AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

IDENTIFY & PROVIDE EXAMPLES FOR CORE ETHICAL ISSUES

What is Ethics?
Ethics may be defined as the set of moral principles that distinguish what is right from
what is wrong.
Ethics has a twofold objective: it evaluates human practices by calling upon moral
standards. It may give prescriptive advice on how to act morally in each situation.
What Does Ethical Issues Mean?
Ethical issues occur when a given decision, scenario or activity creates a conflict with a
society's moral principles. These conflicts are sometimes legally dangerous, since some
of the alternatives to solve the issue might breach a particular law.

Examples of Ethical Issues:

Here are examples of the most common personal ethics for professionals:

 Diversity & Discrimination

 Health & Safety
 Integrity
 Social Media
 Compassion
 Respect
 Nepotism
 Accountability
 Providing excellence
 Technology/Privacy
 Drug and alcohol abuse
 Environmental Pollution
 Misuse of company assets
 Environmental pollution
 AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

1. Diversity & Discrimination:

Discrimination in the workplace is essentially any aspect about the job itself or
the duties related to its which are treated differently with respect to any of the
categories listed below. Ensuring diversity and actively preventing discrimination
are critical aspects of resolving ethical dilemmas in business.
The EEOC lists the following types of discrimination:
 Age
 Disability
 Equal Pay/Compensation
 Genetic Information
 Harassment
 National Origin
 Pregnancy
 Race/Color
 Religion
 Retaliation
 Sexual Harassment

2. Health & Safety:

There are few ethical problems in business that are more serious than the health
& safety of your employees and customers. Besides the obvious ethical
implications of people getting hurt or sick while working for your business, there
is also the huge risk to your business’s financial stability and reputation.
It’s key to also highlight that physical safety shouldn’t be your only focus;
psychological well-being is a core component of creating a safe and healthy
workspace. Consider this: approximately 63% of the U.S. population is part of the
labor force and roughly 71% of adult Americans report at least one symptom of
stress (like headaches or anxiety).
It’s not all doom and gloom though; of course, there are actions you can take to
ensure health & safety at work.

3. Integrity:
Sticking with a decision, especially when pressured to do otherwise, shows honor
and courage. Companies that do what they believe is morally right based on
equality and fairness can demonstrate strength and commendable character.
AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

4. Social Media:
One of the more current ethical issues in business is the question of employees’
personal behavior on social media outside of work hours. Granted, there is still
quite a large gray area of situations that may or may not make it ethically
justifiable to fire an employee for their social media conduct.

5. Compassion:
Ethical companies demonstrate genuine kindness, understanding and care for
the livelihood of others. In business, this means accomplishing business goals to
produce the best while causing the least amount of damage. When a business
decision needs to be made, careful consideration of the options and how each
one may affect a person or community helps reduce the potential negative
impacts, depending on the industry.

6. Respect:
Having basic respect for the rights, privacy, and dignity of people—including
individuals within and outside the company—is an important business ethical
standard. Companies that treat all humans with respect regardless of religion,
sex, race, nationality, or other signifier are often reviewed positively in the public
eye.

7. Nepotism:
Nepotism, in case you’re unfamiliar with the term, refers to a form of favoritism
for family members or close friends. While it can introduce issues into the
workplace under certain circumstances, nepotism isn’t inherently a bad thing if
the family member or friend is fit for the position and gets along well with other
employees.

8. Accountability:
Ethical businesses accept responsibility for all decisions made as a company and
admit their mistakes to all of those who may be affected by a misstep including
shareholders, employees and the public. In addition to taking accountability, they
also accept any consequences that result and do so transparently.

9. Providing Excellence:
Ethical organizations strive to provide excellence by always working to deliver the
greatest quality of service or products to their clients and customers. They
pursue creativity and innovation, looking for the best ways to deliver their goods
and seek to constantly improve their performance, customer satisfaction and
employee morale.
 AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

10. Technology/Privacy:
These days you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have some
sensitive data stored digitally – including your employees. In fact, more than 80%
of Americans own a smartphone and the average person uses roughly 25
applications every month. That’s a ton of opportunities for data to fall into the
wrong hands!

So, what does that have to do with ethical problems in business? Well, the
ethical issues have less to do with how your employees conduct themselves on
company computers, smartphones, and tablets (although that’s super important
to address!).

Q1: Three Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility?

Ans:
 Improving labor policies.
 Volunteering in the community.
 Corporate policies that benefit the environment.
 Socially and environmentally conscious investments.

Q2: Is ethics important for modern organizations?

Ans:
Business ethics help ensure a good reputation for your company. When you
have a reputation for consistently being ethical in how you source and build
products, and treat employees, customers and the community, more people will
want to do business with you. Even social media ethics is important for your
reputation. Ethical behavior ensures that staff completes work with honesty and
integrity and meets the aim of an organization by adhering to rules and policies.

Q3: How the four levels of ethical questions relevant to modern organizations?
Ans:
In business, most ethical questions fall into one or more of four categories:
 AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

1. Societal:

Societal level questions usually represent an ongoing debate among major

competing institutions. As managers and individuals, each of us can try to shape
that debate. Andrew Carnegie (along with other early theorists of corporate social
responsibility) worked at this level when he argued that the proper role of a
business such as his own Steel was to apply the principles of charity to assist the
poor and unfortunate.

2. Stakeholder:

The second kind of ethical questions concerns stakeholders – suppliers,

customers, shareholders, and the rest. Here we ask questions about how a
company should deal with the external groups affected by its decisions, as well
as how the stake holders should deal with the company.

3. Internal Policy:

A third category of ethics might be called ‘internal policy” Here we ask questions
about the nature of a company’s relations with its employee. What kind of
employment contract is fair? What are the mutual obligations of managers and
workers? What rights do employees have? These questions too, pervade the
workday of a manager. Layoffs benefit work rules, motivation and leadership are
all ethical concerns here.

4. Personal:

Here we ask questions about how people should treat one another within an
organization. Should we be honest with one another, whatever the
consequences? What obligation do we have both as human beings and as
workers who fill specific work roles to our bosses, our employees, and our peers?
These questions deal with the day-to-day issues of life in any organization.
Behind them lie two broader issues: Do we have the right to look at other people
primarily as means to our ends/can we avoid doing so?

Q4: How Charity Principle is linked with Stewardship principle?

Ans:
 AISHA NAZIR POM ASSIGNMENT 03-135202-033

The charity principle is the idea that the wealthiest members of society should be
charitable toward those less fortunate.
The stewardship principle is the idea that business leaders have an obligation to see
that everyone, particularly those in need or at risk, benefits from their firms’ actions
According to this view, corporate managers have been placed in a position of public
trust.
Q5: Is Enlightened Self Interest a reality or a dream not to be chased?
Ans:
Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to
further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they
belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest. It can be simply expressed by the belief
“helping each other help ourselves.”

Q6: How can the tools of ethics help young managers?

Ans:
Ethics programs help manage values associated with quality management, strategic
planning, and diversity management — this benefit needs far more attention. Ethics
programs identify preferred values and ensuring organizational behaviors are aligned
with those values.