Description
You are the ethics officer of a marketing firm. The company prides itself on only engaging in ethical business practices. In order to ensure that all of its employees understand corporate ethical policy, new employees must attend an ethics training as part of the onboarding process. Additionally, every employee must attend an annual ethics training. These ethical training programs are developed by the marketing firm’s ethics officer (you), the marketing firm’s human resources (HR) director, and an outside consulting firm.
In a joint development session, the team works through the training development materials that will be presented at this year’s two-day ethics training session. This year, the focus is on two primary topics: employees’ rights and responsibilities in the workplace and employer’s ethical responsibilities toward employees. In addition, hypothetical ethical scenarios are developed to evaluate the employees’ understanding of company ethical standards, general ethical decision-making, and desired courses of action.
REQUIREMENTS
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. An originality report is provided when you submit your task that can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
A. Take on the role of the ethics officer in the scenario and address the following:
1. Describe three rights and responsibilities of employees based on the scenario.
2. Evaluate two ethical responsibilities of the employer within the context of the employer/employee relationship described in the scenario.
3. Develop one ethical business dilemma that can be used to demonstrate employee understanding of the company’s ethical standards.
4. Evaluate the dilemma from part A3 from a utilitarian and relativistic perspective.
5. Describe two common ethical decisions that reflect corporate ethics and responsibilities that employees can face while working in a corporate setting.
Note: These should be different from the ethical business dilemma in part A3.
6. Explain why each ethical decision in part A5 presents an ethical dilemma and how an individual might justify unethical behavior (e.g., common excuses).
B. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
C. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
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Olamide Badero
Western Gorvernor University
Business Ethics
1/7/2024
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Ethics Discussion
1. Describe Three Rights and Responsibilities 0f Employees Based on The Scenario
In a marketing firm committed to ethical business practices, employees possess
certain rights essential to maintaining a workplace built on integrity. Firstly, employees can
operate safely and ethically without harassment or discrimination. This encompasses
protection from compromising situations that could undermine their personal or professional
integrity. Additionally, employees hold the right to access comprehensive ethical training and
resources. Moreover, employees are encouraged to report anything they consider unethical
without fear of retaliation to reinforce a tone that the organization is committed to, where
everybody is accountable and transparent (Twin, 2023). This gives people a reason to
conduct themselves in good faith while maintaining the organization’s ethical standards.
However, this is opposed to employees being responsible for conducting their
business according to the code of ethics, making decisions according to the enterprise’s
principles, and not having any conflicting interests. They are also supposed to participate
fully and attend ethical training sessions, contribute to moral discussions, and put knowledge
learned in an ethically practical manner. Lastly, the employees are responsible for reporting
any ethical concerns promptly and using appropriate channels to keep the company’s ethical
culture alive (Zhang et al., 2021). In acknowledging these rights and responsibilities, the
employees recognize their role in fostering a workplace culture anchored in trust, integrity,
and ethical conduct.
2. Evaluate Two Ethical Responsibilities of The Employer Within The Context of the
Employer/Employee Relationship Described in the Scenario.
In this regard, ethical responsibility regarding the employer-employee relationship for
this marketing firm relates to the issue of providing a safe working environment. The
employer should be able to handle problems emanating from harassment and through policies
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and practices that ensure employee safety (Bowie, 2020). This comprises fostering a culture
of inclusiveness and providing resources for employees to work through ethical challenges.
By creating an environment within which people would feel safe and supported, the employer
sets a way for following moral norms and increasing employees’ morale and, thereby,
workforce productiveness.
An ethical employer must first render and be transparent about all employment
practices. This involves maintaining equity at every stage of the employee lifecycle, from
recruitment to promotions and disciplinary actions. The decision-making should be fair with
no favoritism and biased approaches, which build trust and contribute to employees’ sense of
justice. By respecting and promoting these principles, the employer respects the ethical
standards relating to these principles and promotes an overall positive culture within the
corporate organization where the employees would be satisfied and committed (Twin, 2023).
Ultimately, these ethical responsibilities lay down the employers’ role in creating an
environment that respects integrity, equality, and transparency.
3. Develop One Ethical Business Dilemma That Can Be Used to Demonstrate Employee
Understanding of The Company’s Ethical Standards.
In the dynamic marketing world, an employee faces a challenging ethical dilemma.
There is a long-term client that brings splendid financial benefit from the firm. Still, he wants
his marketing team to create a prominent promotion campaign that would overestimate the
benefit of the product the client manufactures. The customer says these are usual tactics
common for the industry, needed to stay a runner. On the other hand, the employee
understands that in case he agreed to fulfil this request, he would break company policies which enhances the fact that he was straight with his behaviour throughout the field, where
such values as strict ethical standards, honesty, clearness, integrity were always taken into
account (Peterdy, 2022). As the firm faces considerable financial implications in this
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situation, saying no could put the client relationship at risk, resulting in a financial hit to the
marketing firm and possible job insecurity for the employee.
This ethical dilemma pushes the employees to toe the thin line between remaining
faithful to principles of ethics guided by the company’s principles and the firm’s financial
interests. It, therefore, provokes thoughts on keeping clients while ensuring a stable financial
system and still upholding a commitment to ethically based marketing practices in the
company (Bowie, 2020). In this case, the employees get to show whether they perceive the
established ethical norm of an organization and their ability to make moral decisions under a
harsh corporate environment.
4. Evaluate The Dilemma From Part A3 From A Practical And Relativistic Perspective.
Practical Perspective:
From a practical perspective, the employee facing the client’s unethical request must
weigh the potential consequences for all stakeholders involved. In this case, a pragmatic
solution will maximize happiness and minimize harm. This may result in the marketing firm
fulfilling the client’s request and hence getting short-term financial gains, keeping jobs intact,
and retaining the client. However, the fallout of this act will be manifold, ranging from loss
of the firm’s reputation to low employee morale and increasing attrition (Zhang et al., 2021).
On the other extreme, refusal from the client may create some financial loss in the short run,
but it saves the integrity of the company and retains the trust of the clients and employees.
Hence, this would involve the practical evaluation of the critical analysis of the minute
differences regarding short-term gains and long-term well-being for all parties.
Relativistic Perspective:
From the relativistic perspective, the employee must consider the cultural and industry
perspectives concerning marketing practices. Relativism acknowledges that ethical standards
may differ from one culture or industry to another. However, it also recognizes that some
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principles, like honesty and transparency, might be universal. The employee has to tread the
path of balancing between the ways and means of the marketing people and, at the same time,
maintaining the company’s ethical stances. This requires submitting relativistic scrutiny,
demanding that the relativized moral values within the marketing industry are more nuanced.
5. Describe Two Everyday Ethical Decisions That Reflect Corporate Ethics And
Responsibilities Employees Can Face While Working In A Corporate Setting.
Employees who often encounter ethical decisions significantly influence their
professional conduct in a corporate setting. One of the scenarios is blowing the whistle on the
firm’s unethical practice. Workers bear the moral conflict of exposing corruption, fraud, or
environmental infractions by blowing the whistle and setting the same corporate values they
should uphold against worrying about potential retaliation or loss of employment (Peterdy,
2022). This decision means carefully balancing the higher ethical responsibility of truth
disclosure and protecting the company’s integrity.
Another major ethical issue revolves around the conflicts of interest in making
decisions. In some cases, employees can be caught up between the individual’s conflicting
personal interests, just like in the case of relationships or financial ties and those of the
company and its stakeholders. Resolving such conflicts requires a delicate balance through
compelling employees to choose between individual gain towards individual responsibility
and corporate responsibility as a collective (Bowie, 2020). Ethical decision-making calls for a
close assessment of the possible impacts on the business’s reputation, trust, and overall moral
standings. These daily ethical decisions underscore the complex terrain on which employees
operate within an organizational setting, their values colliding with professional duties that
require reflection in terms of ramifications both in individual and corporate terms.
6. Explain Why Each Ethical Decision in Part A5 Presents a Moral Dilemma and How
an Individual Might Justify Unethical Behavior (E.G., Common Excuses).
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The ethical dilemma in A5 arises from the conflicting values of the company’s
commitment to ethical standards versus the financial interests of a significant client. The
moral dilemma lies in the potential consequences of fulfilling or refusing the client’s request
for a marketing campaign, which might be considered unethical (Bowie, 2020). The
employee has to steer through the muddy waters to maintain the company’s integrity while
taking care of the immediate financial stability and job security attached to the relationship
with the client.
People may want to rationalize their unethical behaviour with easy justifications,
mainly influenced by external pressures and internal motivations. According to Michigan
State University (2023), financial pressures and fear of losing a job can justify the employee’s
unethical behaviour because he is just looking for instant stability. The other rationalizations
for shortages of ethical standards also include loyalty to the client and good long-term
relationship reasons. The need to have positive outcomes like money may justify the means
for these actions.
These are generic excuses and use the kind of psychological defenses that people
employ to make conflicting values manageable. If an individual is faced with such problems,
they ought to be able to critically examine those excuses to make a sound ethical decision that
respects the organization’s values and guiding principles.
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References
Bowie, N. E. (2020). Business ethics. In New Directions in Ethics (pp. 158-172). Routledge.
Michigan State University. (2023, April 19). 5 Common ethical issues in the workplace.
Michigan State University.
https://www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/resources/leadership/commonethical-issues-in-the-workplace/
Peterdy, K. (2022, October 26). Ethical Dilemma. Corporate Finance Institute.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/esg/ethical-dilemma/
Twin, A. (2023, March 17). Business ethics: Definition, principles, why they’re important.
Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-ethics.asp
Zhang, S., Jiang, L., Magnan, M., & Su, L. N. (2021). Dealing with ethical dilemmas: A look
at financial reporting by firms facing product harm crises. Journal of Business Ethics,
170, 497-518.
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