sexual harassment, and conflict of interest. The reason for these is this author has had experience with all three of these issues. The following paragraphs will discuss each one in depth. Discrimination has been fought throughout our history and still continues today. Being an ethical issue, discrimination does affect the organization and the community at large, because everyone deserves to have the same opportunities. The following two sentences are according to BusinessDictionary.com (2010). Discrimination means “bias or prejudice resulting in denial of opportunity, or unfair treatment regarding selection, promotion, or transfer. Discrimination is practiced commonly on the grounds of age, disability, ethnicity, origin, political belief, race, religion, sex, etc. factors which are irrelevant to a person’s competence or suitability. One form of discrimination is sexual harassment (which will be described in the next paragraph). Sexual harassment is an ethical issue that happens in the business environment. It, also, runs rampant in the military and political arena. The following two sentences are according to Heathfield (2010). Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination, in the United States, that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sexual harassment occurs when one employee makes continued, unwelcome sexual advances , requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, to another employee, against, his or her wishes. An organization can be affected when sexual harassment occurs, because it can affect the performance of the person being harassed and can create hostility in this person. Another ethical issue is conflict of interest. A conflict of interest can cause more harm to an organization than to the person committing the act. The last of the sentences are according to Conflict of Interest (2009). A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other. A conflict of interest can only exist if a person or testimony is entrusted with some impartiality; a modicum of trust is necessary to create it. The presence of a conflict of interest is independent from the execution of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs. Conclusion Finally, there are many ethical issues in the business world. Some of the issues are not considered to be illegal. With every persons ethical beliefs being different, a person cannot say what is ethical or unethical. Making the right decisions is what a person does when no one else is around to be considered ethical. Everyone has to think about how their choices or actions will affect the entire community or even themselves in the long run. This paper has given the definition of business ethics and explain some ethical issues in today’s environment. Reference(s) Heathfield, S., 2010, Harassment and Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, About.com: Human Resources, Retrieved on August 14, 2010, from http://www.humanresources.about.com/od/glossarys/a/sexualharassdef.htm Unknown Author, 2010, Code of Ethics, BusinessDictionary.com, Retrieved on August 14, 2010, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/code-of-ethics.html Unknown Author, 2009, Conflict of Interest, Ask.com, Retrieved on August 14, 2010, from http://www.ask.com/wiki/Conflict_of_Interest Unknown Author, 2010, Discrimination, BusinessDictionary.com, Retrieved on August 14, 2010, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discrimination.html Unknown Author, 2010, What is Business Ethics', BusinessManagement.com, Retrieved on August 14, 2010, from http://businessmanagement.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_business_ethics