THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

UNIVERSITY OF FINANCE – MARKETING

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FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Subject: Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Course Section: 2231910006301, 02

Members MSSV
Nguyễn Ngọc Mai 2021008209
Nguyễn Hoàng Vân Anh 2021008186
Nguyễn Đặng Nhã An 2021009195

Ho Chi Minh City, November 2022

Question:
You are the purchasing manager of a large manufacturing company. Your
company values integrity and business integrity. To develop relationships with
suppliers, you often contact and have lunches with sales representatives of these
companies. In response to your goodwill, Mr. Hung - who is the director of a
company that supplies the main materials for your company (accounting for 30%
of your company's purchases) - invited you and your wife to a year-end party and
they would bring a car to pick you up. You happily agreed, but you realized that
this was an intimate dinner at a top-class restaurant when you arrived. Mr. Hung
explained that his company's year-end party had been postponed to the following
week but he still invited you to come here because of his promise. At dinner, Mr.
Hung asked your wife to join a champagne-opening program at the restaurant.
Two weeks later, your wife received a high-quality diamond-studded set of gold
jewelry from the restaurant's program. With intuition and social experience, you
know this is no coincidence. You are thinking very hard because the company's
policy requires employees not to use the company's work for personal gain.
1. Do you agree with the policy? Why or why not?
2. Would it be against corporate policy to accept such a gift? Give your
explanation.
3. Put yourself in the position of Mr. Hung. Is his conduct is unethical? Why or
why not?
4. Imagine that you are the president and CEO. It means that you are both the
largest owner and decision-maker for business activities. Would it be unethical
to accept this gift? Why or why not?
Answer:

Question 1:

Our group agrees with the company's policy, specifically that the company has a policy
of "requiring employees not to take advantage of the company's work for personal gain"
and "valuing integrity and integrity in business ".

First of all, by talking about self-interested behavior and using work for self-interest,
we can understand that:
 • In terms of self-interest, this is a characteristic that only knows (uplifts
above all) personal interests but ignores or even wants to appropriate the
interests of others for his own work. Another aspect is called selfishness,
that is, knowing only oneself and not caring about the interests and
pursuits of others. That is a characteristic of many people in our society.
• Regarding not abusing work for self-interest, we have the concept of self-
interested transactions or the concept of potentially self-interested
transactions, which are still concepts discussed in legal science, but not
legal literature, the specific legal definition. Collectively, the concept of
a potentially self-interested transaction contains three basic elements: (1)
The transfer of interests of the company to the individual; (2) The breach
of the trustee participating in the transaction; (3) The abuse of position for
personal gain. Accordingly, a transaction capable of self-interest is a
transaction that is likely to cause damage to the assets and interests of the
company because the representative participating in the transaction
abuses the position to gain personal benefits.

According to the company's policy, integrity is the basic and leading quality, moral and
ethical standards of each individual and community in social life. It is the most
important principle governing human conduct in all spheres of activity, not only in
politics but also in economics. Especially in the market economy, the principle of
integrity is highly appreciated by the business world and businesses. In the opinion of
President Ho Chi Minh: "the principle of integrity is closely linked to the main principle
and they merge into one principle, the common standard is integrity". Integrity can be
understood as a pure personality, uprightness, and integrity is an essential quality of
personality. Vietnamese dictionary defines: “Integrity is uprightness and purity”. Or the
Oxford dictionary also defines integrity as the quality of work that is honest and has
strong ethical principles. That is, if honesty is simply the conformity of words to things
and phenomena, then integrity includes the offering and fulfillment of promises and
strong moral responsibility.

The important reason why we agree with the company policy is that it brings a lot of
value to the business. Because it is like a solid foundation for building a successful
business, namely:

• Create credibility for the company: people often say: "Once lost reputation, ten
thousand times lost credibility". Acting on the basis of integrity builds great trust,
and the business itself benefits from those relationships. Moreover, integrity in
working style also helps the business itself to be "advertised" indirectly and will
spread faster than any marketing strategy.
 • Create a good culture for the company: An enterprise that puts integrity as the
"heart" and upholds business ethics will create "authority" or "soft power". The
company will have the satisfaction of employees, and this good virtue will be
like an internal culture,... As a result, the company will have a good and
sustainable development path. According to a study at Adelphi University, it has
been shown that: “Employees' perception of integrity in management's behavior
is directly proportional to satisfaction, active work as well as health and life.
private". Therefore, if the business wants to successfully complete the goal of
building a happy team, the prerequisite is to put integrity as the principle.
• Help the company grow in the long term: in any business, sometimes you will
face the temptation because of the appearance of the opportunity to choose a
shortcut to solve the problem. However, true entrepreneurs always understand
that successfully developing a career, a business is an endeavor that requires
long-term perseverance. So they choose slowly but surely rather than "collecting
firewood 3 years and burning 1 hour".
• Help the company develop in a positive direction: Because the business is
creating opportunities for its employees to decide on the right work in
accordance with corporate ethics. Mutual trust also increases, helping to reduce
unnecessary disputes

In this case, I am a longtime partner of Mr. Hung and it is very normal to receive gifts
such as thanks and friend requests. But by intuition and experience, I have realized that
giving gifts in life is the point where the two sides are doing business, there are
excessive treatment gestures such as "bringing the car to pick up", and "an intimate
party at a high-class restaurant". granting “, or “receiving a gift of diamond jewelry” is
completely unreasonable.

Receiving this gift also means that I accept a word of help for Hung in the future.
However, there is no guarantee that the cooperation between the two sides will always
be the best. Besides, not accepting the gift will not make Mr. Hung expect anything
from me or future projects. Moreover, if I receive a gift, my relationship with Mr. Hung
seems unlikely to be as normal as before. In particular, will be bound because of
material things. I will probably have to work with gratitude for the gift for a long time
until I bring value, to the work it deserves. At the same time, it will also be considered
a violation of the company's regulations even though the recipient of the gift is the wife.
Of course, Mr. Hung's arrangement to say that "jewelry was received from the
restaurant's program" was also because he did not want to make it too obvious that he
was bribing. Although this problem was cleverly given to his wife by Mr. Hung, when
dependent on material things, the disadvantage still belongs to our company. The policy
of honesty and integrity in business not only protects the interests and image of the
company, but also protects the image, clean background, and future of all employees of
that company.

The refusal of the gift is also not entirely a disadvantage for the company because if Mr.
Hung sees the true capacity and results that the company brings after cooperation, he
will definitely try harder to keep the long-term cooperation relationship. Rejecting a gift
also shows humility. Because all this success is not only because of me but also the
whole company's contribution

Question 2:
To know if receiving an expensive jewelry gift from Mr. Hung violates the company's
policy, we have the following analysis:
It is unreasonable to accept such an expensive and special gift (a set of high-class
diamond-studded gold jewelry) and is easily viewed as receiving private benefits. This
violates the company's policy of "requiring employees not to take advantage of the
company's work for personal gain". Therefore, this is considered an act of bribery
According to the definition, bribery is essentially a purchase of power, a violation of
law and morality, especially on the part of the bribe recipient. The recipient of a bribe
must definitely be a person who holds power and has "sold" that power to gain illicit
profits, or will receive any benefit for themselves or for another person or entity to do
or not do something for the benefit of or at the request of the person giving the bribe.
Firstly, the value of the gold jewelry set with diamonds is too high. In two cases, Mr.
Hung gave me a set of jewelry from the restaurant's program; or that gift was prepared
by Mr. Hung in advance and the other program was just a way to indirectly give it to
me. However, my keen intuition and long experience in the marketplace tell me that a
set of gold and diamond jewelry is not a good idea for any restaurant to run a campaign.
Everyone will tacitly understand the unusual implicit message behind this gift.
Therefore, this gift can be given for the purpose that the next time the goods are
imported, I - the purchasing manager will consider cooperation with the supplier Mr.
Hung because the power of any purchasing manager allows them to do that. Moreover,
because the hidden message behind this gift is unclear and the value of the gift is not
small, receiving this jewelry set violates the company's policy of self-interest. Because
the value of the jewelry set is so large (above normal) that the recipient has to consider
"returning" if there are profitable business relationships in the future. In addition,
throughout the process, Mr. Hung also acted in an overly intimate manner with my wife
and me.
Secondly, this is a business appointment. Receiving such a large jewelry set is also
unintentionally personal gain from work (in this case, I received a high-value jewelry
set that was related to a meal for the purpose of discussing business cooperation).
Moreover, if Mr. Hung gave me that piece of jewelry for the simple purpose that
celebrating successful cooperation, it wouldn't make sense to accept that gift, because
this is a win-win relationship, both sides of cooperation bring profit to each other.
Furthermore, I am a purchasing manager, not a business owner, I am just fulfilling my
responsibilities toward the company. Moreover, the success of the previous cooperation
was not only due to my own efforts but also to the contributions of many other
colleagues, if I alone benefited, it would be unfair and even cause discontent from many
sides. Therefore, a gift of such high value is above the norm for a business partner where
the recipient is not the business owner. If I accept such a gift, it means that I have
received benefits for myself based on my position and authority regardless of whether
I have done or will do or will not do something beneficial to the giver. However, if I
received the gift while seeing such anomalies, it proves that I have tacitly agreed with
Mr. Hung and violated company policy. In this case, it can be called a variant of bribery,
since the value of the gift is above the norm and my position and circumstances are
clearly unreasonable. This violates company policy and violates business ethics
Finally, if I receive that jewelry set, there will be more or less leaked information
outside, which is not good for my reputation - the purchasing director as well as the
reputation of the business. Because the company has a policy and this ambiguity is easy
to misunderstand as well as brings a lot of notoriety. Besides, that may also affect my
reputation and future career. Not only that, this is also an ethical issue. In this case, I
am the person with the high position, authority and I am aware of that, I also respect my
company and its integrity policy. This is against this policy, law and against professional
ethics.
Question 3:
❖ If we put ourselves in the position of Mr. Hung:
Here's a situation where I'm doing it wrong. From an objective point of view, this is a
dilemma that, depending on the purpose, is unethical or not. However, according to the
above situation, I have done more intimate actions than usual such as “inviting the wife
of the purchasing director to open the champagne”, “organizing an intimate party”, and
giving his wife an expensive gift. This behavior, whether intentional or unintentional,
also confuses this couple; and I am easily considered a violation of business ethics.
Besides that, my behavior may have made him a bribe recipient and violated company
policy. Because the person receiving a benefit beyond the normal level for
themselves/the organization (based on their position and authority, violate business
ethics). His company also has a clear policy, so this vague work of mine will also cause
him to be misunderstood by everyone.
From a different perspective, others may appreciate that the gift is given as a thank you
for past cooperation. However, this gift has a high value, which makes it difficult for
the purchasing manager and is accompanied by excessive "close" actions from me. I
cannot deny that such a valuable gift was given to the purchasing manager because he
also occupies an important position in the partnership, he can choose who the supplier
is to his company in the coming period. Not only that, he once re-exported to me large
orders (accounting for 30% of the import volume of the company he is working for). If
he can consider letting us work together next time, that's a great value he can bring to
me as purchasing manager. Thus, that gift I don't really give your director for the sole
reason of loving him. He may have the choice to either not cooperate with me or next
time, but in my opinion, this will be a gift that makes him feel “should returned” and
always think about it.
Question 4:
According to those arguments, this is an act of lack of clarity, and is considered an
indirect bribe (giving my wife a set of jewelry from the restaurant show). Therefore, if
I accept this gift, it is very easy to fall into the crime of accepting bribes. This goes
against the company policy that "My company values integrity and business integrity".

Since ancient times, integrity is a good quality belonging to the Four Virtues. In the
words of Confucius Lao Fuzi: "a person without integrity is not as good as an animal",
and Mencius: "everyone is greedy for gain, the country will be in danger". Or in the
work New Life (March 1947), President Ho Chi Minh emphasized practicing "Cần,
Kiệm, Liêm, Chính". For example, in a Caux negotiation held in Switzerland on the
issue of business ethics. On the business side of Europe, North America, and Japan, 13
rules of integrity have been introduced. The third rule says: “The conduct of an
enterprise, not only at the correct implementation of legal documents but also towards
a responsible spirit. When accepting the legitimacy of trade secrets, businesses also
need to realize that sincerity, straightforwardness, honesty, keeping promises and
transparency not only contribute to building credibility and stability but also create the
smoothness and efficiency of business transactions, especially in the international
market”

In short, integrity, and honesty are good qualities, a measure of a person's morality. It
is inherited from generation to generation. The principle of integrity in work and life
not only ensures the existence and sustainable development of businesses but also
contributes to the development of international trade. Moreover, President Ho Chi Minh
also pointed out the value of integrity on a personal level, integrity brings
"righteousness", a good heart, intelligence, prestige, and respect from those around him.
 → In this situation, usually, people would accept gifts if I was in my position - the
company president. Instead, I can give Hung a gift of equal value, in accordance
with courtesy and behavior with people in the diplomatic service. However, my
company has a clear policy that applies to the entire company. I am the head of
a company - the company president. All my actions represent the face and
reputation of my company. Also, out of respect for the company and its
employees, I will not violate company policies. I still won't accept this gift.
Specifically, my wife will not accept this high-end diamond-encrusted gold
jewelry set.
The cause is:
If I accept to let my wife receive gifts from Mr. Hung.
This will cause employees to change their view of superiors and the company system
and I may lose everyone's trust and confidence. It would be too bad that the policy
would no longer work as well for employees as they might think, "Why should I follow
the policy when my boss doesn't!".
My conscience does not allow me to accept a gift for myself personally because it is an
act of self-interest. Maybe Mr. Hung gave it to me out of gratitude, respect, and
congratulations for the previous successful cooperation. But for me, all the
achievements are not only from me but come from the efforts, hard work, and talents of
all my colleagues, employees of my company, and even from the side of Mr. Hung's
company. And in fact, there are many ways for Mr. Hung to express his thanks or
congratulations for the cooperation such as giving gifts on holidays or congratulating
cakes, or the two companies going to a restaurant together to eat. But Mr. Hung chose
to give only one set of expensive jewelry to my wife and me.
In addition, although it seems that this case of giving and receiving gifts is very delicate,
discreet, and careful, it is not. Maybe the money spent on this expensive jewelry set was
not paid by Mr. Hung. It can be listed to the accountant as an amount spent on diplomacy
with the partner like the previous activities (giving gifts on holidays, birthdays, parties...
for partners). Mr. Hung's company staff will know about the company spending a large
amount of money on me - a potential partner. So sooner or later my staff will know that
I received this expensive gift.
Moreover, if I let my wife receive this gift from Mr. Hung. I could give him a similarly
precious gift, or invite him to sumptuous meals at restaurants. But I know that Mr. Hung
is not just a gift of thanks and congratulations, but also a message of hope for future
cooperation. But it is not certain that my company's projects will cooperate with Mr.
Hung's company forever.
In short, my acceptance of this gift will lead to a lot of consequences, and
misunderstandings. However, I can't explain it to everyone. Even more serious is that it
will be rumored and exaggerated information will make people lose faith in me, and my
company's reputation will be lost. So I will honestly refuse to accept the gift that: "I
really appreciate you giving my wife and me such a precious gift. But this gift is too
precious and you are the one to pay for this party. So I think you should keep this gift."