Ethics Reflection Paper

Ethics Reflection Paper

STR/581

May 10, 2011

Richard Cronen

Ethics Reflection Paper

Ethics is very essential in regards to not only how one conducts themselves in their day-to-day lives but also plays a key role in business. When organizations and/or businesses are in the works of creating a strategic plan they must take into consideration the role that ethics will play and the idea of social responsibility affecting the plan in order to ensure that the desire and needs of the stakeholders are satisfied.

Ethics in business is the essential tools utilized in order to assist employees of an organization understand how they should conduct themselves accordingly to the standards and values of the organization. When organizations create, a strategic plan they should ensure that it encompasses the expectations of how an employee should conduct themselves and the values of the organization that the employee should ensure to make as a priority (Pearce & Robinson, 2011). Values of the organization will clearly described in their mission and vision statements, which describe the direction, and expectations that the organization and its stakeholders want to go (Pearce & Robinson, 2011). The mission and vision statement sets up the premise from which organizations will develop a strategic plan and goals with ethics being at the center of all decisions made.

A strategic plan is a base line from which a company works from in order establish ethical guidelines, but all organizations must keep in mind that there is a chance that unethical behavior may occur within its employees, that may include management and/or subordinates (Pearce & Robinson, 2011). One example of this that we have all seen is the big scandals of such companies as WorldCom and Enron where high level management were behaving unethically, which therefore tarnished both companies reputation.

Ethics and social responsibility go hand in hand in that both play a critical role in an...