Question

Ethical behavior is a corporate issue that affects the company’s bottom line. How do ethical issues impact organizations and operations? Include an example seen in the workplace, in the news, etc. that relates to real-life situations.

Answer 1

An organization is a group of processes and individuals. For any firm to run successfully in the long term, both process as well people managing them should consistently take the right decisions.

Being ethical implies that the firm is following the right practices and principles set up by the leadership team and is acceptable by the community. Working for a firm that is consistently taking the unethical decisions in terms of managing the vendors, customers, policies, guidelines, or any other matter, would make it hard for any person. Initially, people may be negligent about these matters but over the period they will identify these issues and any morally sound person will struggle to work. Loyalty from customers can be given only to a firm that respects each aspect to the fullest. Even among the employees, there will be a large group of people who might find it comfortable to work even in such areas.

If the firms have ethical issues, it would mean there is a group of employees who are engaging in unethical activities. In many cases, firms try to hide such underlying issues until there are whistleblowers that share insights on such activities. Customers do not associate themselves with such firms and would try to stay away from the business. There can also be cases when firms are right in their decisions but employees are causing issues. Ethical issues impact firms and their operations alike. Without an ethical guideline, employees do not follow any process and do not entertain customers and their needs. Without a proper process and work ethic, there will be no efficiency, and work will get impacted due to this.

There can be cases where employees do not understand the impact of their behavior. To understand this in detail, consider the case where an employee working in the firm post negative reviews about his manager. The employee wrote in a blog about the way in which his boss was treating him at his workplace. He was very specific in few areas including naming the manager but ensured that his own name was hidden and kept anonymous. The employee might have done this to vent out the frustrations which were accumulated due to his manager not allowing him to go home when he was sick and shared his perception that he was not being promoted due to his dreadlocks. This shows two different incidents. In one case, the employee states that the company and boss are mistreating him by not allowing him to leave when he was unwell, and second is showing bias by not selecting him for promotion due to his dreadlocks. The second one is based on the employee`s own opinion and has no facts to prove otherwise. The employee kept the blog on low profile but the employer found out about the frustrated venting on a public forum. Based on his actions, the company found out the real person and fired him.

If we look at the case from a personal point of view, it would seem harsh that one person was sacked for sharing his personal opinion on a public forum and everyone has the right to access information and share their views on public forums. But when the detail gets entangled with a firm or another person it becomes a case of defamation and accusing others of several issues. In this case, the employee was clearly accusing the manager based on their experience. From the company’s point of view, there is a blogger who shared internal information to the public and shares his perception of actions as a stipulated and established fact. The blogs show that the employee was spreading a bad name and fame about the firm and the manager. This can be considered as speaking of the ill will of the company and ethically one should not have done this, especially naming the manager. While entering the job, there could be various stipulations that were placed on him which would have corresponded to actions which the employee had undertaken. If there was any such clauses or term in the agreement, the company was within its rights to terminate the employee`s contract. Even ethically, the company identified the person who was spreading false information and removed from the company.

When customers identify such incidents in the media, they would not continue dealing with such firms. These incidents put the reputation of the firm into disarray. Firms do not wish to associate such negative reviews with them either.