Ramos, Ednalyn D.

COA-2E

Lying on Corporate World: Is it acceptable?

No. Generally, we don’t want liars because it will destroy many things especially trust and
loyalty. Hiding the truth keeps you from being totally connected to people and takes away from the
quality of your relationships. Well, sometimes lying is beneficial but it doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
Lying in business situations is very common. In fact, individuals are far more likely to lie to a co-
worker or a customer since they want to maintain a certain persona than they are to lie to a stranger who
they likely will never see again.
Helping people and making them happy is one of the great excuse of corporations to become
acceptable in public even if they lie behind their back. We all knew that businesses really helps a lot of
people by giving them opportunity to get a job and helping back to the community.
For me, these are the things that triggers business people to lie in the corporate world.

First, it is to cover up their mistake or misdeed. Yes, I know everyone can make a mistake and
most of us have already experienced it. Moreover, many business people derive a high degree of their
own self-worth from their job performance. Covering up mistakes with a few little lies or lies through
omission is considered by many to be an acceptable behavior considering the alternatives and instead of
making a solution, covering this will make things complicated in the future because I believed in the
saying that in the end the truth will prevails.

Then, to gain financial benefits. Have you ever think that there are some what you bought like
gadgets are not really satisfying but a little bit pricey? Well, there’s a lot of companies that are greedy in
terms of that.

Next, to gain advantage over an opponent or individual. Example of this is a company bought the
land of a person that are not well-informed about on the pricing of this and insist to pay them at low cost
and telling them that no one is interested to buy that land except you.

Lastly, to maintain a positive reputation with subordinates, peers, managers, and customers. It
was really hard for a company especially if that was a big company because there are lot of people who
believes and put their trust on them. What do you think will going to happen if they admit their mistakes?
As expected, they will lose some of their customers and potential investors.

All in all, for me lying is not really acceptable even though it’s small or big because even you
cover it up it will last only for a short period and once the truth came out it will put scars to the people
who trust you. And it’s a lazy excuse if you use the people you helped to cover up the bad things what
you have done because if you really want to help, it should be pure and you should not step on someone
for your own benefit.

Individuals lie to gain an

advantage over an opponent or
another individual. This often
takes the form of evasion or
omission, e.g., the oil company
not telling the farmer that it
wants to buy his land so that the
price will stay low. To gain an
advantage, liars often
will change the subject or
answer questions that have
not been asked. (Adler,
2007