ethics mid

• Business must be ethical


  To be successful
• Ethics


  Helps create structure in a company
• Developing Code Of Ethics Variables

  • employees
  • customers
  • competitor's policies
  • owner moral values
• Must also conform to the local community's standard
• Survey Both employees and customers

  1. Employees ("foot soldiers")

  2. Deal daily with situations that management may not be aware

  3. Random sample of employees should be surveyed

  4. Sample should include representatives from all levels of the hierarchy and every department
• Customer feedback


  1. Companies use comment cards to solicit customer feedback on an ongoing basis

  2. Companies conduct random phone surveys of their regular customers

  3. Companies rely on customer focus groups for feedback
• A framework for the company's code of ethics can be developed from the research findings
• Customer interest


  Focus on their satisfaction with the company or the quality of the enterprise's products and services
• If the company can guarantee its clients satisfaction it is likely to have addressed its customer's concerns
• Employees are concerned about

  Their ability to do their jobs well
• Proposed code of ethics

  • We shall obey all the laws of the community when conducting business
  • We shall guarantee complete satisfaction with both our products and service
  • We shall not refuse anyone or goods or services to race, creed, color, sex, or other personal traits
  • We shall empower all our employees to serve our customers as they deem appropriate within the parameters of their job description
  • We shall offer all our employees equal working conditions and opportunities to advance within the organization
  • We shall continually strive to improve our products and services through employees and customer feedback
• Communicate the code of ethics

  1. The code should be easy to read and understand

  2. For employees the code can be posted on an employee bulletin board, listed in their company handbook, or discussed during training programs or at a staff meeting

  3. The code can be shared with customers by posting it in a location they frequently visit or by printing it on company promotional materials
• Social point of view of the firm's purpose


  Firms exist to supply goods and services to consumers as efficiently as possible
• Individual perspective of the firm's purpose

  The company exists to provide income, power, prestige, creative satisfaction or a combination of these to those who work for it or with it
• Profits are ambiguous both ethically and economically
• Ethical considerations in transactions with employees

  • Identifying ethical concerns in employee transactions
  • Hiring-process, screening, testing and interviewing
  • Promotion
  • Discipline and discharge
  • Wages
• Screening


  Attract only those applicants who have a good chance of qualifying for the job
• Job description


  Lists all pertinent details about a job including its duties, responsibilities, working conditions and physical requirements
• Job specification


  Describes the qualifications an employee needs, such as skills, educational experience, appearance and physical attributes
• Items that generally should never appear in job specifications

  • Age
  • Race
  • National origin
  • Religion
  • Sex
• Testing


  An integral part of the hiring process, especially with large firms. Designed to measure the applicant's verbal, quantitative, and logical skills
• Types of tests


  • Aptitude tests
  • Skill tests
  • Personality tests
  • Dexterity tests
• Validity


  The quality of measuring precisely what a test is designed to determine
• Reliability


  Refers to the quality of exhibiting a reasonable consistency in results obtained
• Successful hiring starts from using valid tests
• Interviews


  When ethical issues arise, they almost always relate to the manner in which the interview was conducted
• Unethical interview practices to avoid

  • Rudeness
  • Coarseness
  • Hostility
  • Condescension
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626): 'We view things, people included, through the lens of our preconceptions. Human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature by mingling its nature with it.'
• Bases for promotion


  • Seniority
  • Inbreeding
  • Nepotism
  • Discipline and discharge
• Just cause


  A reason for discipline or discharge that deals directly with job performance
• Due process


  The specific and systematic means workers have of appealing discipline and discharge
• Discipline


  To teach so as to mold
• Disciplinary guidelines


  Can take the form of training, a warning, or reprimand. In serious cases it can involve suspension or discharge.
• There are so many variables involved that no one can say with mathematical precision what a person should be paid for a job
• Factors that minimize the chances of setting unfair wages and salaries and provides the well-intentioned business manager some ethical guidelines for arriving at a salary


  • What is the prevailing wage in the industry?
  • What is the community wage level?
  • What is the nature of the job itself?
  • Is the job secure?
  • What are the employer's financial capabilities?
  • What is the law?
• Managers continually choose between people when making decisions such as which job seeker to hire, which employee to promote, or which employee to lay off
• Failing to be honest with employees about their performance is a form of deceit that is damaging to the employee, the organization and the manager
• Goals


  Give you focus, help you overcome procrastination, give you motivation
• Sometimes a manager and his/her boss will assign widely differing degrees of importance to an issue and its possible outcome
• Conflict of interest


  Arises when employees at any level have an interest in or are parties to a transaction substantial enough that it does or reasonably might affect their independent judgement in acts for the organization