Ethical_and_Moral_Issue_in_Business

Ethical and Moral Issues in Business By Lisa Battiato MGT/216 March 18, 2011 Professor Laura Brodkey-Scott Ethical and Moral Issues in Business When it comes to understanding the concepts of ethics and morality it can easily become confusing to many. It is perceived as personal values and systematic beliefs. We all struggle with the image of what is right and what is wrong however, when it comes to ethics imposes as to how one applies these values of right and wrong in some sort of an organizational setting like businesses, academically or legally. (Degeorge, 2010) An example; a nurse and a well respected Physician both work in the ER department and are good acquaintances. The Nurse notices the Physician taking narcotics illegal from the ER’s drug cabinets and sticking the narcotics in his lab coat and both know they are to abide by the hospitals policy and procedures when they both were hired. The nurse knows even though this physician is a long time acquaintance and is a well respected physician that he violated the hospitals policies by stealing from the hospital. The nurse knows that this well respected Physician is breaking that code of conduct by stealing and in fact, stealing is against his own personal code of beliefs, however, it is also against her moral code to rat out a well respected physician. This is the ethical dilemma that she struggles with. Should this nurse report her coworker to their superiors, to prevent future theft from hospital’s assets and rid the establishment of that bad aspect, or does she look the other way and remain loyal to her coworker' These are the struggles people deal with in their battle with their own personal code of ethics. It’s true that if one person looks the other way for that particular moment that it may not cause the financial ruin of that business, but it does make it easier for us as well as others to authenticate choices that one might make which may be measured unethical. In general personal ethics can be influenced by environmental factors, social factors, and economical factors, geographical factors, religious factors. For these very reasons, personal ethics fluctuate from each person to person. Occasionally it has been “said that we are a product of our environment” but as human being we do not have to succumb and take part in certain illegal wrong whether it is the work place or home environment. If a nurse sees wrong doing in the work place he or she should not be afraid of the individual who violated hospitals policies for blowing the whistle on him or her to her supervisors and does not have to par take in this person wrong doing. People have choice in life no one has to become a project of their environment they can take the necessary steps to change a negative and making into a positive productive we all have rules in life and guidelines to follow is applying them correctly. References DeGeorge, R. T. (2010). Business ethics (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.