Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Topic: Emerging Business Ethical Issues
Topic: Emerging Business Ethical Issues
Greed
No experience
Deficient of education
Circle of influence
Poor organizational culture
Lack of control
Lack of integrity
Unclear policies
Foundational Values for Identifying
Business Ethics Issues
Honesty ,fairness , and integrity are the core values that hold business together,
Honesty:
Honesty refers to the truthfulness or trustworthiness. Issues related to honesty
also arise because business is sometimes regarded as “ game” governed by its
own rules rather than those of society.
Dishonesty:
Dishonesty is a lack of integrity , and an unwillingness to tell the truth.
Lying, cheating, and stealing actions are usually associated with dishonest
conduct.
Fairness
Lying relates to distorting the truth . A lie become illegal or unethical in business
if has negative or damaging impacts on others.
Types of lies: There are three major types of lies.
Joking : joking without malice.
Lies of Commission: if someone tells you something that is not a fact than we
call this a lie of commission. Tis type of lie is telling something that is simply not
true. E.g puffery Advertisements in business
Lies of Omission: Another type of lie is one where you leave an important part of
information, hence the name of lie omission. I this lie someone omits an
important detail from a statement. E.g ,intentionally you are not informing about
the problems, defects, issues related to your product.
Discrimination
Bribery refers to the offering, giving, or receiving of any item of value as a means
of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public, private, or legal duty.
Bribe is the money or gift bestowed to influence the recipient conduct/ decision.
When a government official accepts a bribe, it is usually from a business that
seeks some favor- perhaps a chance to influence legislation that affects it.
Giving bribes to legislators or public officials ,then is a business ethical issue.
Example: The business smugglers usually offers bribes to import or export
something in violations of the custom laws.
Sexual Harassment
Hacking: Hacking is one of the top methods for obtaining trade secrets.
1. System hacking: system hacking assumes that the attacker already has access
to a user account.
2. Remote hacking: Remote hacking involve remotely trying to penetrate a
computer system through internet.
3. Physical hacking : Physical hacking requires that an agent personally enter a
facility.
Social Engineering
It is a messy but very successful to acquire trade secrets. Once trash is discarded
into a public street or alley , it is considered fair game.
Consumer Fraud
Consumer fraud occurs when consumers attempt to deceive businesses for their
own gain.
There are many different ways of engaging in consumer fraud, like stealing from
stores, price tag switching, or lying to obtain discounts.
Environmental Issues
Land Pollution: Leakage from the fuel and energy industries , as well as
industries involving hazardous materials are the main source of land
contamination. Many companies dump their garbage and other waste into open
places.
Hazardous Materials: Example nuclear power plants ,because if their nuclear
materials are not properly disposed , they cause many harmful health diseases
like cancer.
Noise Pollution: Frequent or prolonged exposure to loud noise is not good for
health.
Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property includes the intangible assets you create for your business
such as name, symbols, color, designs, and automated processes. And just like
tangible processions, your intellectual property needs to be monitored and
protected.
Intellectual property rights involve the legal protection of intellectual
property( IP), such as name, symbol, designs ,etc
Examples of Intellectual property
Trade Marks: Trade marks are the names, phrases, and symbols that
differentiate your brand from other industry.
Examples: Words, symbols, names, colors or sounds that identify where your
good and services come from.
Popular Trade Marks
Patent
Employers might also be concerned about the productivity loss resulting from
employees using office technology for personal matters while on the job. At
the same time, however, organizations must balance the valid business
interests of the company with employees’ reasonable expectations of privacy.
Monitored workstations, cameras, microphones, and other electronic
monitoring devices permit employers to oversee virtually every aspect of
employees’ at-work behavior.
Consumer privacy, also known as customer privacy, involves the handling and
protection of the sensitive personal information provided by customers in the
course of everyday transactions.
Personal information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in
identity theft, financial fraud and other problems that collectively cost
people, businesses and governments millions of dollars per year.
Common consumer privacy features offered by corporations and government
agencies include:
verification of transactions by email or telephone;
Biometric identification technology.