Antwon Eason

Reflection 1

OGL 345 Organizational Ethics

When it comes to business ethics, I view this as the culture that an organization creates

regarding what is considered right or wrong. Business ethics can also be viewed as what things

are acceptable or not acceptable in how business is conducted. This burden resides with

organization because people are expected to conform to the culture of where they are employed.

The organization sets the tone for what becomes the “norm” in daily operations. Business ethics

can also be viewed as sort of a code that an organization lives by. Unfortunately, not all

organizations have a good set of ethics which tends to result in scandals that we see or read in the

news.

My personal stance on ethics is having a set of morals to live by that serves to keep you

out of trouble and doing the right thing when no one is watching. I feel that it is easy to stray

away from this set of ethics when pressure is felt or that no one is watching. That’s why I feel

that it is imperative to adopt a strong set of ethics that will keep you grounded, even in tough

situations where it is easy to make a bad decision. Personal ethics and business ethics are similar

in my opinion. The only difference is that in business, ethics affects the entire group of

employees and ethics itself is geared towards the individual and their own set of beliefs. I say

this because my point of view on ethics will vary from others. Ethics is defined by the beholder

in my opinion.
 Back when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, I encountered a situation where a

judgment call needed to be made on my behalf and was considered an ethical dilemma. At the

time I was working as a weather forecaster and would routinely construct weather flight briefs

for pilots before they fly. One day a pilot comes into my office and asked for his weather brief

because he was running behind and had to leave promptly. Supposedly, the brief was previously

submitted by one of his crew members, but nothing was in the system. Since the pilot was in a

hurry, he asked me can I just sign off on a quick brief so he could get going. I had to make the

decision to either sign off without checking the weather or to take the 15 to 20 mins to complete

an actual thorough brief. Of course, I chose to do an actual full brief because there are safety risk

and concerns that will ultimately fall on me if something goes wrong. After my decision, the

pilot was upset with me, however he still made his flight and did so in safe manner.