Ethics in the Workplace
In today’s modern workplace, the topic of ethics has become of the utmost importance. It is one of the key pieces in establishing a successful organization. Zuber and Kaptein (2014) noted, “The ethics of business has received considerable attention both in research and practice because of the numerous examples of unethical behavior (UB) in and by businesses that have surfaced in the past decade” (p.401). Over the last several years, the news has been full of companies that have been accused of unethical behavior. These high profile incidents have brought the spotlight on companies and forced them to deal with unethical behavior within their own ranks. With greater competition from different companies, customers are …show more content…
There can be consequences for both the company and the individual that is acting unethically. On top of a loss of business, there could be legal ramifications to unethical behavior. If a company knowingly offers an inferior product or service, they could lose business, earn a tarnished reputation, or even have legal action taken against them. Certain products could cause injury or even death if they were to fail. These ramifications could be seriously detrimental to an organization. These repercussions can not only be devastating to the company, but it could also be costly to the individual employee that was demonstrating the lack of ethics. The individual can be reprimanded and have a permanent blemish on their record, their employment could be terminated, or the legal penalties could be leveled on the individual instead of the company. If any of these punishments were levied against someone, their future could be in serious jeopardy. It could be difficult for that individual to find work within their chosen profession. A tarnished reputation due to unethical behavior can follow someone around for the rest of their …show more content…
Most modern companies develop their own code of ethics. These codes of ethics are also being instilled at a collegiate level. McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (1996) stated that” … college administrators and business managers are increasingly adopting a variety of strategies to reduce unethical behavior in their organizations. These techniques include implementing codes of conduct, providing ethics education and training, and altering reward systems” (461). These codes of ethics can simply be several statements that describe the standards by which they wish to do business, all the way up to, and including, multi-page documents that lay out specific rules and regulations. Another way that a business may promote ethical behavior is through annual training. Many businesses have a curriculum that is laid out on a yearly basis. The individual employee is assigned the training and is required to take what may be either an online or a lecture formatted class. While these training classes and ethics codes can bring awareness to the ethics that are expected, it does not ensure compliance to ethical behavior. The most important thing is to instill this code into their employees so that they want to follow it. Paztor (2015) said, “There is a big difference between coming up with your own code of ethics and living and breathing it, and following a code just because some regulator or
In today’s modern workplace, the topic of ethics has become of the utmost importance. It is one of the key pieces in establishing a successful organization. Zuber and Kaptein (2014) noted, “The ethics of business has received considerable attention both in research and practice because of the numerous examples of unethical behavior (UB) in and by businesses that have surfaced in the past decade” (p.401). Over the last several years, the news has been full of companies that have been accused of unethical behavior. These high profile incidents have brought the spotlight on companies and forced them to deal with unethical behavior within their own ranks. With greater competition from different companies, customers are …show more content…
There can be consequences for both the company and the individual that is acting unethically. On top of a loss of business, there could be legal ramifications to unethical behavior. If a company knowingly offers an inferior product or service, they could lose business, earn a tarnished reputation, or even have legal action taken against them. Certain products could cause injury or even death if they were to fail. These ramifications could be seriously detrimental to an organization. These repercussions can not only be devastating to the company, but it could also be costly to the individual employee that was demonstrating the lack of ethics. The individual can be reprimanded and have a permanent blemish on their record, their employment could be terminated, or the legal penalties could be leveled on the individual instead of the company. If any of these punishments were levied against someone, their future could be in serious jeopardy. It could be difficult for that individual to find work within their chosen profession. A tarnished reputation due to unethical behavior can follow someone around for the rest of their …show more content…
Most modern companies develop their own code of ethics. These codes of ethics are also being instilled at a collegiate level. McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (1996) stated that” … college administrators and business managers are increasingly adopting a variety of strategies to reduce unethical behavior in their organizations. These techniques include implementing codes of conduct, providing ethics education and training, and altering reward systems” (461). These codes of ethics can simply be several statements that describe the standards by which they wish to do business, all the way up to, and including, multi-page documents that lay out specific rules and regulations. Another way that a business may promote ethical behavior is through annual training. Many businesses have a curriculum that is laid out on a yearly basis. The individual employee is assigned the training and is required to take what may be either an online or a lecture formatted class. While these training classes and ethics codes can bring awareness to the ethics that are expected, it does not ensure compliance to ethical behavior. The most important thing is to instill this code into their employees so that they want to follow it. Paztor (2015) said, “There is a big difference between coming up with your own code of ethics and living and breathing it, and following a code just because some regulator or