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Business Ethics

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Submitted By trishamay
Words 1769
Pages 8
Republic of the Philippines
Bulacan State University
Sarmiento Campus
Brgy. Kaypian, University Heights, CSJDM

The
Institutionalization of
Business Ethics

Prepared by:
Ramoso, Trisha May
Roxas, Alfredo
Robines, Vanessa
Ragasa, Mylyn

Prepared to:
Mr. Michael Gil Llorens

Date:
August 25, 2013

Managing Ethical Risk through Mandated and Voluntary Programs

VOLUNTARY PRACTICES
Includes:
* Beliefs * Values * Voluntary contractual obligations
CORE PRACTICES Encourage by: * Legal forces & * Regulatory forces
MANDATED BOUNDARIES - imposed boundaries of conduct, such as: * Laws * Rules * Regulations & * Other requirements
Need to maintain in an organization: * Values * Ethical Culture * Expectation for appropriate conduct
Mandated Boundaries is achieved through . . . * Compliance * Corporate Governance * Risk Management & * Voluntary Activities
COMPLIANCE
* The act of complying with a wish, request, or demand
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE * Refers to the system by which corporations are directed and controlled. * Corporate Governance involves balancing the interest of the many stakeholders in the company. * Provides framework of attaining company’s objective.
RISK MANAGEMENT * The process of identification, analysis and either acceptance or mitigation of uncertainty in investment decision-making. * Is a two-step process: (1) determining what risk exists in an investment, (2) handling those risks in a way best-suited to your investment objectives.

VISSION AND VALUES * Provides aspirational guidance.
RULES
* Mandatory compliance in activities.
PRINCIPLES
* Provides guiding sense of right conduct in a situation or dilemma.

Mandated Requirements for Legal Compliance
Laws and Regulations * Are established to set minimum standards for responsible behavior. * Society’s codification of what is right or wrong.
Laws are categorize as either . . . * Civil Law * Criminal Law
Civil Laws * Rights and duties of individuals & organization (including business).
Criminal Laws * Involves prosecution by the government of a person for an act that has been classified as a crime.
Most of the laws and regulations that govern business activities fall into one of five groups:
(1) Regulation of competition,
(2) Protection of consumers,
(3) Promotion of equity and safety,
(4) Protection of the natural environment, and
(5) Incentives to encourage organizational compliance programs to deter misconduct

Laws Regulating Competition
Law in Economics- refers to the application of the methods of economics to legal problems. -law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior.
In economics, competition is the rivalry among sellers trying to achieve such goals as increasing profits, market share, and sales volume by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, distribution, and promotion.
Competition law is law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies.
Regulating Law Competition happens when businesses compete unfairly, legal and social responsibility issues can result. Intense competition sometimes makes manager feel that their company’s very survival is threatened.

Importance of law of competition:
* To protect the consumer’s welfare * Entrepreneur’s right to enter in the market * To deflect the unethical activity

Example Basic Laws that of Competition
The Consumer Act of the Philippines
- The act prescribes conduct for business and industry. It sets penalties for deceptive, unfair and unconscionable sales practices to protect and promote the interest of consumers
The Price Act (1992) It defines and identifies illegal acts of price manipulation such as hoarding, profiteering and cartels.

UNACCEPTABLE PRACTICES OF AN ORGANIZATION:
1. Hoarding of cheaper products to the market-the sales holds the cheaper product and sells the expensive one for the higher profit.
2. Big firms force their supplier to lower their price- it happens when a big firm forces their supplier to lower their price to give a big discount to their customer.
3. Company focus on weakening or destroying a competitor-it is a direct or indirect destroying on one’s company credibility most likely in their product or services.
4. Price cuts- Reduction of retail prices to a level low enough to eliminate competition and it is the cutting of the price of merchandise to one lower than the usual or advertised price.
5. Discriminatory price- exists when sales of identical goods or services are transacted at different prices from the same provider.
6. Price war- is "commercial competition characterized by the repeated cutting of prices below those of competitors". .
Monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity.

Laws Protecting Consumers
- require businesses to provide accurate information about products and services and to follow safety standards.
The first consumer protection law- 1906 The Jungle- by Upton Sinclair; describes the atrocities and unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry in turn-of-the-century Chicago. (Pure Food and Drug Act) Unsafe at Any Speed- by Ralph Nader. His critique and attack of General Motors’ Corvair had far-reaching effects on autos and other consumer product. * In recent years, large groups of people with specific vulnerabilities have been granted special levels of legal protection relative to the general population.
Ex. The legal status of children and the elderly * Special legal protection provided to vulnerable consumers is considered to be in the public interest.
Ex. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
The role of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection- is to protect consumers against unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices.
Five Divisions of a variety of consumer protection laws: 1. The Division of Enforcement monitors compliance with and investigates violations of laws, 2. Unfulfilled holiday delivery promises by online shopping sites, 3. Employment opportunities fraud, 4. Scholarship scams, 5. Misleading advertising for health-care products and more Laws Promoting Equity and Safety
-Laws promoting equity in the workplace. (1960s & 1970s)
-to protect the rights of minorities, women, older persons, and persons with disabilities.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act- (1964) and amended several times.
Title VII- specifically prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, sex, religion, color or national origin.
The Civil Rights Act- also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to help enforce the provisions of Title VII.
EEOC- helps business design affirmative action programs.

More specific employment practices: * The Equal Pay Act of 1963- it mandates that women and men who do equal work must receive equal pay.

* The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990- prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 - which mandates that employers provide safe and healthy working conditions for all workers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – which enforces the act, makes regular surprise inspections to ensure that businesses maintain safe working environments.

Laws promoting equity and safety (Part 2) * Competitive pressures are also believed to lie behind the increases in manufacturing injuries

* Required to work longer hours, perhaps in violation of the law. or “off the clock” problems. * California has a law, which requires a thirty-minute meal break within the first five hours of a shift or an extra hour’s pay.

Laws Protecting the Environment
Environmental protection laws have been enacted largely in response to concerns over business’s impact on the environment, which began to emerge in the 1960s.
Example of Acts or Laws: * Clean Air Act, 1970 Established air-quality standards; requires approved state plans for implementation of the standards. * Noise Pollution Control Act, 1972 designed to control the noise emission of certain manufactured items. * Oil Pollution Act, 1990 Streamlined and strengthened the EPA’s ability to prevent and respond to catastrophic oil spills; a trust fund financed by a tax on oil is available to clean up spills when the responsible party is incapable or unwilling to do so. * Food Quality Protection Act, 1996 Amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act; the requirements included a new safety standard—reasonable certainty of no harm—that must be applied to all pesticides used on foods.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act
-It is a Federal Law
-Set new or enhanced standards for all U.S public company boards, Management and Public Accounting firms
- Named After sponsors U.S senator “PAUL SARBANES” and U.S representative.

Major Provisions of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act
1. Requires the establishment of a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in charge of regulations administered by the SEC.
2. Requires CEOs and CFOs to certify that their companies’ financial statements are true and without misleading statements.
3. Requires that corporate board of directors’ audit committees consist of independent members who have no material interests in the company.
4. Prohibits corporations from making or offering loans to officers and board members.
5. Requires codes of ethics for senior financial officers; code must be registered with the SEC
6. Prohibits accounting firms from providing both auditing and consulting services to the same client without the approval of the client firm’s audit committee.
7. Requires company attorneys to report wrongdoing to top managers and, if necessary, to the board of directors; if managers and directors fail to respond to reports of wrongdoing, the attorney should stop representing the company.
8. Mandates “whistle-blower protection” for persons who disclose wrongdoing to authorities.
9. Requires financial securities analysts to certify that their recommendations are based on objective reports.
10. Requires mutual fund managers to disclose how they vote shareholder proxies, giving investors information about how their shares influence decisions.
11. Establishes a ten-year penalty for mail/wire fraud.
12. Prohibits the two senior auditors from working on a corporation’s account for more than five years; other auditors are prohibited from working on an account for more than seven years. In other words, accounting firms must rotate individual auditors from one account to another from time to time.

What the Act does? * CEO/CFO Certification of Financial Reports * Internal Certification * Internal Controls * Independent Audit Committee * Code of Ethics

Benefits of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act
1. Greater accountability of top managers and boards of directors to employees, investors, communities, and society
2. Renewed investor confidence
3. Clear explanations by CEOs as to why their compensation package is in the best interest of the company; the loss of some traditional senior-management perks such as company loans; greater disclosures by executives about their own stock trades
4. Greater protection of employee retirement plans
5. Improved information from stock analysts and rating agencies
6. Greater penalties for and accountability of senior managers, auditors, and board members
“Public Company Accounting Oversight Board” * Monitors accounting firms that audit public corporations and establishes standards and rules for creditors in accounting firm.

Duties of “Public Company Accounting Oversight Board” (PCAOB) * registration of public accounting firms, * Establishment of auditing, quality control, ethics, independence and other standards relating to preparation of audit reports * inspection of accounting firms, * investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and imposition of sanctions * Enforcement of compliance with accounting rules of the board, professional standards, and securities laws relating to the preparation and issuance of audit reports and obligations and liabilities of accountants.

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