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Introduction
Ethics has become an integral part of any business due to the prevalence of interpersonal relationships that span multiple cultures, genders, and socioeconomic strata. As the domain of interpersonal communication enlarges, ethical issues are growing in number. Therefore, it is essential to consider business ethics as the required framework for making unbiased and sound decisions in the workplace. Participating in ethical misconduct and a failure to report such a case by a third party have the power to cause irreparable damage to workplace operations. This paper will describe an example scenario, its implications, and potential ways to avoid it.
Description
Ethical dilemmas may occur anywhere in the workplace, starting from compensation strategy to communications. One major example is unethical leadership facilitated by a subordinate’s failure to report misconduct. For instance, a senior manager may use the company’s financial resources for personal needs while an accountant does not report this unethical behavior (Schwartz, 2017). Unscrupulous leadership may manifest itself in much subtler forms than the provided example (LaMontagne, 2016). The principle, however, stays the same – a manager gets involved in fraudulent activity, and the employee who witnessed the event does not notify the relevant bodies about the case. As a result, a dilemma occurs – the employee may not want to report to avoid confrontation, but neglect may cause financial losses to the company.
Ethical Trap
Deciding on whether or not to report misconduct may lead to an ethical trap. Such a situation consists of two interrelated ethical decisions made by a reporting party (Schwartz, 2017). For instance, a subordinate may decide not to report their manager’s fraudulent use of financial resources. Later, however, an external audit reveals that funds have been used to sponsor criminal activities. In this case, the employee may or may not report that their manager is responsible for this misconduct. Either decision leads to an ethical trap – if the employee decides to protect their manager, they may face a criminal charge when the truth is revealed. However, if the employee decides to inform, then they will be asked why they did not report upon the first observation. Ethical traps are challenging to escape when the first ethical decision is wrong. Therefore, it is imperative always to make favorable ethical decisions.
Possible Ways of Avoiding
Learning how to make ethical decisions is the obvious way of avoiding ethical dilemmas. However, Schwartz (2017) states that learning may lose its efficacy if not facilitated by specific factors. He suggests that personal context and corporate environment are the most significant influencers of ethical decisions (Schwartz, 2017). A personal setting may lead to a moral vulnerability when the individual understands that an activity is not ethical but decides to involve due to a need for gain (Schwartz, 2017). It can be derived that an appropriate compensation and motivation strategy, which are the building blocks of a corporate environment, may facilitate ethical decision-making.
Conclusion
Ethical dilemmas are ubiquitous and knowing how to make favorable decisions is critical in the contemporary business environment. Failure to make an ethical decision once may subsequently lead to traps that are difficult to escape. Therefore, it is imperative always to make ethical and sound choices. To address the factors contributing to fraudulent decision-making, a company may devise its compensation strategy to meet employees’ personal needs. Workers should always be motivated to make favorable choices by a proper reward and sanction system.
References
LaMontagne, R. M. (2016). Ethical dilemmas in the workplace: HR managers’ perceptions of behavioral influences with implications for building an ethical culture in organizations. International Journal of Knowledge, Culture & Change in Organizations: Annual Review, 15, 9-21.
Schwartz, M. S. (2017). Business ethics: An ethical decision-making approach. John Wiley & Sons.
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