Personal and Corporate Ethics

2021-22

End term Assignment

RANDOM NO

9 8 A 1 8 B 1 2 C D

After completing a 2-year stint at a manufacturing firm, I decided to expand my career profile
and joined a renowned buying house with its headquarters in Hong Kong. The company
worked as a liaison between its buyers and vendors where they coordinated shipment and
allot orders received from Buyers to the appropriate vendor depending upon their operational,
functional and design capabilities.

The firm took great pride in its focus on integrity and transparency. In 2021, they were named
as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute for the tenth
consecutive year! As a part of their attempt to reinforce their vision, each new employee was
asked to sign a 40 page long ethical code of conduct and undertake an 8 hour online ethical
training to help understand what is expected of them. There was an ethical committee set up
within the organization which helped the employees with any ethical dilemmas they may face
and take appropriate action against anyone who did not adhere to the set code of conduct. The
failure to comply was taken very seriously and often led to severe repercussions. The most
strictly followed one such code of conduct was that as employees of the company we were to
never accept any kind of “gifts” from our vendors because it may lead to unacceptable vendor
expectations where they may start asking for favors while order allocation.

After joining the company and completing the initial training requirements, I was assigned to
a team that handled a very prominent brand for the firm. The team consisted of a divisional
manager, 2 managers and 2 senior associates, I joined as a junior associate. After completing
a few months in the company and understanding its functioning, I was allotted a category to
manage. While working with the vendors allocated to me, I was offered gifts which I
vehemently refused. But as the festival season approached, I witnessed my divisional
manager accepting a few gifts in terms of perishables from various vendors. When I asked
her about the gifts, she outrightly refused to any such transaction and got angry at me for
questioning her practices.

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After the conversation I cam back to my cubicle and realized that I was faced with a strong
ethical dilemma of whether to report my manager to the ethical committee or pretend to have
not seen anything and carry on working under her guidance.

To set up a better context on the decision I took, I would like to share some details about the
upbringing, values, family, and morals I associate myself most with. The credit for my view
of morality goes to my father. My father was the eldest of 5 siblings and when my
grandfather died unexpectedly at a young age, the responsibility of the family landed on his
shoulders. Although he had to take care of 8 members, including his sister’s wedding, he
never compromised on what he stood for even if it meant leaving jobs that did not fit right
with his values. Consequently, he changed three government jobs in two years. He always
made sure that I understood the importance of aligning with the company’s vision and
culture. He used to say that if one cannot align with the culture, one will not be able to do
justice to their work. He once told me that while working for one of the government jobs he
used to face ethical dilemmas on a regular basis, but never made the wrong judgement just
because people around him made them, as he believed in his sense of right and wrong. Hence
decided it was better for his mental health to switch. Seeing that my father did not give up on
his moral values even though he had huge responsibilities at home, gave me the courage to
stand up for what I believe was right, whether it was in school or college. But an organization
was a different field altogether.

Now, moving back to the dilemma at hand, I considered various factors before taking a
decision. I was faced with pressures from various sources such as my manager who believed
that the transaction of the gifts was not a big deal as it did not involve any monetary exchange
and only had perishable items. I was also faced with the conundrum that if I report my
manager and no action is taken against her, she will make my life at the company very
difficult as I had already confronted her once. The company had very strict rules against
acceptance of gifts, and I knew that any kind of exchange was not acceptable but as I did not
have any proof, it would be my word against hers. In addition, my manager had a nice rapport
with everyone in the organization including me. She was a competent manager and everyone
in the company seemed to like her. Hence if my colleagues found out that I had reported her,
they may seem to dislike me, and I may get isolated. Lastly, it had only been 4 months at my
first job in a buying house which was an upgrade from my previous job in a manufacturing
firm and I did not want to do anything that may affect the growth trajectory of my career.

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Hence, much to my dismay I decided not to report my manager and carried on working in her
team pretending as if nothing had happened. This decision played on my mind for a long time
because I knew I went against everything I stood for, to fit into the company. Looking back at
the decision I took, If I were given a chance to act differently, I would have made the
opposite choice and reported my manager. In hindsight, I believe that the discomfort the
decision caused me was not worth any benefits I received from not reporting.

Through the concepts learned in the PCE course, I now believe that reporting was the right
thing to do irrespective of the consequences. The concept of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism
should have played a huge part in my decision-making process as the step taken by me would
have been for the greater good and helped the organization reinforce its values as well as
encouraged other juniors in a similar position as me to speak up. Instead, I focused on
consequentialism where I judged the morality of my action solely based on the consequences
that I would have to face. The decision now seems selfish on my end as I cared only about
my immediate consequences and not the long-term effect it may have. Unknowingly I also
gave into the law of the land where although the code of conduct said something different,
the organization culture was such that it was not enforced as strictly as it should have.
Therefore, to not stand out and become the center of criticism, I decided to follow the culture
instead of staying true to what I believe in.

Going forward I would make sure to focus on what is important to me and my moral values
instead of caving into the pressures faced from external factors.

(1189 words)

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