The Attitudes and Values on the Part of Business That Leads to Unethical Behaviours

Absent or poorly written codes of conduct are the reason for unethical conduct in organizations. Just look at the recent outbreak of unethical events with Wells Fargo, Enron and Volkswagen (McLaverty & McKee, 2016). Companies and their upper management push for better profits and forget to create a strong ethical culture. Creating large incentives for employees and management for achieving lofty targets create an environment for people to act unethical to meet their numbers. In 2016, Wells Fargo associates opened over 1.4 million accounts without their customers even knowing about the account (Goldfarb, 2017).

A multitude of factors influence unethical decision making and behaviors such as employment, dissatisfaction with wages and benefits, etc. In the case of Crestview, it is the organizational culture of getting the job done at any cost, which encourages disregard for ethical considerations in the interest of achieving outcomes (Holzer & Schwester, 2011).

An organization’s culture is based off the shared values and beliefs that are shaped by the organization and its managers. It is this culture that dictates the manner in which employees are to conduct themselves within the organization. Therefore, a culture that creates an environment that influences the employees to act unethically will allow them to do so without thinking of the outcome of their

Beliefs, attitudes and values are three little words that have and make a massive impact on who we are as individuals, who we are as people, and even how the world is viewed by ourselves and others. A belief is something that individuals or groups think, such as believing in a god. Where a Value would be the living life in the ways a religion expects, this value will be made from the belief that the person or group has in their God. The attitude towards this would be the feelings, beliefs and behaviour tendencies towards this, for example praying, reading the holy book,

Businesses use workplace ethics to manage the behavior of the employees. Workplace ethics control management’s moral decisions and keep companies out of any type legal trouble. Some businesses break down their ethics in an official company code of ethics. Employees of companies that have no official code should rely on their personal ethics that they were taught and have learned. Ethics is defined as a moral philosophy or code of morals practiced by a person or group of people. In the workplace, ethics keeps the employers and the employees from doing the wrong thing. So when an employer or employee demonstrates unethical behavior what is the outcome? In December 2015, Fortune listed “The 5 Biggest Corporate Scandals of 2015”. Some

The movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” presented a series of ethical dilemmas that surround a group of salesmen working for a real estate company. The value of business ethics was clearly undermined and ignored in the movie as the salesmen find alternatives to keep their jobs. The movie is very effective in illustrating how unethical business practices can easily exist in the business world. Most of the time, unethical business practices remain strong in the business world because of the culture that exists within companies. In this film, the sudden demands from management forced employees to become irrational and commit unethical business practices. In fear of losing their jobs, employees were pressured to increase sales despite possible ethical

I have witnessed unethical practices in business at almost every level of an organization. I find it absolutely deplorable, especially when the person committing unethical actions is a person in a leadership position. They are supposed to set higher standards for the up and coming employees below them. It hinders the growth and sustainability of the company and poisons the eminence of their employees. When an organization achieves excellence by establishing and marketing ethical practices, a few bad eggs can tarnish a hard earned, pristine image. Once you lose a good reputation, it’s an uphill battle to restore

Brickman and Sims evaluate the result of how unethical behavior can affect the organizational culture. The article is credible because if demonstrates the effects of negative and unethical behavior on an organization and how to counter act them. Robert Sims is an author, Floyd Dewey Gottwald Senior Professor of Business Administration at Mason School of Business and has a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University. Johannes Brickman Professor in the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Norwegian School of Management BI, Sofienberg, Oslo, Norwayship. Their backgrounds in leadership, business, ethics and business assist them to be specialist in their field and credible sources for research. This paper shows

“Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations, feeling, and tendencies that individuals harbor toward objects or concepts” (Wild). As the book mentions, attitudes are similar to values, these are formed according to a culture background and varies from country to country.

(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.

Values are described as, “the importance we attribute to ourselves, another person, idea, or thing ” (Saldana, 2013; p.111). Attitudes are “the way we think and feel about ourselves, another person, idea, or thing ” (Saldana, 2013; p.111). Beliefs are a part of a system which “includes values and attitudes, plus our personal knowledge, experience, opinions ” (Saldana, 2013; p.111). This approach was chosen because it can be used to determine cultural values, identity, intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences.

Today, business ethics is one of the most important topics in discussion. With recent scandals come to the public of huge corporations, the public has lost its trust of businesses and require ethics be important to companies. Ethics, however, is not based solely on individual employees. In order for companies to comply with ethical standards, teamwork is necessary between the employees and the organization as a whole to create an ethical company culture that guides the actions of all members in an organization.

The purpose or aim of every organization is to establish such an organizational culture and behavior among its employees that helps in achievement of ideal ethical standards. There are certain determinants that play a critical role in helping achieve the right organizational culture. Some of these include personal moral intensity, social ties, codes of ethics, locus of control and Machiavellianism. These

Every organization also has a profession responsibility to conduct business honestly and ethically. Our readings reported, “Experts estimated that U.S. companies lose about $600 billion a year from unethical and criminal behavior” Kinicki and Kreitner (2009). The organization could avoid having ethical issues by meeting the

How do ethical values shape behavior in organizations? According to Saleem (2014), ethical values and behaviors of an organization are made up of organizations institutionalized philosophies along with the moral ideologies of its members. In addition, the codes of ethics help to enhance the moral reasoning of employees while shaping their behaviors towards morally questioning unethical situations. Organizational leaders are encouraged to build cultures of trust with leadership who establish concerning goals employees pursue y setting examples for others to follow (Crosbie, 2008). The leaders whom are able to build training and development throughout their organization helps design and build relationships characterized by collaborative behaviors those results in mutually beneficial outcomes (Crosbie, 2008).