Bus. Ethics

• Espionage


  A competitor uses espionage to obtain economically advantageous information in the possession of another
• Collusion


  Companies collude to set prices, effectively dismantling the free market
• Bribery


  A misconduct which gives reward or "knockback" to a person in an attempt to sway opinions or behaviors, strictly for personal advantages
• This module will help you learn about the major ethical issues in Entrepreneurship
• It aims to formulate a morally defensible position on ethical issues in entrepreneurship
• Do you know this person?
• What are the quality that he possesses?
• What are his qualities that made you admire him?
• How about qualities you not like?
• My friend Rica share stuff with us all the time: pictures they took, what they're thinking, even what they feel. Every time she shares something with me, I have to decide whether I should share it with anybody else.
• What might happen if what I'm sharing gets sent to people who weren't supposed to see it?
• How will my friend feel if their parents see it? Their teachers? Their friends,
• If there are other people in what your friend shared with you, think about this: How will they feel if I share this this? Is there anything they'd be worried about?
• Basic Fairness


  Ethical decision-making processes should center on protecting employee and customer rights, making sure all business operations are fair and just, protecting the common good and making sure individual values and beliefs of workers are protected
• Partners


  • You have an ethical and legal obligation to act in good faith concerning your partner. The better course of action may be to simply buy out their interest in the business.
• Gross Negligence


  • As a board member, you have a duty to exercise the utmost care respecting decisions that affect the corporation and its shareholders. Failing to properly investigate a matter that affects their interests could be viewed as gross negligence supporting a breach of your ethical and legal duty of care.
• Mistreating Employees


  • Lawsuits are filed against employers who are accused of sexual harassment or discrimination against their employees. Some employers have been sued for threatening or firing whistle-blowers, or employees who point out illegal practices or safety violations in the workplace.
• Discrimination and Harassment in the Workplace

  • There's never an excuse or a justifiable reason for harassment of any kind in any workplace. If a supervisor discriminated against an employee based on her gender, religion, or ethnicity when making recommendations for a promotion, legal action could be sought.
• Family-Run Businesses


  • Conflicts of interest may cause ethical issues in small business, especially if they are family run. When personal family issues interfere with business decisions, this is a conflict of interest and an ethical concern.
• Employee Behavior

  • Whether an employee can spend work time checking personal email accounts, how a manager deals with claims of harassment and to what extent manager can "groom" a certain employee for a promotion are all examples of ethical issues regarding employee behavior. There are legal consequences for some unethical employee behavior.
• Employee Working Conditions


  • Employers must be aware of the safety of their work environment and if they have compensated employees for all the time they have worked. They must also consider if they have required an employee to work an unreasonably long period of time or if they have him doing an unusually difficult task.
• Side Deals and Sub-Standard Work

  • When dealing with customers or clients, business people must ensure that they use their information correctly, do not falsely advertise a product or service and do not intentionally do sub-standard work.
• Pricing Strategy Ethics


  Price collisions can be a major source of ethical pressure in many industries, and artificial price-fixing is illegal in a wide range of countries. Price collusion exists when a number of competitors agree to set prices at a certain level, bypassing the natural market forces of supply and demand and creating an unfair advantage over consumers.
• Product Placement Ethics


  • End-caps, point-of-sale displays, and demo kiosks are all examples of positioning techniques that are inherently harmless, but which can be used in arguably unethical ways.
• Ethics and Promotions


  • Promotions are designed to boost short-term sales by providing irresistible value propositions to consumers. Coupons, holiday sales events, mail-in rebates, and giveaways all fall under the promotion's category. The "bail and switch" tactic is widely considered unethical, yet many companies still practice this promotions technique.
• Fraud


  In business takes up so many forms and sizes. It can be in the form of financial misconduct or misrepresentation. Examples include price-fixing, physicians refusing to treat non-insured patients or performing unnecessary procedures, tax evasion, "cooking the books", and false or misleading advertising.
• Unfair Competition

  A situation in which competitors compete on unequal terms because favorable or disadvantageous conditions are applied to some competitors but not to others. The actions of some competitors can actively harm the positions of others with respect to their ability to compete on equal and fair terms.
• Examples of Unfair Competition

  • Anti-trust Law or Competition Law
  • Trademark Infringement
  • Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
  • Trade Libel
  • Tortious Interference
  • Anti-competitive practices
  • Dumping
  • Exclusive dealing
  • Price fixing
  • Refusal to deal
  • Dividing territories
  • Limit pricing
  • Tying
  • Resale price maintenance
  • Religious/minority group doctrine
• Unfair Communication


  Examples include vitamin entrepreneurs making false claims to sell products, and companies using misleading advertising or propaganda to promote their interests.
• He recommends vitamin pills to cure even serious ailments
• In UK ads, he claimed that 90% of cancer patients die within several months of starting chemo, arguing that corporations let them die for profit
• Yet, he uses his lies to sell an HIV/AIDS "miracle cure", saying that HIV doesn't cause AIDS and antiretroviral drugs won't work, leading to the spread of infections in South Africa
• Breach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance
• Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil; the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife
• Contractualization or labor contractualization is the replacing of regular workers with temporary workers who receive lower wages with no or fewer benefits
• These temporary workers are also known as sometimes called contractures, trainees, apprentices, helpers, casuals, piece rates, agency-hired, and project employees among others
• They do the work of regular workers for a specified and limited period of time, usually less than six months