This document discusses many ethical issues that businesses may face. It covers topics such as integrity, diversity, decision making, compliance with laws, discrimination, unsafe working conditions, whistleblowing, accounting practices, privacy, favoritism, leadership behavior, misuse of company time, abusive behavior, lying, and theft. Maintaining integrity, respecting diversity, complying with laws, and treating employees fairly are some of the most fundamental ethical issues for businesses. Upholding high ethical standards is important for building trust with customers, employees and the community.

1. GROUP MEMBERS :
ASSESSOR :
•

2. Fundamental Issues
The most fundamental that businesses
must face are integrity and trust.
Integrity includes the idea of
conducting every customer fairly.
Relationship of trust between you and
your customers may be a key factor in
your company's success.

3. Diversity Issues
 Your potential employees are deserve to
have their differences respected when they
choose to work at your business.
 Begins with recruiting a diverse
workforce, enforces equal opportunity in
all training programs.
 Employee is able to enjoy a respectful
workplace environment that values their
contributions.

4. Decision-Making Issues
 Method for exploring ethical dilemmas and
identifying ethical courses of action
includes :
1. collecting the facts
2. evaluating any alternative actions
3. making a decision
4. testing the decision for fairness and
reflecting on the outcome.

5. Compliance and Governance
Issues
Businesses are expected to fully
comply with environmental laws,
federal and state safety regulations,
fiscal and monetary reporting statutes
and all applicable civil rights laws.
For example:

6. Discrimination in the Workplace
• Every business needs to be aware of anti-
discrimination laws and regulations.
• A business owner doesn't need to receive a
complaint from an employee or customer to be
fined for violating the Americans with
Disabilities Act.

7. Unsafe Working Conditions
 Employees have a right to safe working
conditions based on regulations outlined in the
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.

8. Whistleblowing or Social Media Rants
 Business owners must respect employees who
are deemed whistleblowers to either regulatory
authorities or on social media.
 Employees are encouraged and cannot be
penalized for raising awareness of workplace
violations.

9. Accounting Practices
 A business must maintain accurate
bookkeeping practices.
 The oil giant, Enron was exposed in 2001 for
"cooking the books" to misrepresent profits.
The deception affected stockholder prices, and
many public shareholders lost huge amounts of
money because of the ethics violation.

10.  The company went bankrupt as a result, and
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was
established to protect public shareholders
with stricter financial reporting laws. Even
small privately held companies must keep
accurate financial records.

11. Nondisclosure and Corporate Espionage
 Employers are at risk of employees and former
employees stealing information.
 Employers may require employees to sign
nondisclosure agreements with stiff financial
penalties to discourage these types of ethics
violations.
 Biggest violations of corporate espionage
exists with manufacturers who outsource
technology products.

12. Employee Behavior and Legal Issues
There are legal consequences for some unethical
employee behavior. For example:
 A supervisor discriminated against an
employee based on her gender, religion or
ethnicity when making recommendations for a
promotion, legal action could be sought.

13. Employee Working Conditions
Ethical issues business people must consider
about employee working conditions. For
example:
 Employers must be aware of the safety of their
work environment and if they have
compensated employees for all the time they
have worked.
 For example, an employer who requires an
employee to work without pay or who creates
an unsafe working environment can face legal
action.

14. Supplier/Customer Relations
 Business owners in particular must consider
whether it is ethical to do business with
suppliers who have unethical practices.
 Use information correctly, do not falsely
advertise a product or service, and do not
intentionally do sub-standard work.

15. Small Business Ethics
 Ethical issues like discrimination that apply to
all areas of business, each business area has its
own ethical concerns.
 For example, business people who act as
consultants must ensure they are giving sound
advice. In the area of small business, some
major ethical issues result from hiring, firing
and dealing with employees.

16. Social Media Use
 Is an important business marketing tool,
and it's likely an integral part of
employees' lives.
 The evolving nature of social media
means that it's becoming harder to
distinguish between personal and
professional in a social media setting.

17. Technology and Privacy Concerns
 Business owner might run into the ethical issue
of how much privacy an employee can expect
when on a company device
 Employees should have a clear understanding
of privacy they have when using a company-
owned device.

18. Travel Ethics
 Some businesses require both leadership and
employees to travel on the company dime.
 Ethical issues can result when someone takes
advantage of travel policies.
 Examples include using an allotted per diem to
purchase alcohol when it's stated in the
employee manual that it's not allowed.

19. Employee Favoritism
 The owner of an organization to have
employees that they enjoy working with more
than others
 There can be ethical issues if the person in a
position of leadership shows favoritism to an
employee without any merit behind it.

20. Bad Leadership Behavior
 Employee who exhibits unethical behavior, but
the owner or head of the company.
 Putting rules in place for employees but not
following them yourself is an example of an
ethical issue in the workplace.

21.  Even though federal and state laws require
workers to receive equal pay for performing
similar work regardless of gender, race, age,
ethnicity, disability or religion, the problem
still persists in many industries.

22.  In the wake of corporate scandals involving
unethical accounting practices from publicly
traded companies, including Enron and Tyco,
many consumers are justifiably distrustful of
investing in businesses.

23.  Comments regarding employers or coworkers
posted on social networking websites are
costing employees jobs across the country.
 The ethical and legal challenges surrounding
the use of social media.
 Consequences in the workplace affects the
business industry as a whole because
employers across the nation are setting policies
regarding employee use of these websites while
working.

24.  Maintaining professional workplace
relationships between employees is a
continuing challenge for employers regardless
of the industry.
 Become more difficult when the image
companies choose to project has a significant
sexual charge.
 Creates an ethical dilemma about what
images companies use to sell products and the
conduct expected of employees in the

25. Violating Company Internet Policies
 Cyber slackers. Cyber loafers.
 To identify people who surf the internet when they
should be working.
 This is a huge, multi-billion-dollar problem for
companies.

26. Misuse of company time
 Someone who shows up late or altering a time
sheet, misusing company time tops the list.
 Co-worker is conducting personal business on
company time.
 By “personal business” the survey recognizes
the difference between making cold calls to
advance your freelance business and calling a
spouse to find out how your sick child is doing.
Misuse of company time is unethical.

27. Abusive Behavior
 Too many workplaces are filled with leaders
who use their position and power to mistreat
others.
 Unfortunately, unless the situation involves
race, gender or ethnic origin, there is often little
to no legal protection against abusive behavior
in the workplace.
 Abusive behavior is unethical.

28. Lying to Employees
The fastest way to lose the trust of your employees is to
lie to them. If you ask employees whether their manager
or supervisor has lied to them within the past year, you
may be surprised at the results. Lying is unethical.
Employee Theft
Whether its check tampering, not recording sales in
order to skim, or manipulating expense
reimbursements, employee theft is a crime and
unethical.