Moral choices are pivotal moments where individuals navigate between conflicting values or principles, determining their actions based on considerations of integrity, justice, compassion, and the greater good. These decisions shape personal character and contribute to the moral fabric of society.

1. Unit 5
A. Moral Choices

2. Coverage
• Obligations to the firms – Loyalty to the company, Conflicts of interest
• Abuse of official position – Insider trading, proprietary data, Bribes
and kickbacks
• Gifts and entertainments
• Obligations to third party

3. Moral Choices
• Moral choice is committing to act for what one believes is right and
good.
• It is less about what we know than about defining who we are.
• A moral decision is a choice made based on a person's ethics,
manners, character and what they believe is proper behavior.

4. Good Morale
• Honesty: being truthful and sincere.
• Integrity: sticking to your moral and ethical principles and values.
• Kindness: being considerate and treating others well.
• Perseverance: persisting in a course of action, belief or purpose,
determination.
• Politeness: using good manners, acting in socially acceptable ways.

5. Moral Choices - Approaches
• The approaches suggested for analyzing moral choice situations
include:
1. Identify the outcomes of available alternative courses of action;
2. Rule out strategies that involve deception, coercion, reneging on
promises, collusion, and contempt for others;
3. Be authentic (do not deceive yourself);

6. Moral Choices - Approaches
4. Relate to others on a human basis;
5. Downplay rational justifications;
6. Match the solution to the problem, not the other way around;
7. Execute on the best solution, do not hold out for the perfect one; and
8. Take action to improve the choice after it has been made.

7. Obligations to the Firm
• Employees Duty to the Firm Harmony between employees and
employers is only possible only when there is no selfishness in the
relationship.
• There are a lot of employers or firms obligation to an employee.
• But for every employer’s obligation there is also a corresponding
obligation or responsibility of employee to the employer.

8. Obligations to the Firm
• While employers give what is just and right, employees should also be
obedient.
• An employee should be respectful while an employer should not
delay the giving of wages and salaries.
• Because delaying of wages is one way of oppressing the right of an
employee.

9. Obligations to the Firm
• An employee or worker should be sincere in rendering services, while
employer should pay wages on time.
• From the utility worker, to the clerk, up to the CEO, mutual respect
must be observed, given our different racial, cultural, and religious
background.

10. Loyalty to the Company
• Employee loyalty to a company refers to employees who are dedicated to
the growth of their company and consider being an employee of the
organization as in their best interest.
• Such employees are faithful to the company; possess strong feelings of
care, responsibility, and bonding.
• The definition of loyalty is the quality of being faithful to someone or
something else.
• An example of loyalty is how someone feels about their country.

11. Loyalty to the Company
• Loyal employees are loyal to the company.
• They work hard for their pay and are committed to
your company's success.
• Loyal employees may someday leave, but while they work for you
they do their best and often even put the company's interests ahead
of their own.
• Remarkably loyal employees hit the next level.

12. Loyalty to the Company
• Employee loyalty can be defined as employees who are devoted to the
success of their organization and believe that being an employee of this
organization is in their best interest.
• Not only do they plan to remain with the organization, but they do not
actively seek for alternative employment opportunities.
• Loyalty tends to encourage employees to do their best work and perform
to their highest of standards.
• If you have loyal employees working for you, then you are going to
have employees who work productively and efficiently.

13. Conflicts of Interest
• A situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are
incompatible.
• A situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal
benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.
• A conflict of interest occurs when a person's or entity's vested
interests raise a question of whether their actions, judgment, and/or
decision-making can be unbiased.

14. Conflicts of Interest
• A conflict of interest occurs when an individual's personal interests –
family, friendships, financial, or social factors – could compromise his
or her judgment, decisions, or actions in the workplace.
• Government agencies take conflicts of interest so seriously that they
are regulated.

15. Conflicts of Interest
Examples of a conflict of interest may include:
• Influencing the recruitment, selection, appointment or promotion of
employees.
• Impinging on employment related decisions where one employee is in
a supervisory relationship to another.

16. Conflicts of Interest in Ethics
• Conflict of interest is an opposition between the private interests and the
official or professional responsibilities of a person in a position of trust,
power, and/or authority.
• It is sufficient for the situation to appear to provide the potential for
professional judgment to be compromised.
• Conflicts of interest are not necessarily unethical, at least until someone
acts on them.
• Avoiding conflicts of interest is necessary because otherwise they are
omens for other corrupt and unethical actions, like fraud or bribery.

17. Conflicts of Interest in Ethics
• Conflicts of interest can lead to harmful misperceptions of scientists
and the scientific enterprise.
• When large sums of money are involved, it may be difficult for the
public, legislators, the judicial system, and even colleagues to be
convinced that results were not biased for personal gain.

18. Ways to Mitigate a Conflict of Interest
• Prevention.
• Public Disclosure.
• Follow Procedure.
• Seek Mediation.
• Awareness.
• Non-Disclosure.

19. Tips for dealing with conflicts of interest
• Establish a process.
• Get the conflict of interest out into the open.
• Training is valuable.
• Declare your interests.
• Think about the conflicts of others.

20. Abuse of Official Position
• Abuse of power or abuse of authority, in the form of "malfeasance in
office" or "official misconduct", is the commission of an unlawful act, done
in an official capacity, which affects the performance of official duties.
• Abuse of power or power harassment is the misuse of authority to take
actions in personal interest that negatively impacts the company and its
employees.
• It's a relative form of workplace bullying but specifically conducted by a
superior.

21. Abuse of Official Position
• The motivations of the abuser are varied and can include devaluation,
envy, personal gain, personal gratification, psychological projection, or
just for the sake of the enjoyment of exercising power and control.
• Controlling abusers use tactics to exert power and control over their
victims.

22. Abuse of Official Position
• Abuse of power occurs when an executive acts in a manner that
manipulates an area of control for personal gain at the expense of the
organization - all the while avoiding basic managerial responsibility.
• Intention may or may not be present.
• The effects can be damaging to morale and to working environment.
• Abuse of power or authority can take various forms.

23. Insider Trading
• The illegal practice of trading on the stock exchange to one's own
advantage through having access to confidential information.
• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defines illegal
insider trading as: "the buying or selling a security, in breach of a
fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, on the
basis of material, nonpublic information about the security."

24. Insider Trading
• Insider trading is defined as a malpractice wherein trade of a company's
securities is undertaken by people who by virtue of their work have access
to the otherwise non public information which can be crucial for making
investment decisions.
• It is illegal in most part of the world including in Nepal.
• Please refer to the following link:
https://www.sharesansar.com/newsdetail/insider-trading-paralyzing-nepali-
capital-market-are-we-supposed-to-just-watch-our-investments-glide-while-
regulators-do-nothing

25. Proprietary Data
• Internally generated data or documents that contain technical or
other types of confidential information controlled by a firm to
safeguard its competitive edge.
• Proprietary data may be protected under copyright, patent, or trade
secret laws.
• Nearly every company has proprietary information stored in their
network, with a third party, or in some kind of document
management system.

26. Proprietary Data
• The definition of proprietary is something owned or a brand or item
protected by intellectual property rights.
• Proprietary information is important, possibly sensitive information that a
company owns.
• This information usually gives the company competitive advantage(s) in its
market.
• Things that can be used, known, produced, manufactured and/or marketed
under the exclusive legal right of the inventor or maker may
be proprietary.

27. Bribes and Kickbacks
• A bribe is usually defined as the giving or receiving of a “thing of value” to
corruptly influence the actions of another, most commonly to influence a
contract award or the execution of a contract.
• A “kickback” is a bribe paid incrementally by the contractor as it is paid.
• The definition of a kickback is slang for a bribe or incentive paid to
someone who helped you make money, or a sudden, forceful recoil.
• When you bid on a job and job is awarded to you and you have to pay
someone $1000 because your received the award, this $1000 payment is
an example of a kickback.

28. Gifts and Entertainments
• Sometimes accepting gifts and amenities may be a proper part of
a business relationship.
• In some situations, however, accepting them may be a serious breach
of business and professional ethics, and perhaps even a violation of
the law.
• In organizations, unsolicited gifts are shared with all employees.

29. Gifts and Entertainments
• A gift is something of value given without the expectation of return;
a bribe is the same thing given in the hope of influence or benefit.
• Gifts and bribes can be actual items, or they can be tickets to a
sporting event, travel, rounds of golf, entertainment packages, or
restaurant meals.

30. Gifts and Entertainments
• Business decisions are supposed to be made on the merits of the
case, not based on whether or not the decision maker has received a
something from one of the parties.
• This is a simple matter of fairness.
• When decision makers take gifts, even if their decision are not
influenced, they give the appearance of being on the take, which
undermines public confidence in the organization.

31. Obligations to Third Party
• You see or observe something truly unacceptable is happening,
you’ve got to determine whether it’s any of your business or concern.
• If something unacceptable is happening and you think you should do
something about it, you’re facing a third-party obligation.
• This is an ethical responsibility to correct something you’re not
actually doing.

32. Obligations to Third Party
• When confronted with a third-party obligation, employees may get
involved for a number of reasons.
• One is as a response to an ethical responsibility.
• Another: as an opportunity to benefit themselves.

33. Obligations to Third Party
Three standard responses to third-party obligations.
• Tattling
• Reporting
• Whistle-Blowing

34. Tattling
• Tattling, is revealing an ethical transgression involving others, and
revealing it for your own benefit.
• Tattling is the act of reporting on someone's rule-breaking behavior
or actions, usually to get that person in trouble.
• But if a child tells a parent or other grown-up about something that is
hurting someone or could cause harm, that is not tattling — that is
helping someone or preventing someone from getting hurt.

35. Reporting
• Reporting ethical transgressions means bringing them to light, but
only within the organization.
• In most situations, this route is the most direct way for third parties
to balance their basic and immediate obligations.

36. Whistle-Blowing
• Whistle-blowing is bringing ethical transgressions to light publicly
outside the organization.
• Whistle-blowing needs careful justification because it requires
violating the obligation any employee has to protect the interests of
the employer.

37. Whistle Blowing
• Whistle-blowing is the act of telling the authorities or the public that the
organization you are working for is doing something immoral or illegal.
• It means calling attention to wrongdoing that is occurring within an
organization.
• Reporting wrongdoing or a violation of the law to the proper authorities.
• Refusing to participate in workplace wrongdoing.

38. Whistle Blowing
There are four ways to blow the whistle:
• Reporting wrongdoing or a violation of the law to the proper authorities
such as a supervisor, a hotline or other authentic authorities,
• Refusing to participate in workplace wrongdoing
• Testifying in a legal proceeding
• Leaking evidence of wrongdoing to the media

39. Whistle Blowing
• Companies should encourage internal whistle blowing so that
problems are solved within the organization before employees feel
they must go outside to get action.
• The same is true for government bodies, which need to know about
problems early.

40. How to encourage internal whistle blowing in
companies
• Create a policy about reporting illegal or unethical practices, which
should include:
• Formal mechanisms for reporting violations, such as hotlines and mailbox.
• Clear communications about the process of voicing concerns, such as a
specific chain of command, or the identification of a specific person to handle
complaints
• Clear communications about bans on retaliation

41. How to encourage internal whistle blowing in
companies
• Get endorsement of the policy from top officials, like BOD and publicize the
organization’s commitment to the process.
• Elected and administrative leadership must encourage ethical behavior and
hold everyone within the organization to the highest standards, including
the disclosure of activities that would have a negative impact on the
public’s business.
• Investigate and follow up promptly on all allegations of misconduct.
• Report on these investigations to the board.

42. Whistle Blowing – Reading Material Link
• https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system
/uploads/attachment_data/file/415175/bis-15-200-whistleblowing-
guidance-for-employers-and-code-of-practice.pdf