...“Ethics Audit Benefits.” Please respond to the following: Compare (1) the benefits associated with conducting an ethics audit against (2) the challenges of measuring nonfinancial performance and the risks inherent in ethics auditing. Ethics audit is a systematic evaluation of an organization’s ethics program to determine if it is effective or not. Effectiveness of programs and polices can be improved and organization can identify potential risks and liabilities and can improve its compliance with the law (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2011, pg.243-245). The ethics audit, like the financial audit, should be conducted regularly rather than in response to problems involving or questions about a firm’s priorities and conduct. The process of auditing and reporting a firm’s ethics programs is no guarantee that it will avoid challenges related its efforts. In addition, because this type of auditing is relatively new, there are few common standards to judge disclosure and effectiveness or to make comparisons. The auditing process can also demonstrate the positive impact of ethical conduct and social responsibility initiatives on the firm’s bottom line, convincing managers and other primary stakeholders of the value of adopting more ethical and socially responsible business practices. Determine if it would ever be better not to conduct an ethics audit. Explain your rationale. Ethics audits help know the ethical goals and standards that need to be achieved. These...
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...Chipotle Code of Ethics Strayer University Business 100 December, 22, 2013 Chipotle Code of Ethics The use of a standard code of ethics is vital for the survival of any business, since it helps in guiding all managerial decisions, creating a framework from which all the decisions are based. The significance of this will not only help in creation of an understanding within the boundaries of the business, but also help in setting of standards for interaction with the external stakeholders (Halbert & Ingulli, 2009). With this knowledge, I believe that Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. will be able to provide high quality services to all its customers and also be able to hire highly qualified personnel who understand the mission of the business (Mika, 2010). From my own perception and experience Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. had provided me great service quality. The key areas of my Business’s code of ethics are the “Integrity Statement”. Through this code, employees are expected to act in an honest manner and always be real, even when the supervisor is not watching. It is a known fact that business relationships are primarily based on trust, which is required for a healthy restaurant - customer relationship and improvement of the employer – employee relationship (Halbert & Ingulli, 2009). Employees who are able to earn the trust of their employers are able to enjoy a certain level of independence. For example, if there is...
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...Starbucks Organizational Ethics ETH/316 September 8, 2014 Starbucks Organizational Ethics Apparently, social media has become a major driver in business ethics in many organizations. Specifically, this is common with smaller businesses enterprises. Organizations are obliged to consider the social expectations within the areas of the general community involvement as well as environmental responsibility. Evidently, the information age has greatly boosted the need for social pressure. External environment determines the behaviors of employees of particular organizations. Due to the increased use of technology that has led to the creation of the information age, there has been enhanced social pressure since the word tends to spread much faster. Starbucks is currently considered among the top most ethical companies in the world. The firm in question has been making conscious efforts to be a responsible company conducting businesses in a more responsible manner. In particular, the business managers have been consistently compiling the firm’s annual report dedicated mainly to its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Social pressures create the necessary ethical transformation. In addition, social pressures in Starbucks have led to the operation of businesses in a manner that does not violate any major moral business guidelines or disregard any critical business rules. On the whole, this mainly based on the expectation of the society that the company has to...
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...BUSINESS ETHICS Student’s Name: Ce Wang Student’s ID: 1226656 Instructor’s Name: Peter Goalby Course Name: New Advances In Business University Of Bedfordshire Date Assignment is due: 20/03/2015 Abstract Business ethics looks at whether the company is heading in the right course by adhering to the various factors such as integrity, fairness and reliability. The ethics set up by the organization plays a vital role in the hiring process and the business management practices. Running an ethical organization is vital in financial matters and in creating the morale and loyalty of the personnel. Ethics are also relevant to the business as it ensures that there is ethical behavior among the workers in the organization. Ethics are also relevant to the business as it aids in creation of an ethical organizational culture. Most of the organizations when posed this question believe that it is the employees who are chiefly responsible for ensuring that their work meet the ethical considerations. However, the employees are not the only ones responsible for business ethics, the employees need support from the management or from the employer. This paper has a look at the ethical issues surrounding the steel manufacturing industry and the Healthcare industry. It also looks at the relevance that ethics have on business, sustainability and corporate responsibility. The paper also looks critically at the connection of business ethics to the organizational culture. Lastly, it...
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...What is business ethics? There are many different definitions of business ethics. In general, the term is used to mean a form of applied ethics in which a system of ethics and morality is applied in the business world. The exact application of business ethics will differ from organization to organization, and place to place. Different organizations deal with different stakeholders, different clients and customers, and different dimensions of the work world, industry, and market. The way business ethics must be applied is determined by the nature, mission, purpose and goals of a given company. The universal purpose of business ethics is to ensure that companies treat their workers, partners, clients, and any other involved shareholders or stakeholders with ethical and moral integrity. Business ethics used to be taken for granted and assumed, almost as an extension of the personal ethics of those involved in the business. In more recent years, however, following different issues including the 2001 Enron scandal, individuals and businesses have focused more on analyzing and formalizing business ethics (cf WiseGeek, retrieved 2010). A Model Organization: Integral business ethics in terms of social issues, legal issues, and profit. Taking a fictitious restaurant food supply organization called The Ultimate Deal, as an organization that serves as a model of business ethics, the practical implications of business ethics can be explained. The Ultimate Deal, as a restaurant...
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...Ethics can be defined as principles or right or wrong. Business decisions should be ethical, but the evidence suggests that is not always what happens. (Hollenbeck, Gerhert, Noe, & Wright 2004) A recent study has shown that 4 out of 10 executives stated that they had been asked to behave unethically. As a result of unfavorable perceptions of U.S. business practices and an increased concern for better serving customers, U.S. companies are becoming more aware of the need for all company representatives to act responsibly (Hollenbeck, Gerhert, Noe, & Wright 2004) A recent article published in Tribune-Star discussed corporate ethics to university students in Indiana area. Over 370 were in attendance to a business conference host by Networks Professional Development Program. Students from Indiana colleges and universities as well as students from DePauw, St Mary-of-the-Woods and Rose-Holman Institute of Technology were in attendance of the conference which was hosted by fellow students. The event, organized by juniors in the Networks Professional Development Program at ISU, included speeches, panel discussions and break-out sessions on business, public policy and corporate ethics. (Foulkes, 2007) The conference would also help prepare students for the work force when they graduate. "We wanted to prepare students for when they go out into the work force" and face actual ethical decisions, said conference executive director Amber Williams, a junior in the Networks program. (Foulkes...
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...Ethics Today Ethics plays an important role not only in people’s life but also in the workplace. What is the definition of ethics? “The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group.” Over the last few decades, the study of ethics has changed in different ways. We now face many ethical dilemmas as society evolves and technology plays a big role in the way we do business. The ethics field of study has changed over the last 30 years. Companies have to deal with organizations monitoring the behavior that is executed while doing business. These organizations create rules and regulations that set the standards for companies to follow. Even though there were many ethical dilemmas in the past that made headlines, the ones we deal with today have a greater broadcast because of the technological advances available today. People blog and text all day long about their experiences with companies, and the negative bias gets read even if it didn’t make the presses. The biggest challenges to business ethics in the 21st century in my opinion can be explained in the following statements. Companies have to be concerned with ethical decisions that hurt the environment. They must ensure they are morally responsible and have set values by which employees should abide. Another main challenge is ensuring employees - as well as customers - are treated fairly and equally when providing products and services. Because we are so technologically...
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...Effective Powers Of the five powers, the establishment of an ethical climate calls for much debate. However given the current climate of Paradigm Toys, that being one of coercive power; the use of referent power is likely going to be the most effective in changing ethical climates. The current climate of coercive power, is displayed through the employees being fearful of the loss of jobs if quota’s are not met- which often causes defective products to be produced. This defective product issue has been seen in a large number of recalls within the past three years. To combat this current ethical culture of ensuring quotas are met but failing to produce a quality product, developing a culture of referent power should be implemented. Referent power is a good tool to utilize to ensure the previous power structure- either coercive power or reward power gone wrong. “Referent power is sometimes thought of as charisma, charm, admiration, or appeal. Referent power comes from one person liking and respecting another, and strongly identifying with that person in some way” (Referent Power, 2014). Implementation of referent power will take time in that development of trust in management from employees will not be an easy task. Likely a change in management or significant leadership training would be most helpful to implement this type of power within Paradigm Toys. In essence, the concept of referent power would be to ensure that employees respect and trust their leadership structure...
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...whether business practice should be treated as a profession or not. The essay aims to discover as to which argument is more compelling and the reasons for it. The essay will conclude with supporting reasons favouring one of the two points of view. Business as a Profession This section will provide arguments that support the idea of business and management as a profession. Khurana, Nohria and Penrice (2005) strongly argue that business management should be a profession in order to prepare managers on how to conduct themselves in an ethical behaviour, employ proper judgement while making business decisions and maintain trust internally and externally. This concept maintains that 4 factors are crucial in order to determine the success of management as a profession which is a standardised body of knowledge that is widely accepted, a process of ensuring that individuals possess the required skills before granting them license to practice, ensure that individuals are dedicated to using their knowledge for the common good instead of maximising on profits and finally to create a code of ethics that can ensure that individuals are compliant with the guidelines. This school of thought is supported by Zsolnai (2009) who agrees that a professionalization of business is required to avoid the irresponsible behaviours displayed by business leaders today. In a nutshell, it is being emphasized that public trust would be much stronger and managers less corrupt if business and management...
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...BUSINESS ETHICS Name Institution of Affiliation Introduction The business environment is changing to embrace ethical conduct in the performance of duties and activities of individuals in professional setting. Nowadays, companies are exposed to public scrutiny where their corporate social responsibility and social accountability are assessed. A shift towards rethinking the various functions of a business entity to encompass ethics into their daily management activities has been undertaken as entities seek to be market leaders. Business ethics encompasses the relationship the company has with the employees, customers, shareholders and the community. Business ethics is the analysis of business activities and situations where issues pertaining what constitute a right or wrong act are dealt with through institutional processes (Jennings, 2011). Consequently, ethics involves ascertaining good practices from bad practices based on the context of morals. On the other hand, moral conduct is the behaviour exhibited by human beings that can either be right or wrong depending on the context whereas business ethics. Business ethics can be viewed from two distinct perspectives; descriptive ethics and normative ethics. Normative ethics ascribes to the justification of moral systems whereas descriptive ethics depicts what ethical practices are. Ideally, the paper will delve into more details concerning what business ethics entails and the importance of business ethics...
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...case studies, presentation and group assignments. Each group of students will consist of 5-6 students. The assignments / case studies involve library assignments and may be having some small practical studies. The guidelines for the same will be provided in class. Text: The recommended text used for the course is “ Business Ethics and Indian perspective ” by AC Fernando, Pearson VI Impression 2011 . Objective : The objective of the course is to help the students understand the nature of business ethics and issues in corporate governance and its application to the Indian corporate scene. It aims at introducing ethical concepts useful in resolving moral issues in business. It sensitize first year MBA students on ethical principles and developing reasoning and analytical skills needed to build firm foundation and grooming them to apply the ethical concepts to business decisions. The course is specifically planned with a lot of case studies, more specifically Indian scenarios making it relevant for Indian work environment. Sessions cover ethical theories underlying business, application of ethics in day-to-day business, ethics and the environment and ethics in consumer protection. I intend to cover ethical issues in various managerial functions such as finance, human resource and marketing. Evaluation Scheme: Sr. No | Component | Weightage | 1 | Class Participation-Individual | 15% | 2 | assignment-Individual | 15% | 3 | Case Analysis-Group | 30% | 4 | Final...
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...Reporting Practices and Ethics Paper HCS/405 March 7, 2016 Reporting Practices and Ethics Paper Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) represent the general rules, standards, and practices that are used in accounting. GAAP are required for businesses when reporting financial records. When preparing financial statements, a company’s accountant is mandated to use these principles before they issue these statements to investors and other entities outside of the business. The objective for these standards are to assist in ensuring that ethical accounting practices occur wherein investors and creditors have the confidence that companies are truthfully reporting their financial solvency. In summary, the GAAP are responsible for ensuring that companies ethically record measurements at regular business intervals, prepare and summarize economic information in accordance to ethical standards, accurately measure economic activity, and truthfully disclose information about economic activity. Corporate compliance, ethics, or fraud and abuse Medical fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry is a rampant occurrence that significantly impacts not only healthcare in America but also the entire economy. Fraud and abuse within the healthcare industry can account for approximately 15 percent of annual expenditures. This represents up to $170 billion annually being lost because of fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry. Although the federal government has consistently...
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...Ethics are values that governed individual’s behaviour on the conduct of dealing with what is good or bad and right or wrong. The same values that determine an individual’s conduct also apply to business. In today’s world, ethics is a fundamental aspect when it comes to managing a business. Business ethics are moral principles that provide a guideline to organizations regarding how a business should run. A business that is ethical will also recognise the responsibility for minimising the non-financial costs. Human Resource Managers (HRM) plays an important role when it comes to guiding the organization in an ethical way as they are in charge of ethical issues that arise from the employer to employee relationship. The Human Resources (HR) function deals with a wide range of responsibilities and also it includes many ethical issues which may damage a company’s reputation and financial statistics if not handled properly (Ingram n.d.). They are obliged to run their duties ethically when employing people, conducting performance appraisals and ensuring health and safety in the workplace. Most importantly, they play a role in creating a culture of mutual respect and dignity. HR managers can guide employees understand the ethical issues using behavioural role modelling, personal reflection and moral dilemma discussions (Wells & Schminke 2001). The primary responsibility of a HR manager is the recruitment and selection of employees. They have to meet workforce demand and supply...
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...“Business ethics in the workplace is about prioritizing workplace moral values and ensuring that employees align their behavior with these values - its values of management. Yet there are many myths abound about business ethics and the majority of these come from a general confusion about the concept of ethics, while other myths come about from constricted or one-dimensional views of ethical predicaments”. (McNamara, n.d.). The first myth of business ethics says that it is more of a focus on religion than effective management. “Altering people’s values or souls is not the aim of an organization ethics program however managing values and conflict among them is…” (Kirrane, 1990). Business ethics should be about conflict resolution and value management. Certain other segments of people in management believe that business ethics equals corporate social responsibility. That however is not the case. In fact corporate social responsibility is only a small part of the concept of business ethics. Corporate social responsibility concerns itself with business management and society interfacing and not at all with ethics in the workplace, even though both concepts fall under the field of business ethics. “Business ethics is an application of ethics in the corporate community and also a way to determine business responsibilities. It identifies important business and social issues along with business critique”. (McNamara, n.d.). Management of practical matters of ethics in the workplace...
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...Financial Accounting Course Code: ACT 101 Ques: What is ethics? Why it is important for business? What is your opinion about the ethics in business? Ans: Ethics & Ethics in Business One's action affects other people or organizations. The standards of conduct by which one's action are judged as right or wrong, honest or dishonest, fair or not fair, are ethics. Every one has his or her own ethics. It is a part of our life. Ethics are principals of behavior that distinguish between right or wrong. Ethical conduct conforms to what a group or society as a whole considers right behavior. People working in business frequently face ethical questions. Business ethics is the evaluation of business activities and behavior as right or wrong. Ethical standards in business are based on commonly accepted principals of behavior established by the exception of society, the firm, the industry and an individual's personal values. Importance of Ethics in Business In business, ethics are more important. Now-a-days most business leaders realize their firms cannot succeed without the trust of customers and the goodwill of the society. So, most of the people related with business are ethical. They are very responsible and honest. Here some points based on the importance of ethics in business are given below… Internal communication To run an organization the owner or the manager need to communicate with others, for example: co-workers, colleagues, investors, other organizations etc. If they...
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