Question

Discuss a news item or event that has arisen within the PAST MONTH that has relevance to ethics in business. Include the following: Topic Date Source which may include, radio, television, newspaper, internet, etc. Summary of the news item Conclusions or commentary about relevance to ethics in business

no hand written answers

Answer 1

Summary - Whenever an organization is under scrutiny for ethical misconduct, the focus goes on to the senior leader or executive of the firm who is held responsible for the ethical and compliance issues. When the senior leader steps down from his position by taking the responsibility, the stakeholders and public get satisfied that the ethical conduct is restored.

In reality, the employees in the organization are responsible for any kind of misconduct in most cases. Managers and employees in the organization should strictly adhere to the code of conduct and core values of the organization rather than the senior leader enforcing it. There will be situations when ethics might be compromised due to the force from customers or other business partners.

Two points need to be emphasized by the leaders to ensure ethics is practised within the organization by all the employees.

First is that employees should not assume that their understanding of ethics and compelling vision is always followed by the employees. But few studies indicated that employees lack the vision. Hence, the managers need to champion ethics and implement ethical practices at every opportunity.

Second is that the managers/leaders need to follow reward and discipline practice where the employees who achieve the goals ethically need to be rewarded whereas those who breach the ethics need to be punished.

Finally, leaders need to ensure that the organization's values are embedded in human resources practices viz. hiring, training, performance management etc.

Relevance of the article to the course - The article focuses on how ethics can be emphasized by the management and practiced by the employees and hence is very much relevant to the course of management ethics.