Ethical Issues

Ethical Issues

Takisha Gause

MGT 216

April 12, 2010

Professor William Love

Ethical Issues

Business ethics is the behavior that a business/organization must adhere to in its daily dealings with the world. The ethics of a particular business/organization can be diverse and needs take into consideration morality, ethics reasoning, and ethics applications. Ethical issues such conflicts of interest, discrimination, and sexual harassment is just so issues that business/organization has gone through.

Collins (1969) stated (Conflicts of interest occurs, when individuals must choose between taking actions that promote their personal interests over the interests of others or taking actions that do not.) One of the largest and widely known conflict of interest examples is Arthur Anderson and Enron. His conflict of interest was made by him acquiring multiple roles, making the accounting firm not able to be objective in their actions because too much of it livelihood depended on keeping the business on top.

Discrimination is another ethical issue that may occur in a business/organization. Discrimination occurs whenever something other than qualifications affects how an employee is treated (Trevino & Nelson, 2007). Race, religion, or gender can regularly be the source of discrimination in several businesses/organizations. An example of discrimination was back in 2001 when six Wal-Mart employees filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging systematic gender-based discrimination in pay and promotions for hourly associates and salaried employees in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Millman, 2007,).. The case goes on to state that the case could involve up to 1.6 million former and current employees--and the potential damages are formidable.

Sexual harassment is an additional ethical issue that may come about in a business/organization. Sexual harassment is defined as an unwelcomed sexually oriented behavior that makes someone feel...