Abstract
In this assignment you will see information from my own personal moral code to confidentiality of the Internet. Basing a moral code is very important and you will learn more and more to help you understand what a moral code does for you. You should always follow some kind of ideals and this will help shed some light on the subject along with how it relates to a work environment. We will also discuss some important ethical issues impacting organizations today like confidentiality and environment, health, and safety policy. To wrap it up there will be some cases discussing the seven ethical approaches.

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………2
Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………............3
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..4
Part I. My Professional Code of Ethics…………………………………………………………5 My Code of Ethics My Touchstones My Approach to Avoiding Faulty Thinking
My Personal Approach to Four Major Ethical Dilemmas
My Policy as a Supervisor or Manager
Part II. Two Primary Ethical Issues Impacting Organizations………………………………….8
Environment, Health and Safety Policy
Confidentiality
Part III. Case Analysis………………………………………………………………………....10 Quality Management: Signing Off on a Substandard Product AutoZone
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...14

Introduction Everyone’s moral code is different because of their upbringing and life experiences. Your own moral code is very important because you need to have a personal code you go by to make important decisions in your life or ones that affect people around you. A moral code will be defined by my own interpretation in this paper. I will also be discussing other ethical approaches that I base my code off of as well.

Part I. Professional Code of Ethics
My Code of Ethics Your own code of ethics is always unique, but it often has a basis of some common ethical approaches we all take in our daily lives. A moral code is ideas of how we should live and how we should treat each other. Conduct without a moral code is very unethical. The ideas or principles can give us the means that comes from our values and doing what is right from living. Most of my moral code derives from my Christian background as a child and now into my adulthood. I base a lot of my morals off of the Ten Commandments. Which are do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, honor your mother and father, not taking the Lord’s name in vain, having no other gods, keeping the Sabbath day holy, not give false testimony against your neighbor, not covet your neighbor’s house, and to not covet your neighbors wife, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Other ideals like doing well for others are also a part of my moral code. The concept of do unto others what you would want them to do to you. Be faithful to family and friends. Be kind to others like strangers. Respect all life and the environment that that life depends on. Be honest, fair and generous. Take care of your children when they are young and take care of your parents when they are old. In general take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. My moral code is also very based on common sense. I know that is something that lacks right now in the world, but I try to share it as much as possible with whoever I can. Common sense incorporates a lot of the ethical approaches and takes it as far as those reach to get a good result from a situation. You have to approach every situation with inevitable results. In addition to my moral code and the interest-based approach I am also a strong believer in the utilitarian approach. The least amount of harm works with the common sense ideal. I would not want to cause harm to a lot of people. I would want to cause the least amount of harm to people in a particular situation. The most amounts of good are the best situation in any circumstance.
My Touchstones My touchstones are basically the same as my moral code they just go a little further and deeper into the ideals of my moral code. My touchstones are based off my religious background like I discussed earlier. Being honest with you is a key factor in a work setting. Sometimes going around policy and admitting it is better than hiding the idea. Going outside of a moral code is risky, but with some other opinions and options it may be the best thing to do.
My Approach to Avoiding Faulty Thinking I do think one of the best ways to avoid faulty thinking is to not stray from your moral code. Once you make an exception for one thing it tends to happen more and more because you did it that one time.
My Personal Approach to Four Major Ethical Dilemmas
Truth Telling: I work in a credit union so all aspects of truth telling are always what are right. The policy outlines it and so does any moral code.
Stealing: As far as favors go there is a difference between helping someone out and doing them a favor. I deal with people’s finances all the time. A great deal of trust goes in that with the company. Fraud is a big thing in the banking industry, but it is not for its employees. A company knows when they employ their employees that they are under contract, but also because they get to know their employees as well.
Harming: Harm is something that we would never do to our members at the credit union. We are there to help them and go beyond what is necessary for them. Safety is a big concern for any financial institution. When there is any once of threat in a situation it gets handled by our staff in the proper procedures.
People, Treatment and Interaction: Any decisions made by a company are brought to the board of directors, those in this case who are shareholders in the company. Everyone is impacted by choices made by the company. It is all one big circle. We all work together to get the greatest impact.
My Policy as a Supervisor or Manager Truth Telling: As a supervisor or manager, I would as well be very forthcoming of my employees to tell the truth. It is better to have a judgment free zone. We all learn from everything we do. There is no need to be ashamed of something. Stealing: Theft of anything is never a good thing to do in a workplace. We deal with private information. They trust us to be respectful of that. Harming: Safety is a topic we cover every year in meetings because things change and we have to update everything we can to keep everyone safe. People, Treatment and Interaction: As a manager our shareholders are our customers at the credit union and we respect their ideas and concerns and take them in to help our company.

Part II. Two Primary Ethical Issues Impacting Organizations
Environment, Health and Safety Policy The environment is a thing we have to protect and we all know we aren’t the best at it sometimes. I know companies try to reduce their fingerprint on the environment by getting rid of Styrofoam and recycling. You always hear the slogan of reduce, reuse, and recycle. It does help, but everyone has to chip in. The City Fort Wayne has saved thousands of dollars by having recycling bins now that are easier to use. The little things cities can do can make a big imprint on the environment. Health is another concern because of the health care reform and the baby boomers. It is a tough time for some companies. They make it work though and make choices that impact the future of the company and its employees. Safety is hard, but possible. With new inventions that give us more protection life because less scary and more safe. We do have to make sure we do the proper steps in securing our safety as an individual.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is a major thing now mainly because of technology. Don’t get me wrong technology is great, but it is also scary and has many risks. It is risks that get overlooked by many people. The Internet is very useful and handy for just about anything these days, but it is also one of the worst things. Confidentiality is not as confidential as we had hoped. People are very smart and are tricky about getting private information from you without you even knowing it for a while. Now, we have all been hearing about all the places getting hacked recently and getting credit card numbers. I live in that world with my job in a credit union. It is scary knowing all you need to do is swipe your card and you’re toast.
Identity theft is a very real thing now and is not to be taken lightly. You have to be careful with anytime you swipe or use your card on the Internet because no matter what they say, there is always a risk. Hackers, as they call them, are too clever. They know when and where to strike on people and companies.
Companies are trying their best to keep all their customers information confidential, but we all know we aren’t perfect. You do have to put a certain amount of trust in people to do what they say they will. The days of using cards will never go away, but I do think major changes could be ahead to make things more secure. I have heard some cards may have a fingerprint to be used. People are trying, but it’s just not fast enough for those who know how to hack.

Part III. Case Analysis
Quality Management: Signing Off on a Substandard Product 1) Describe the Situation
Lauren just recently graduated college as a quality engineer and got a great job at a highly respected technology company. She was in charge of monitoring the manufacturing process and making sure they met customer specifications. The company booked a big contract just three months into her position. The new device Lauren was testing was being subcontracted out and that device was being integrated into another company’s product. Her job was to make sure it met the environmental and technical specifications especially in high humidity. The test results did not make the standards that were agreed upon but only by a small margin. The general manager and her immediate supervisor both said to push the product through. Lauren was now faced with an ethical dilemma. Should she go above upper management? Or should she just sign off on the product knowing it was not at a good standard. 2) Discern the Main Ethical Issue
Lauren can’t decide what to do because she is at a very crucial point in her career. She doesn’t know if signing off on the fraudulent product will hurt her or not. She doesn’t exactly know what the product will do with the small margin of defect. She can’t decide if her job is important enough to jeopardize her relationships with her superiors or just ignore the issue of the product. They could lose the contract or delay production if she doesn’t sign off on the report. 3) Discuss the Seven Ethical Approaches
Utilitarianism: This is a tough choice because the most good would mean not signing off on the product and delaying or losing the contract, but also the product could go through and not cause as much problems as they think.
Rights: Lauren has a right to not sign the contract. She is newer to the company and may not know what all goes on behind the scenes of this highly known company. She also has no place yet and may need to feel things out before she can make a big decision like that.
Fairness: The company really shouldn’t make her sign off on a faulty product because they know it could hurt them in the long run.
Common good: The company needs to realize what is at stake for them and Lauren by almost making her sign off on the product because it will come back to hurt them.
Virtue: Lauren could have some very big courage if she would decide to not listen to her superiors and not sign off on the product.
Interest-based: The solution at this point is for Lauren to go ahead and sign off on the product because she is not single-handedly responsible for what she is about to do.
Moral Code: My moral code would not be able to handle this. I would cave and just give in because of the stress in the situation. I would be too new to put myself where I do not belong. 4) Decide
The rights approach seems to fit this situation at this point. Lauren needs to be more knowledgeable about a company she works for and what she stands for. 5) Defend my Position
Lauren has no clue what she would be signing herself up for and knows that she needs to earn some clout with her superiors before she tries to go above them. They have more experience with what she is dealing with. She is fresh out of college and knows what to do, but doesn’t have the experience to back it all up to real life situations. 6) Disclose my Learning
I have learned from this that life experience is one thing to never take for granted because what you learn from the books may not be how everything works in the real world. Everything is at stake but also is your career.
AutoZone
1) Describe the Situation This case study is dealing with employee theft, coercion, and false confessions by interrogation methods like the police use. Employee theft costs retailers billions of dollars every year. It is a hard thing to stop as well because of the lack of evidence. Most of the times they use police interrogation methods to try and get employees to confess, but it only leads to false confessions. Lawsuits brought against AutoZone have shed some light on the situation. In changing the method of information retrieval it has helped greatly for confessions. The main discussion is that with the growing evidence of the problem, should retailers abandon the use of police interrogation techniques in their investigations? 2) Discern the Main Ethical Issue
The only ethical issue I see here is that will this really be effective for the specialists to change their interrogation ways. This needs to be something of a big study because everyone is different on how they reach conclusion in situations. Do they know that the suspect is really guilty to be able to prove what they want as a result? 3) Discuss the Seven Ethical Approaches
Utilitarianism: In order to produce the most good I do think that changing the method would be for the best. It is better for the company to find the real thieve and not a fake one that caves under pressure.
Rights: The company has a right to change their ways of interrogation and the employees will still be respected if they do so.
Fairness: It will be an adjustment to change the method, but it is fairer to the employees who are innocent.
Common good: Companies will be able to better understand their employees as a whole by not having to give someone a riot act to find out what has been going on.
Virtue: Those employees who need to steal from where they work need to have more virtues to not be so selfish and try to do what is best in the long run.
Interest-based: There is no way I would be able to steal from my employer, but I also know what I have done and what I have not done.
Moral Code: There is a thing called right and wrong. If we all knew what that was then we wouldn’t have to worry about employees stealing from the company they work for. 4) Decide
I would choose the Utilitarian approach in the case because of the good it creates for the company and the employees. 5) Defend my Position
I will defend my position by saying that no employee should be forced to lie about theft at their own job just because of the pressure from the interrogation. You have rights and if an employer cannot believe you then your employer does not know you. Psychological tricks should never be played on someone who is innocent. 6) Disclose my Learning
I had no idea that employers would do that to their employees just to get a confession. That is wrong and I fully support the change of interrogation because no one should be accused of something they didn’t do.
Conclusion
In conclusion for this final assignment I have learned many things about myself and companies on how they proceed with decisions in the real world. I will state this again that everyone’s moral code is different because of their upbringing and life experiences. By reading this you should have also realized how it all falls together in the real world.