Unethical Business Practices in Glengarry Glen Ross

The author Robert Solomon argues that ethics has to an integral part with regard to business management. He does not believe that business management must include unethical or illegal methods to be able to succeed. Solomon preaches that business management is not as simple as obtaining revenue. “Businesses need to abide by fair policies and their owners have to be ethical in dealing with their customers” (Shaw p. 37). The author acknowledges that while illegal practices in business management could bring positive results at first, eventually the business is bound to fail. This is why Solomon recommended eight important policies that can help businesses in integrating ethics into their operations.

In a perfect world, businesses and their employees would always do the right thing. Unfortunately,

The art of deception played a key role in fooling customers. The “ordinary people” at the New York City law firms were bound by an oath to abide a rigorous code of ethics (Callahan 33). Though these lawyers dealt with legal affairs of America’s largest companies, they were faced with not meeting year end billing requirements. In the most desperate cases of being downsized, lawyers turned to padding their hours by simply making up the numbers. They rounded up their hours and added in miscellaneous hours which was described as the “new math” (Callahan 39). “Let me tell you how you will start acting unethically…One

Management is often faced with ethical dilemmas that have no clear cut correct answer. In our case study, (1)Desperate Air, George Nash, Vice President of Real Estate faces a conflict of values similar to the CEO in Seglin’s article, “How to Make Tough Ethical Calls”. They both want to tell the truth and they want to protect their companies, their investors, their employees, and their own livelihood. Neither Mr. Nash nor the CEO conducted a through examination of the problem they faced. I believe the decision to remain silent made by both Nash and the CEO to be short sighted, based solely on short term profit, and would not have been the route I would have taken.

Glengarry Glen Ross and Death of a Sales man were two extraordinary plays that were released decades ago and are still the basis of many conversations and debates today. The main protagonists in these plays are Shelley Levene; a middle aged sales man who was once very successful in his line of work, and Willy Lowman; a 62-year-old salesman who has been chasing after the American Dream his whole life. These two shared a lot of similarities, the main one being that they are not tragic heroes. Many writers have debated over the past decades whether or not Shelley and Willy are meant to be tragic heroes. From the views of Aristotle and Miller, they are not tragic heroes.

An ethical dilemma happens in the workplace more often then we expect. World Class Bull, written by John Humphreys, Zafar U. Ahmed and Mildred Pryor, is a prime example of how sales personnel can manipulate a potential client into a contract. Christopher Knox, a stellar sales employee at Specialty Fleet Services (SFS), just landed the Armadillo Gas & Power account. Samantha Williams, Human Resources Vice President of SFS, was now filing a breach of the company code of ethics against Christopher and the Vice President of Sales, Jeremy Silva for “deceptive business practices” used to make the sale (Humphreys, Ahmed & Pryor, 2009). Disrupting personal space of the client, starting a dishonorable relationship, and

Stakeholders-investors, customers, interest groups, employees, the legal system, and the community often determine whether a specific behavior is right or wrong, ethical or unethical. Judgments of these groups influence society’s acceptance or rejection of a business and it’s activities.

The problem to be investigated is the application of business ethics. In the business world, ethics are extremely important. Ethics are prime elements that help a business to grow and to become more productive. It is by applying proper business ethics that a business can operate in a moral or ethical business environment and managed to conduct all activities in a manner that maximizes profits while not compromising all other non-economic concerns(Schwab, 1996). Businesses have over the years failed to nurture business ethics in order to fulfill shareholders' interests and to have a culture that is oriented towards profit maximization and high performance(Jennings, 2012; Sims & Felton, 2006). This has led business to have gray areas in their activities. Gray areas are those situations or problems that do not fit exactly into any ethical analysis. These are the activities which may be represented to be immoral as a result of lying and false representations on the part of the business.

This will be an over view of ethics as it relates to business in our society. Concepts from Philosophy will seek to describe the correlation between actions that are classified as morally right or ethical in our dealings with each other as human beings. Clear and concise examples will be given as well as ways in which to improve upon business ethics.

According to Johnson (2012) leaders are powerful role models, and policies will have a little effect if leaders do not follow the rules they set. In Enron case, corruption and ethical misconduct were deeply embedded in their business culture where profitability was more important than ethics. In this paper, I will address the factors that had led to the development of the culture of profit before principle at Enron. Also, I will create my personal code of ethics that will guide me in my professional and personal decision making and doing the right thing when faced with ethical challenges.

1. The management of the real estate office in Glengarry Glen Ross" engages in several to arguably, many unethical practices as part of their business. The threat that agents will be fired if they do not make sales is unethical, but not necessarily illegal. It is unethical to put that undue stress on the agents, but more than that, it is unethical to passive aggressively disguise being fired as a prize, as Alex Baldwin's characters says that first prize is a Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives and third prize is to get fired.

In today’s society crime occurs everyday across all aspects of life. One particular crime is that of white collar and corporate level crime. It is important that we as a society study this type of crime in depth because many individuals believe that white collar and corporate level crimes are victimless crimes when in reality they have the potential to destroy major corporations and economies all with one single case. The news or media rarely talk about this type of crime because it is often difficult to understand and individuals typically lack interest in these types of cases. One particular case is that of Jordan Belfort. Dubbed the infamous “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort is a former stockbroker who robbed investors of over $200 million dollars to create his wealth through “pump and dump” schemes, insider trading, money laundering securities fraud, and stock-market manipulation. As an attempt to further understand these complex cases I will break down Belfort’s case as far as the methods and means as to how he got started, his use of “pump and dump” schemes and other means as to how he acquired his wealth. In addition to this I will discuss the sanctions and disciplinary action that Jordan Belfort was given, how the case affected society and what new regulations were

(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.

The case of Enric Duran is not within the stereotypical remit of Business ethics. Nevertheless, the ethical implications and the outcomes of Duran’s actions highlight some potential intrinsic flaws that are present in the current state of affairs that govern businesses and how they impact the general well-being of society. There is no negating that the economic activist, who in 2009 went into hiding to avoid the repercussions of his actions, has broken the law and in no way, can ethical theories such as Kantian deontology, shareholder and stakeholder views condone his actions. However, without committing an appeal to the quoque fallacy, the points made by Duran in an interview with Vice Magazine whilst evading capture in Italy suggest the

In their personal and professional lives, people can and, unfortunately, sometimes do go against their moral and ethical standards. Ethical standards are what it means to be a good person, the social rules that govern our behavior. Ethics in business is essentially the study of what constitutes the right and wrong or the good or bad behavior in the workplace environment. A business is an organization whose objective is to provide goods or services for profit. The organization has a group of people that work together to achieve a common purpose. The moral challenges that these men and women face each day along with a whole range of problems that could occur, are why ethics plays such an important