Analyzing Ethical Behavior

In choosing two ethical principles I have chosen Accepting responsibility and Treating others with caring and compassion.

Ethics, ethical values, and social responsibility should all work in unison in a corporate business structure. These key traits are better defined as maintaining overall good business morals, obtaining employees who possess personal ethical values, and finally to behave ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. For a business to better ensure these quality business traits a code of ethics should be adopted by the business. In the cases of Bernie Madoff and Enron, the most well-known financial scandals in history, I feel, gave a major hand in pushing business all across America to have and enforce the code of ethics.

Financial reporting practices and ethics have manifested an ocean of literature. This has mainly come from organization theorists that address accounting practices. These theorists and professionals have given fresh accountability measures. Their ideals give this industry the tools needed to survive, grow and prosper. The way an organization prepares and reports its financial information and handles its daily operations is in essence financial practices, and in the way it accomplishes this reveals their ethical standards to which they adhere to. This paper will discuss the financial practices, ethical standards, and

As with much of Enron, their outward appearance did not match what was really going on inside the company. Enron ended up cultivating their own demise for bankruptcy by how they ran their company. This corrupt corporate culture was a place whose employees threw ethical responsibility to the wind if it meant financial gain. At Enron, the employees were motivated by a very “cut-throat” culture. If an employee didn’t perform well enough, they would simply be replaced by someone who could. “The company’s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees” (Sims, pg.243). Like a parent to their children, when the executives of a company pursue unethical financial means, it sets a certain tone for their employees and even the market of the company. As mentioned before, Enron had a very “cut-throat” attitude in regards to their employees. This also became one Enron’s main ethical falling points. According to the class text, “employees were rated every six months, with those ranked in the bottom 20 percent forced to leave” (Ferrell, 2017, pg. 287). This system which pits employees against each other rather than having them work together will create a workplace of dishonesty and a recipe of disaster for the company. This coupled with the objective of financial growth, creates a very dim opportunity for any ethical culture. “The entire cultural framework of Enron not only allowed unethical behavior to flourish,

Ethical behavior is characterized by honesty, fairness, and equity in interpersonal, professional, and academic relationships. Ethical behavior respects the dignity, diversity and rights of individuals and groups of people. To me ethics are the difference between what is right and wrong.

I believe that ethical behavior can be taught, but can also depend on how well you were raised. As you grow, you learn more about the world and the wrongs and right that may not have been taught at home. Some may believe that the are only instilled from birth, but at the same time, a human goes through so many changes that their views change as they get older and society changes.When making decisions, you have your peers who will play major part in a decision, however, if you were taught those ethics at home, you will view it from all perspectives before making that finally

(Panza & Potthast, n.d.) Ethics is very important to a company’s success. Ethical behavior can bring benefits to a business. They can attract customers, which can lead to a boost in sales and profits. It can attract the right employees and increase productivity. It can also attract investors and keep the company’s share price high. Unethical behavior on the other hand can damage a company’s reputation and make it less appealing to stakeholders. It could also result in lower profits.

As a Christian, the subject of ethical behavior is not new to me. I was taught from a very young age what was right and what was wrong according to the teachings of the Bible. Even so, ethics in the context of the workplace is a rather new subject for me. The three videos that I watched talked about business ethics from different angles such as the growing popularity of ethical training in the workplace, how to gain ethical competence, and the consequences of not following ethical behavior.

According to Schreck & Miller, 2010 the field of behavior analysis has been plagued with a rapid growth of fad treatments thus, subjecting individuals with autism to arrange of ineffective, pseudoscientific, and antiscientific treatments. In order to prevent these incidents from happening behavior analyst need to be able to make ethical decisions often before research is conducted or published. Ethical guidelines and codes have been developed to protect behavioral professionals and clients from using fads, unvalidated, and dangerous treatments (Schreck & Miller, 2010).

It is very important for the LPC and the Career counselor to be competent. Their knowledge and skills of this area are important.

Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche

However, the scandal brought the company crashing down into bankruptcy. The value of the stocks came plunging down, which caused an overwhelming negative impact on the investors, many of whom lost a substantial amount of money. The real problem is that most of the investors who lost money were actual employees of the company. Most Enron employees were urged to buy company stock as part of their 401k plans. Within months, all the investments were gone. Certainly, the ethical actions (or lack there of) caused a negative impact on the company 's investors. The evidence presented shows how ethical actions can either have a positive or negative impact (or in this case, both) on investors.

Ethics are principles of behavior based on the ideas of what is good and what is bad. Business ethics, or also known as corporate ethics, is a form of ethics that is used in the business environment. The study of business ethics looks at the decisions that businesses make and whether those decisions taken are right or wrong. Many company executives are unethical, because their number one goal is not to satisfy customers, or clients; Instead their number one goal is to make as much profit as they can no matter what. What this type of companies fail to realize is that there is long-run and short-run profit maximization. A company can maximize its profits by in the short-run by being unethical; however, in the long-run, the bad publicity, lawsuits, etc. will make the company suffer plenty in both the public appearance and the monetary aspect. One of the biggest legal scandals of a company being unethical was in 2001, when, Enron, a natural gas pipeline company went from having $65 billions in assets to being bankrupt 24 days after. Enron Corporation was founded in 1985, in Houston, Texas, it was a merger between Houston Natural Gas Co. and InterNorth Inc. Enron reached dramatic heights, it was the seventh largest corporation in America, and named the “Most innovative company” by Fortune magazine for 6 years straight. Enron innovated the entire natural gas market by adding a natural gas trading segment; making it the world 's largest energy trading company. At its peak

It seems like business morals and ethics are being whisked to the side in lieu of the ever growing demand of higher stock prices, rising budget goals and investor profits. Despite the increased regulation of corporations through legislation, such as, Sarbanes-Oxley, some corporations still find themselves struggling to maintain ethics and codes of conduct within the workplace. In reviewing the failings of the Enron Scandal, one can heed the mistakes that both individual and organization malaise, such as, conflicts of interest, lack of true transparency and the sever lack of moral courage from the government, executive board, senior management and others, contributed to the energy giant’s downfall.

Ethical issues arise in the midst of financial accounting on a frequent basis. Several tempting situations occur by the hour in firms of every kind. Society pressures individuals to do dishonest things in order to appear acceptable in the workplace, especially when working in finance or accounting. The majority of corporate America has disregarded the concept of ethics in the workplace. Although this is not morally correct, it happens on a daily basis in today’s world. Ethical issues, such as pressure from management to complete dishonest acts, greediness in the workplace, omitting financial records and breaking confidentiality with company records are some important problems financial accounting companies must address in order to run corporate America in a proper manner.