Moral Choices Facing

Employees
DR. JOFREY R. CAMPOS
• Business ethics is the application of the general ethical rules to
business behavior. If a society deems dishonesty to be
unethical and immoral, then anyone in business who is
dishonest with employees, customers, creditors, stockholders,
or competition is acting unethically and immorally.
• Acting ethically in business means more than simply obeying
applicable laws and regulations: It also means being honest,
doing no harm to others, competing fairly, and declining to put
your own interests above those of your company, its owners,
and its workers. If you’re in business you obviously need a
strong sense of what’s right and wrong. You need the personal
conviction to do what’s right, even if it means doing something
that’s difficult or personally disadvantageous.
Ethical Issues and Ethical Dilemmas

Ethical issues are the difficult social questions that

involve some level of controversy over what is the
right thing to do. A problem or situation that requires
a person or organization to choose between
alternatives that must be evaluated as right (ethical)
or wrong (unethical).
Example of ethical issues in business are:
1. Conflicts of Interest
2. Sexual Harassment
3. Whistleblowing or Social Media Rants
4. Ethics in Accounting Practices
5. Technology and Privacy Practices
Ethical dilemmas are situations in which it is difficult for an
individual to make decisions either because the right course of
action is unclear or carries some potential negative
consequences for the person or people involved. Make no
mistake about it: when you enter the business world, you’ll
find yourself in situations in which you’ll have to choose the
appropriate behavior. How, for example, would you answer
questions like the following?
1. Is it OK to accept a pair of sports tickets from a supplier?
2. Can I buy office supplies from my brother-in-law?
3. If I find out that a friend is about to be fired, can I warn her?
 1. Conflicts of Interest

• When you accept employment, you generally agree to

perform certain tasks, usually during certain specified hours,
in exchange for financial remuneration.
• Because you are hired to work for your employer, you have
an obligation, when acting on behalf of the organization, to
promote your employer’s interest. Insofar as you are acting
as an agent of your employer, the traditional law of agency
places you under a legal obligation to act loyally and in good
faith and to carry out all lawful instructions.
• Of course, even the most loyal employees can find that their
interest collide with those of the organization. You want to
dress one way, the organization requires you to dress
another way;
• Sometimes this clash of goals and desires can take serious
form of a conflict of interest. In an organization, a conflict of
interest arises when employees at any level have private
interests that are substantial enough to interfere with their
job duties
 2. Financial Investment
• Conflicts of interest may exist when employees have
financial investments in suppliers, customers, or
distributors with whom their organizations do
business.
• Organizational policy goes a long way toward
determining the morally permissible limits of outside
investments because it reflects the firm’s specific
needs and interests.
 3. Use of Official Position

• A serious are of conflict of interest involves the use of one’s

official position for personal gain.
• Insider Trading. Many abuses of official position arise from
insider trading. Insider trading refers to the use of significant
facts that have not yet been made public and will likely
affect stock prices.
• Bribery. Bribery involves an obvious conflict of interest.
A bribe is a remuneration for the performance of an act
that’s inconsistent with the work contract or the nature
of the work one has been hired to perform. The
remuneration can be money, gifts, entertainment, or
preferential treatment.
• Bribery sometimes takes the form of kickbacks, a
practice that involves a percentage payment to a person
able to influence or control a source of income.
• Gifts and Entertainment. Business gifts and
entertainment of clients and business associates are a
familiar part of the business world.
Considerations can help one determine the morality of
giving and receiving gifts in a business situation.
1. What is the value of the gift?
2. What is the purpose of the gift?
3. What are the circumstances under which the gift was given
or received?
4. What is the positions and sensitivity to influence of the
person receiving the gift?
5. What is the accepted business practice in the industry?
6. What is the company’s policy?
7. What is the law?
Sexual Harassment. A type of harassment involving the use
of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the
unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange
for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of
actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault.
Harassment can occur in many different social settings such
as the workplace, the home, school, churches, etc. Harassers
or victims may be of any gender.
R.A. 7877, an “Act Declaring Sexual Harassment Unlawful in the
Employment, Education or Training Environment, and for other
purposes” was approved on February 14, 1995. It is known as
“The Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995.”

Sexual harassment may take place:

• in the premises of the workplace or office or of the school or training
institution
• in any place where the parties were found, as a result of work or
education or training responsibilities or relations
• at work or education- or training-related social functions
• while on official business outside the office or school or training
institution or during work or school or training-related travel
• at official conferences, fora, symposia or training sessions
• by telephone, cellular phone, fax machine or electronic mail
Forms of Sexual Harassment
• Physical, such as malicious touching, overt sexual
advances, and gestures with lewd insinuation.
• Verbal, such as but not limited to, requests or demands
for sexual favors, and lurid remarks.
• Use of objects, pictures or graphics, letters or written
notes with sexual underpinnings
• Office Romance. Romantic relationships between two people
employed by the same employer. The long hours many people
spend at work make for a situation in which those with whom
we work are for many not only colleagues but our primary
source of social contact. Therefore, romantic relationships are
bound to develop.
• For businesses, workplace romances carry with them the
potential to complicate the work environment and cause
difficulties of various types—lost productivity due to distraction;
accusations of favoritism; jealousy among co-workers; the
potential for an antagonistic mood should the relationship end
poorly
• Wages. From the employee’s point of view, wages are the
principal (perhaps the only) means for satisfying the basic
economic needs of the worker and the worker’s family.
• There is, unfortunately, no simple formula for determining a
“fair wage.” The fairness of wages depends in part on the
public supports that society provides the worker (social security,
Phil Health, welfare, etc.) on the freedom of labor markets, on
the contribution of the worker, on the needs of the worker, and
on the competitive position of the firm.
We can at least identify a number of factors that
should be taken into account in determining wages
and salaries.
1. The going wage in the industry and the area.
2. The firm’s capabilities.
3. The nature of the job.
4. Minimum wage laws.
5. Relations to other salaries.
6. The fairness of wage negotiations.
• Unions and the Right to Organize. Workers have the right to
freely associate with each other to establish and run unions for
the achievement of their morally legitimate common ends. The
same rights of free association that justify the formation and
existence of corporations also underlie the worker organization
we call “unions.”
• Unions have traditionally been justified as a legitimate
“countervailing” means for balancing the power of the large
corporation so that the worker in solidarity with other workers
can achieve an equal negotiating power against the
corporation. Unions thus achieve and equality between worker
and employer that the isolated worker could not secure, and
they thereby secure the worker’s right to be treated as a free
and equal person in job negotiations with powerful employers.
Thanks for listening.