Resolving Ethical Business Challenges Essay

The fact that the insider trading charges were thrown out, but the conspiracy charges stuck is curious. It appears, yet again, the judicial process and mainstream social construct of acceptable behavior collided with what Martha, her broker, and fellow investor touted as ‘nothing wrong’. Knowing more of John Savarrese’s role as Martha’s pretrial counsel, gives two more important points about Martha’s case of white collar crime. The first is questionable ethics and the other is arrogance. Mr. Savarrese has been criticized by legal analysts for not providing ethical legal advice to Martha or making the right professional choices himself. The belief is that Savarrese knew or at least suspected, Martha and Bacanovic planned to perjure themselves. As Martha’s legal counselor it was ethically negligent of Savarrese not to advise Martha of the legal repercussions of lying to the SEC. If Martha insisted on presenting her fraudulent story, Savarrese should have immediately withdrawn as her counsel (Hoffman, 2007). More importantly than if Savarrese knew or not, in her arrogance, Martha never thought this issue of a mere $45, 637 would develop into charges nor a prison sentence! She was simply above the laws and saw no reason to tell the

2. Laws must be static and unyielding in order to provide stability for a society.

It is clear from the case study that Alistair knows the contract is unorthodox. The problem he faces is whether he should overlook the bribe or report it to the board. The board of directors expects Alistair to tell the truth and report the bribe because of: his position as Chief Legal Officer, the board has a very strong ethics policy and they are wary of unethical activities.

Ethics and moral obligations are issues we all encounter at one time or another. In the professional setting, all people should act in a manner that would uphold the good of society. To be ethical, one has to determine their obligations, moral ideas, and moral philosophy (Boatright, p. 19, 2009). The case analysis involving Jacob Franklin was a perfect example of how an individual can face the dilemma of doing what is right or wrong. Businesses have their own code of ethics, and the employees within the business have to determine whether or not they will follow the company’s code of conduct. I will discuss several ethical issues in the case analysis including; failure to report information, remaining silent regarding faulty equipment,

Bribery weakens competition and diminishes free trade which can affect companies, shareholders, and stakeholders. Jacob Franklin knowingly extended bribes to governments and contractors while knowing it was against company policy. Jacob engaged in bribery even though he knew it was wrong because he was advised that it was common practice at Richard Drilling. “In 1977, President Carter signed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The law made it illegal to bribe foreign officials. The maximum punishments for violators were set at $100,000 and 5 years in jail. Companies can be fined millions” (Bredeson, 2012, p.301). Not only was extending the bribe against company policy, it was against law and could cost Jacob and Richardson Drilling money and freedom.

Scott Nette in his article "The Home Depot: Too Many Bribes for One Company" describes the case of four purchasing managers caught accepting bribes.

It was clear from the beginning of this case that Campbell and Lorenzo acted unethically and put the company at risk for future investigation and losses of revenue. It was apparent that they were thinking short-term of the goals than having a long-term goals for the company. Campbell was only thinking about what numbers they needed but he was not taking any consideration of the public interest for the company financial state. Cupertino was put into a position that he believed that he

Yes, I think that the payments outlined on pages 12 and 13 should be considered corrupt practices because of the way they were registered in the company’s books -it was in compliance with the FCPA because of the anti-bribery provision and the books and records provision.

an action can't be right if the people who are made happy by it are outnumbered by the people who are made unhappy by it.

The United States has a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in place, which prohibits U.S. firms from bribing foreign officials or business executives. So, if the mining equipment company would move forward with this deal with “cash under the table,” they will breaking a law and their ethical business culture. The possible successful expansion into Mexico will be out-weighed by the unethical ramifications. The unethical behavior will actually hurt them more because they will have to deal with the fines from breaking the law, and they will lose ethical value in their customer’s eyes, which translates to loss of customer profits. I would not go along with the unethical deal, I would simply keep lobbying with the government to get the act repealed.

The notion of ethics deals with people’s behaviors within a company. Social responsibility involves a company’s moral obligations and the manner in which the organization makes its decisions. Although ethics and social responsibility are similar on a conceptual basis, each has its own unique characteristics that express their differences and its independence of the other. Ethics and social responsibility have to be present and coincide with one another for a business to be ethically sound.

2. Ethical Issues in Business. It seems that every day in the news we are hearing of new company that has acted at least unethically and possibly illegally in the operation and financial reporting of their company's business dealings. There are many ethical issues in business. One major issue that we see is over and under reporting net income. Companies like to show that every quarter the net income of the business has an increase or profit. In order to show this they adopt unethical or illegal means in the operation and financial reporting. One such method is the indiscriminate use of stock options for employees that enable companies to take employment costs off balance sheet and inflate earnings. With the recent ethical issues we have

Ethical dilemmas are virtually impossible to avoid if you are a participant in the workforce. The definition of an ethical dilemma stands as a situation that challenges two or more “right” values that arise in a conflict (Treviño & Nelson, 2014). As ethical persons, how may we overcome ethical dilemmas and finish on the “right” side? The research mentioned in Trevino’s and Nelson’s book, “Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How to Do It Right,” suggests that preparing for specific ethical challenges before a situation occurs can adequately prepare the workforce to better handle real-world applications when an ethical situation transpires. The notion that ethics is teachable inspires the following case analysis. The case analysis involving chemical safety will discuss the facts and issues, stakeholders, decision alternatives, and real-work constraints. Focusing on each of the previously mentioned topics, I will describe the applications using Utilitarian, Kantian Ethics, and Rawlsian Justice Analysis’s.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles correlated to human behavior concerning the rightness and wrongness of specific conduct, and to the good and bad that influences and ends those actions (Ditonary.com, 2011). In other words, ethics is the choice people effect in regards to a decision they need to achieve. Without ethics directing the choice an individual makes, moral preferences of what should or should not be done becomes irrelevant. While ethical decisions are made every day there are two different regions in which these choices are made.

This does not set a good example for the employees and can be harmful to the future of the company. Ensuring that bribery stops can solve many of the problems discussed above. Some feasible solutions are being recommended to help the company in both short term and long term. First of all, all employees including managers should be given training and education about bribery, corruption and what’s deemed illegal according to the law. Explicit measures should be suggested on how they can avoid supporting corruption and also where they can report to in case a situation where dishonesty is involved arises.