Corporate Business Ethics
Erinn Woods and Amy Wan
June 21, 2015
Why is Business Ethics important?
Everyone in this class is striving to become a part of some kind of corporation whether it
be a large corporation with a lot of different branches or a smaller corporation with just a single
boss. Either way, it is important to all of us to be knowledgeable about ethics in the workplace
and how it affects us individually. Learning more about ethics in the corporate world is needed
because unethical corporate behavior has been worsening as of lately. The 2011 National
Business Ethics Survey from the Ethics Resource Center shows that 45 percent of employees
have witnessed ethical misconduct at work, and 13 percent say that they are feeling pressure to
bend the rules or even break the law. This percentage has also risen five percent since 2010
(“Keeping Your Nose Clean: A Look at Ethics in the Workplace”). Unethical behavior by your
coworkers or boss is not acceptable and it is important for everyone to be informed about
noticing this type of behavior. Everyone should be thinking about what it means and how to put a
stop to it since there is a lot of helpful advice and programs that should be known by anyone
entering into the workforce.
Our Objective
As stated by the Philadelphia Business Journal, the percentage of employees witnessing
unethical behavior in the workplace are based on someone who lied to a supervisor or handed in
a false expense report not extreme cases such as fraud. We want to know how this type of
unethical behavior is punished and if it is taken lightly. The Philadelphia Business Journal also
goes into depth about the type of unethical behavior occurring. One being abusive behavior,
stating that “too many workplaces are filled with managers and supervisors who use their
position and power to mistreat or disrespect others. Unfortunately, unless the situation you're in
involves race, gender or ethnic origin, there is often no legal protection against abusive behavior
in the workplace,” (The Philadelphia Business Journal, “The 5 Most Common Unethical
Behaviors in the Workplace”). This being an issue in many workplaces across the nation, shows
that we need to put tougher regulations regarding being mistreated or disrespected in the
workplace. So we want find out what type of regulations many top corporations put in place for
the employees and if there is any kind of ethics program employees must complete to work there.
Since many of us are striving to obtain full-time jobs at some point in our lives, it is important to
know about the facts regarding unethical corporate behavior and what kind of laws surround it.
Also, how all of us can do our part to keep our workplaces as ethically sound as possible.
Our Research Method
We began researching about corporate ethics by looking further into the statistics about
the occurrence of unethical behavior is in the workplace and the percentages of those that fit in
each category of unethical behavior from minor to serious offenses. A lot of this research was
done at Philadelphia Business Journal and other sources that explained what corporate ethics
means to someone in the workforce. Moving on from the information found there, we researched
large corporations and what kind of ethics programs they have in place. We based the research
on what kind of steps these corporations take to prevent ethical misconduct in the workplace.
This made us research further into what kind of punishments they put on employees who do
break these ethical regulations and if these situations are handled seriously for employees who
are high ranking in the corporation. Since history shows that people in those kind of positions
can get away with more misconduct than employees lower down.
What We Discovered
Amy’s father is in electric engineering and works in a public company called State Grid.
The company really did something unique to decrease the unethical corporate behavior from
occurring, this was learned from a short interview to with Amy’s father. State Grid is a huge
company that controls power supply for the whole country of China and this company is
controlled by the government. The unethical corporate behavior happened frequently in public
companies because there is no competitor for them, so the government decided to organize a
meeting to find the solution. In the end of 2008, the government found a way to decrease
unethical corporate behavior in public company. The managers or leaders in public company
cannot stay in the same position for one year, which works since State Grid has a lot of branches
of office in different cities. Amy’s home city has at least 8 branch offices and her father changed
his job to different branch offices every year from 2008 to 2011. Her uncle who is also an
employee at State Grid changed jobs to another city’s branch office near Amy’s home city. Her
father said this solution decreased the unethical corporate behavior but also decreased the work
efficiency because the manager needed time to know what they needed to do in the different
branch office. Then the government changed the time to three years, Amy’s father said the
government still pays attention to see if this one will work better.
What These Results Mean
According to the research and interview, we can see unethical corporate behavior is
happening normally in our life and keeps increasing. The US already had ethics regulations
issued by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, but even these kind of laws do not stop some
unethical behavior. The high benefit will still tempt people to do unethical things; according to
the Fleischman (2015) “Yet, evidence suggests that the development of corporate ethical values
(CEVs) can mitigate concerns about unethical conduct, suggesting that these principles might be
used to reduce workplace bullying and enhance job satisfaction.” Recently this year, the Chinese
government started to pay more attention to this problem and tried to find the solution. The US
government also pays attention to this problem but we think it’s more difficult to find the
solution for private companies. Even a lot of news are reporting unethical corporate behavior in
different companies every year but no one has really found an efficient way to solve this
problem; we all know we need to build ethical value in workplace, but no one knows how to
begin. These results show us that we need to be exploring new ways to reduce the unethical
behavior in the workplace, especially in private companies. To everyone entering into the
corporate world in a few years, needs to put thought into which company to work for based on
the facts about ethics. More significantly, the way the company focuses on business ethics and
how they are working to limit the ethical misconduct in their company, so we can make informed
decisions on which company to work for.
Our Recommendation
We think the government and some big companies need to pay more attention to this
problem because many people are facing this situation of ethical misconduct. In the beginning,
the data of 2011 National Business Ethics Survey from the Ethics Resource Center shows that
“45 percent of employees have witnessed ethical misconduct at work, and 13 percent say that
they are feeling pressure to bend the rules or even break the law,” (“Keeping Your Nose Clean:
A Look at Ethics in the Workplace”). The Chinese government is giving a good solution that
maybe can also work for private companies and companies here in the United States. I think
maybe universities also can add some course to talk about the ethical value in the workplace and
how to use the law to protect ourselves or stop other people if we find unethical behavior in the
workplace.
Sources
The 5 most common unethical behaviors in the workplace - Philadelphia Business
Journal. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2015.
Gale, S. (2012, September 6). Keeping Your Nose Clean: A Look at Ethics in the Workplace.
Valentine, S., Fleischman, G., & Godkin, L. (2015). Rogues in the ranks of selling
organizations: using corporate ethics to manage workplace bullying and job satisfaction.
Journal Of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 35(2), 143-163.
doi:10.1080/08853134.2015.1010542