Republic of the Philippines

Laguna State Polytechnic University

Province of Laguna

Ethical Issues and Problems in the Business and Corporate World

Ethical Issue/Problem

Ethical issues in business in a situation where a moral conflict arises and must be
addressed. In other words, it is an occasion where a moral standard is questioned.

When a certain decision, circumstance, or conduct stands in contrast to a society’s

moral values. Individuals and businesses might be involved in these conflicts since
any of their activities could be questioned on ethical grounds.

1. Discrimination and Harassment

Discrimination

➢ Discrimination in the workplace refers to the unfair treatment of

employees based on their characteristics.

Types of Workplace Discrimination

1. Race Discrimination 2. Gender Discrimination

3. Age Discrimination 4. Religious Discrimination

5. Disability Discrimination
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

Harassment

➢ Harassment in the workplace refers to the alarming behaviors against a

single employee or a group of employees.

Types of Workplace Harassment

1. Verbal Harassment

➢
➢ using unpleasant language, insults, and unjustified criticism.
2. Psychological Harassment

➢ taking credit for others' accomplishments, making unreasonable

demands, demanding unusual deadlines on employees, and
pressuring employees to work outside their job scope.
3. Physical Harassment

➢ inappropriate touching of clothing or skin, physical attacks,

threats, or property damage.
4. Sexual Harassment
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

➢ improper touching, sending sexual messages and videos,

requesting sexual favors, and statements that include vulgar
gestures.
5. Digital Harassment or Cyberbullying

➢ sending threatening or degrading comments on social media,

creating a phony persona to abuse someone online, building a
webpage mocking and belittling the victim, and making false
charges online.

2. Poor Health and Safety

➢ The standard dictionary definition for Health and Safety is: 'regulations and
procedures intended to prevent accident or injury in workplaces or public
environments.
➢ Under the HSWA 2015, PCBUs have a responsibility to ensure the health and
safety of workers are not put at risk.
➢ Physical and psychological harm caused by falls or slips, stress, poor
workstation setups, or toxic environments is the most common risks that can
occur in the corporate world. These negatively impact workers’ health and
well-being, leading to a downturn in their performance.

10 Signs of a Poor Health and Safety Workplace

1. Lack of interest in health and safety
2. Weak or no health and safety management structure
3. No health and safety budget
4. No resources
5. Lack of health and safety communication
6. Poor compliance
7. High accident rates
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

8. Sickness and ill-health

9. Under-reporting
10. Lack of health and safety competence

How Can Employers Improve Health and Safety Management?

➢ Establish an active workplace safety and health safety committee.
Make daily safety inspections part of some employees' jobs. Keep
employees informed about safety inspections, injury and illness
statistics, and other safety-related issues. Give everyone a meaningful
activity that supports safety.
Why Health and Safety are Important?
➢ It is morally right to ensure your workers return home safe and healthy
at the end of every working day.
➢ A good health and safety record is a source of competitive advantage:
it builds trust in your reputation and brand, while poor health and
safety performance will directly affect profitability and can result in
loss of trade or even closure of the business.
3. Social Media Rants
➢ Social Media Rants is essentially uncensored wrath often through
platforms such as Instagram Stories, Tweets, or Facebook Post.

The Awful Effects of Complaining about Work on Social Media

1. Make yourself look bad 2. Damage your employer’s reputation

3. Cause issues among workers 4. Lose your job

 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

4. Espionage and Non-Disclosure

Espionage

➢ Espionage in the workplace is the act of spying or hiring spies to get

confidential information.

Non-Disclosure

➢ A non-disclosure agreement is a legally enforceable contract that

establishes a confidential connection between two parties.

How do avoid espionage in the workplace?

1. Implementing a policy for the security of employees.

2. Make sure your employees undergo screening
3. A software that could monitor employees’ activity
4. Ensuring spies are terminated

5. Nepotism
➢ Nepotism is the practice among those with the power or influence of
favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving their jobs.

Forms of Nepotism

1. Job Employment 2. Promotions

3. Job Transfers 4. Closing one’s eye to misdoings

 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

5. Bad habits overlooked

Nepotism can destroy workplace culture and often places employees in

roles that they are ill-equipped to handle. Nepotism often occurs when there
are poor policies and improperly trained leadership in place, preventing
qualified candidates from being hired without just cause. Whether you run a
small family business or a large corporation, fair hiring and promotion
practices are essential to your company’s long-term growth and dynamic
cultural development.

6. Favoritism
➢ Favoritism refers to a situation where someone in a leadership position
demonstrates favor toward one employee over others.

Kinds of Favoritism

1. Gifts 2. Promotions and Opportunities

3. Praise

7. Abuse of Power
➢ Abuse of Power is a misuse of authority to take actions in personal
interest that negatively impacts the company and its’ employee.
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Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

How it can affect the company and its employees?

➢ Lack of manager trust in the organization. High employee turnover.

High workplace absenteeism. Low employee productivity.
➢ Misused power can disrupt the way a business functions. Immoral,
unethical, or deceitful power plays can reduce morale, impact
productivity and damage the reputation of an organization.

Examples of Abuse of Power in the workplace

1. Harassing or bullying colleagues or subordinates.

2. Asking for sexual favors from the employees or making inappropriate
contact with employees.
3. Asking staff to perform personal errands.
4. Interfering and disturbing colleagues or employees and disturbing their
ability to work efficiently.
5. Forcing colleagues or subordinates to break the rules of the workplace.

8. Employee Theft
➢ Employee theft is described as the unauthorized taking, use, or misuse
of an employer's assets.

Types of Employee Theft

1. Money Theft
➢ Stealing money from the company. This is the most common
form of theft.
➢ Money Workers, who steal from the cash register, commit
credit card fraud, falsify checks, or engage in any other
fraudulent activity that financially harms the company is
stealing from an employer.
2. Time Theft
➢ Being paid for unworked hours. This occurs by manipulating
timekeeping data, or not working while on the clock.
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

➢ Socializing with friends or family during work hours via the

telephone, social networking sites, instant messaging, or any
other means of communication.
➢ This type of theft is very common in every organization and
severely damages productivity. Not only are culprits hurting
their organization with this behavior but they are unfairly
burdening their co-workers with extra work. Stress that social
networking, which is not job-related, is a way of stealing from
the organization.
3. Supplies Theft
➢ Taking workplace resources such as office supplies,
unauthorized photocopies, and computers.
➢ Stealing workplace resources such as office supplies,
unauthorized photocopies, and computer printouts. This is one
of the most common types of theft in the workplace.
➢ Most employees do not consider this theft. They have justified
it by concluding that the cost is so low that it does not affect the
organization in a profound way. However, stealing office
supplies and making personal copies and printouts adds up to a
large dollar loss when the entire organization engages in these
activities.
4. Information Theft
➢ Extorting a company's confidential information such as designs
and documents.
➢ Information theft is one of the most troubling types of
employee theft. Not only can it put your company’s assets in
danger, but may also compromise your clients’ and customers’
sensitive data.

Examples of information theft include:

➢ Stealing an employer’s trade secrets or proprietary information Theft

of clients’ or other employees’ personally identifiable information (for
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Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

ex. credit card information, social security numbers, addresses, etc.),

and the last one stealing customer or contact lists when leaving the
company.
➢ Employee theft is a serious ethics violation. However, employee ethics
training can greatly decrease the incidents of theft in your workplace.
Make sure your entire workforce understands what is considered theft
and the repercussions of stealing. It will improve your bottom line and
the efficiency of your workplace.

9. Bad Accounting
➢ Bad accounting practices are inconsistent, incomplete, unreconciled, or
irresponsible operations that lead to inaccuracies throughout the
organization.

Bad Accounting Practices

1. Not allocating a specific budget to each project

➢ Going into a project without an idea of how much it could end up
costing your company far more than they intended to spend. Having a
budget from the beginning of a project might make it hard to rein in
expenses for that project and end up costing your company a lot of
money. This could cause your company to spend its limited funds on a
project that might not produce its return on investment.
➢ The longer you exist as a business the easier it will become to
understand how much you need to continue operating. This will make
it easier to set budgets that are not excessive or wasteful.
2. Financial statements are manipulated.
➢ Financial statement manipulation is the process of manipulating
financial statements to reflect a company's desired performance rather
than its actual performance.
➢ Manipulation of financial statements always involves doing one of two
things – either manipulating records to inflate apparent revenue or
manipulating them to reduce apparent expenses or liabilities.
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

➢ More specifically, here are some of the accounting tricks used to

provide a false picture of a company’s actual financial condition:
- Recording revenue prior to supplying goods or services
- Reporting income from investments or capital obtained by
taking out a loan as business revenue
- Capitalizing ordinary business expenses, thus shifting them
from the income statement to the balance sheet
- Inaccurately reporting liabilities – or altogether neglecting to
report them at all
3. Paying your employees incorrectly.
➢ You will lose money if you overpay an employee. You aggravate an
employee by underpaying him or her, and you risk legal ramifications.
Hourly employees are more likely to be involved in these situations,
however, salaried staff can also be affected. Here's how to deal with
each one.
4. Receipts and notes are not saved
➢ Even if you just use one credit card for business spending, your
statement alone will not reveal how your transactions were tied to your
company.
➢ Keep your receipts and write notes about how things were used or how
the business profited from the transaction. These notes will come in
handy when memory fails.
5. Forgetting to keep track of small transactions
➢ This is especially important in retail environments, where many
transactions are cash-based. It’s also important to record small
transactions like paying for the postal delivery, even if the cost is
insignificant.
➢ Keep track of the minor transactions, and managing the larger ones
becomes much easier. You'll be able to simply manage your books
when your firm develops in size and the number of transactions
increases if you keep track of little transactions.
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

10. Environmental Irresponsibility

➢ Defined as a company’s failure to act responsibly toward the
environment.

Samples of Environmental Irresponsibility

1. Not complying with environmental legislation.
2. Using and littering hazardous substances inappropriately.
3. Not recycling.
4. Contributes to pollution
Effects or Results of Environmental Irresponsibility to the Environment
1. Deforestation 2. Water and Air Pollution

3. Landslide 4. Flash Floods

How to Address Ethical Issues in the Workplace

Introduce a Policy

➢ Companies should revisit these codes of ethics from time to time to

accommodate new trends and changes in national practice. When it is time to
update the code, managers should solicit buy-in from their employees to get
insight into the issues people “on the ground” face every day. By including
everyone in this process, managers and executives demonstrate the value of
the entire team.

Provide Resources and Education

➢ When business leaders amend their codes of ethics, they may see pushback
from employees who refuse to change. More often than not, this results from
employees not understanding how to implement these changes. However, just
because they may have a tough time adjusting to new practices does not mean
they are completely incapable of doing so.
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Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

➢ Employers must provide educational opportunities for all employees in order

to successfully implement policy changes and set goals for senior leaders and
managers.

Employ a Confidential System

➢ Although employees may understand that they will not suffer repercussions
for blowing the whistle, they may still be hesitant to do so for fear of
alienating their coworkers. Nobody wants to be known as the office tattletale

➢ To alleviate this issue, managers should set up a confidential system for

reporting ethical violations. Similarly, managers should handle discipline
confidentially to protect the privacy of those they need to confront. Most
importantly, supervisors should never punish an entire team for the actions of
one or two workers.
Be Consistent
➢ Once managers implement a system of dealing with ethical issues in the
workplace, everyone must adhere to the policy exactly as detailed. When
employees sign the new policy, indicating their understanding and pledging
their compliance, they agree to hold themselves to a higher standard and to
face the consequences of not doing so. Employers must agree to hold
themselves to this same standard. If either side compromises the agreement,
the system will fail

Internet Reference:
Abuse of Power in the Workplace. (2021). Your Safe Hub. Retrieved from
https://yoursafehub.com/abuse-of-power-in-the-workplace/
Bhasin, H. (2019). Abuse of Power at Workplace – Meaning, Examples, and Impacts.
Retrieved from Marketing91. https://www.marketing91.com/abuse-of-power-at-
workplace/
HASpod. (2020). 10 signs of a poor health and safety culture at work. Retrieved from
https://www.haspod.com/blog/management/signs-of-poor-health-safety-culture-at-
work
Proctor, P. (2022). How to Prevent Nepotism in the Workplace. Business.Com.
Retrieved from https://www.business.com/articles/prevent-workplace-nepotism/?
fbclid=IwAR20zCbiF4srEIu7PBIi88mAnSvpvZSaaDFXWn1oHhbrf5yTrGG28y8Tb
AY
S. (2021). Methods of Addressing Ethical Issues | TAMUCC’s Online MBA. Tamucc.
Retrieved from https://online.tamucc.edu/degrees/business/mba/general/how-to-
address-ethical-issues-in-the-workplace/
What Is Favoritism in the Workplace? Definition and Examples. (2021). Indeed
Career Guide. Retrieved from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-
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Province of Laguna

development/favoritism-in-the-workplace#:%7E:text=In%20the%20workplace%2C
%20favoritism%20refers
WorkSafe New. (2022). Introduction to the health and safety at work act 2015 –
special guide. Retrieved from https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/managing-health-and-
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%20duty%20of%20care,'primary%20duty%20of%20care'.
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Province of Laguna

GOOD GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Learning Team 2

Ethical Issues and Problems in the Business and Corporate World

Submitted by:

Leader:

Lantican, Railene

Members:

Alicante, Brethny Bañados, Patrick

Belisario, Jastiz Carabuena, Charish

Lapiz, Awie Rein Magda, Merry Rose

Ogalin, Crisel Joy Olea, Melody

Paghubasan, Deo Quilloy, Katrina

Rubio, Danika

Submitted to:

Sir Jonathan Bernabe

Learning Team 2