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Contemporary Issues In Business Ethics
Research · June 2020
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21555.45603
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Yasser Magdy
Noora Muhamed
Suez University
Suez University
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Contemporary Issues
In Business Ethics
By:
Yasser Magdy
Noora Muhamed
Abstract:
This paper aimed to raise the awareness of the importance on business
ethics, thus this paper discussed working ethics meaning which mean
basically belief in work in a good moral and the moral benefit of the work
and its ability to foster characters and may include being authoritative, and
to maintain the work environment company or institution must provide
guidelines.
And in order to know more about work ethics we discussed and
summarized the history of the business ethics, through studding the history
of work ethics in modern concept, since the 60s, and in the 70s, in the 80s,
in the 90s and in 2000s to know how the working ethics have developed
over the time to become in it modern form which what we know now in
companies.
Then we discussed integrity which refers to When the individual’s behavior
be honorably even when no one watching them, afterword’s we moved to
its characteristics and behavior that shows high integrity such as respectful,
trustworthy, honest, hardworking, helpful, patient, responsible and humility.
And then this paper explained and clarified some integrity examples and
finally we discuss integrity heuristics and know how to take each one of
these tests, which includes publicity test This test is based on who
someone’s action would be affected if these actions were known by the
public, Trusted friend tests This test is basically based on how somebody’s
action would be affected if their trusted friends knew about it, among other
tests to find out if this behavior meets the characteristics of integrity like
discus reciprocity test, universality test and obituary test.
as we talked about examples of integrity it’s important to know examples of
lack of integrity as we explain.
Finally, we discuss the importance of playing attention to ethical issues in
workplace to increase the awareness of it.
2
Introduction:
Business ethics is a significant subject, and its very vital in business and
improves the society as well, understanding business ethics is very
important to both leaders (work owners), or employees to know how to run
their companies in ethical methods, to avoid losses or fines in case of
violation, or even losing customers, and understanding this subject is also
important for customers to know there rights.
And in this paper, we’re going to discuss the term of business ethics. And
explaining the most important issues in the business ethics, the main
issues in this field is related to integrity.
In this paper we’re going to illustrate the concept of integrity, and the
seriousness of absence of this concept, through examples, also in the
following pages we’re going to show the advantages of paying attention to
the contemporary issues in business ethics.
3
Literature review:
In order to have better understanding of this subject we have reviewed
some previous studies, such as:
“How to Tell the History of Business Ethics” written by GABRIEL ABEND in
2016 in this paper he discussed the history of business ethics in the united
states and how it first emergent and development, and how that history
shows stability and studies how ethics is differed from one time to another
and from one place to another.1
“Business Ethics: Some Theoretical Issues” written by valon luka, in 2010
this paper aimed to examine ethics, and test various ethical issues which
business faces, to increase the awareness and understanding of the
importance of business ethics, and how it affects the society as a whole.
This paper mainly discussed the differences and changes that
organizations make to the society and community if they adhered the
businesses ethics.2
“A history of business ethics” written by Richard George this paper
discussed the development of the business ethics over time depending on
its definition, thus this paper illustrates its growth from a perspective point
of view.3
1
Abend, Gabriel, (2016), How to Tell the History of Business Ethics, [available online]. Retrieved 3 June 2020
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301302245_How_to_Tell_the_History_of_Business_Ethics
2
luka, valon, (2010), Business Ethics: Some Theoretical Issues, [available online]. Retrieved 1 June 2020
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/26716/1/business_ethics_some_theoretical_issues.pdf
3
George, Richard, A history of business ethics, [available online]. Retrieved 31 May 2020
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/BBVA-OpenMind-A-History-of-Business-EthicsRichard-T-De-George.pdf.pdf
4
Purposes:
This paper aims to explain the contemporary issues in business ethics
which basically includes integrity issues, or lack of integrity in business
environment which causes serious issues in organizations and society as
whole, so this paper aimed at illustrating these issues, in order to raise
awareness of the importance of business ethics.
5
The meaning of working ethics:
Term (work ethic) mean the value based on diligence and hard work, it can
be defined as inherent ability of work to become stronger character and
refer to sets of value that define and characterize by hard work and
diligence.
work ethics basically belief In that, the work is a good moral and the moral
benefit of the work and its ability to foster characters and may include being
authoritative, strive new skill and have initiative and this workers that
exhibiting good work ethics they should selected for better positions and
this workers who fail to show good work ethics may be regarded as failing
to provide fair value for the wages the worker is paying, and should not
promote in high place.
Each persona has her own background, attitudes and beliefs during
different subjects so the company or institution must provide guidelines in
order to maintain a work environment, company’s value in most cases
reflect of its founder principles.
This individual that possesses a good work ethics will consider moral
implication of everything he does according to his own value and principle. 4
History of Business Ethics:
To understand the contemporary issues in business ethics we first need to
learn and understand more about the history of business ethics and its
beginning and development over time, so we can trace the business ethics
back to bartering, when it first started as bartering based on the rule of
equal exchanging.5
The modern concept of this term goes back to 1970s with the rise of antibig businesses protests, and over time it became an academic branch
4
(2020), What is work ethic, [available online]. retrieved 29 May 2020 https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accountingdictionary/work-ethic
5
George, Richard, (2010), A history of business ethics, [available online]. retrieved 31 May 2020
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/a-history-of-business-ethics/
6
itself, these protests have been arisen due to the increasing unethical
behaviors from the companies in 1960s.6
And in the 80s, loyalty to the employers has decreased dramatically, and
the financial fraud appeared through loan and savings scandal or crises –
which was a slow moving crises, and it reached its peak and caused failure
of the third of savings and loans in the USA-7, the center of Ethics
recourses helped in the establishment of the first business ethics office,
and is were established at general dynamics.
In the 90s some issues and practices began to be noticed and be promoted
just like unsafe practices in work, and the issues of child labor in addition to
environmental issues.
Finally, in 2000s this era witnessed the emergent of personal privacy and
attempts to control the issues that decrease the integrity and the trust of the
firms and the stockholders.
Thus, over the time this term has developed to become in this modern
form.
is everyone unethical?
We must lay one assumption, which is that everyone is aware of their
behaviors, and they’re always aware of it, yet there will be unintentional
behaviors which would be unethical behaviors as well, and there are four
ways to develop and grow unintentional unethical behaviors, which are:
•
•
•
•
6
Unspoken preconception
Group favoritism
Accepting credit for other actions
Conflict of interest
M, Manjulate, (2020), Business ethics, [available online]. retrieved 29 May 2020
https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/business/business-ethics/31798
7
Kenton, Will, (2019), savings and loan crisis- s&l crisis, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sl-crisis.asp
7
integrity:
When the individual’s behavior be honorably even when no one watching
them, this called integrity, this people with integrity follow ethical principle
and morals in all aspects in their life.
Workers who committed with integrity when hiring employees, they are
better equipped to provide services with high quality and maintain positive
reputation and it the employees have integrity their managers can trust
them more and trust their team’s working diligently.
in professional areas, decision making, serving customer and interacting,
should be extend of integrity on it.
To having high integrity degree at work than mean the following:
1- You have reliable and trustworthy
2- You are encouraging, practice, honest communication and open
3- You are totally responsible for your actions and behaviors
To keep yourself integrity at work is important for employees at all the
levels but specially to continue moving up the ladder.
When the worker has integrity, its help foster a positive and open work
environment and help in decision making.
Integrity workplace beneficial in businesses and individual by showing that
dependable person or not and hoist, and you will gain trust and respect
from your manager and your peers.8
Behaviors and characteristics of high integrity:9
1- Respectful:
Workers with high integrity respect the others and do their best not to
arrive late at the meetings, keep people’s feeling in their mind and
accept their projects declines.
8
(2020), definition and examples of integrity, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020 https://www.indeed.com/careeradvice/career-development/integrity-at-work
9
(2020), what is integrity in the workplace, , [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020
https://www.michaelpage.com.au/advice/career-advice/productivity-and-performance/what-integrity-workplace
8
You can demonstrate this by exercising and care with your words and
carful consider people’s ideas.
Respect workplace policies make you informed decisions based on
value and objective of the business.
So, this is very important to be a good listener, and respect what
others saying.
2- Trustworthy:
Workers with integrity respect their commitments, if they were unable
to complete a task or meet deadline they avoid promising, they tell
others as soon as possible about any changes in work that can make
any effects in the work.
3- Honest:
Workplace integrity requires honesty; and when they do mistakes and
try to learn of it.
4- Hardworking:
Workers with integrity pursue to produce work on the time with the
highest possible quality and know that everything they do can
impacted to the organization.
5- Helpful:
They help others when they need help and give their time even if they
didn’t ask to help in covering the company of the work projects.
Workers with high integrity workplace willing to go beyond with their
work and help others if the situation calls.
6- Patient:
They able to afford delays, challenges and unexpected issues while
maintaining calm, and wait until it’s time to speak in meetings.
7- Responsible:
people make mistakes every now and then so, Workers with integrity
in work have a responsibility of all their actions, they also proactive
and organized to make sure they deliver on their responsibility.
9
8- Humility:10
Whether you are junior executive or CEO, humility at work is very
important valuable skill to show to your team members.
In many times we confuse naivety with humility in the workplace, we
usually know that leadership means strength, charisma and
competitiveness, but some studies show that leaders with humility at
work produce more and have a better performance and motivate to
their teams.
So, we can bring humility into professional lives using the following:
First thing we should know that human can do wrong but it’s very
important to know the mistake and learn from it and the main thing is
to listen to others advises.
In the work it’s important to listen to reasoning and opinions of others,
appreciate the criticism and above it all learns and has the ability
negotiate well, this should replace domineer leadership,
micromanagement.
Learn to know how to give others positive feedback when they do
something, is also great treat that shows humility, put yourself in
other’s shoes, if you give them a bad feedback, so, you need to show
empathy which helps you to choose words that will encourage them
to keep doing their best and keep improving.
For example:
Instead of saying “this is wrong why you do that” you should say “I
understand why you do this, and I appreciate your try, but I think it
could do another way, what about…”
So, like we see transformed negative talk into positive one, which will
change the listener reaction to this word, therefore, the employee will
do his work and he won’t feel excluded, instead this would help the
employee to feel like a part of the process.
As we see, humility is very important to grow professionally in the
work and the world.
10
(2018), humility at work. What it means and why it’s so important, [available online]. retrieved 31 May 2020
https://www.ceoforonemonth.com/humility-at-work/
10
Examples for integrity:11
Example 1:
Amir is sales person in software company, he asked by customer for
a technology he want to buy but he need it in specific function to his
work and this technology support it or no, Amir don’t give him answer
and ask to give him some time and back to answer for his question,
Amir return to developer team and ask them because he honest and
don’t want to give the customer wrong information, when he know
that the technology can perform what the customer need he return to
him again ang give him answer, so he earn respect and trust from
client and the organization he work in.
Example 2:
Marco work for 6 months on a project that he finish everything in it
but he stop in last step and he don’t know how to complete this last
step, his coworker Sami notch that Marco don’t know who complete
last step and he have big experience in work and he can help Marco
to finish his project so he go to him and ask him to help and finish the
last step together and Marco meet his deadline.
Example 3:
Ahmed work in media company and he have a project to end in 3
days, his friends ask him to go with them to a party and its good one,
Ahmed think about the project he must end and if he go to this party
he will late a day from meet deadline so he refuse to go with them
and end his project because he know that to be integrity in work he
should respect deadline and work hark.
Example 4:
11
(2020), Examples of integrity, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020 https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/careerdevelopment/integrity-at-work
11
John missed his deadline of his project because of three of his team
don’t deliver what they asked for, he took all responsibility for missed
the deadline and he doesn’t blame his team and focused to provide
training for them to prevent missing deadline in next time.
Integrity Heuristics
There’re some tests to determine whether a behavior meets integrity or not,
these tests contains the following:
• Publicity test:
This test is based on who someone’s action would be effected if
these actions were known by the public, in other words, it’s
based on how much the person is comfortable with the public
knowing his\her actions, like is there actions were published on
a newspaper or TV show.
To apply this test over your own actions, ask yourself whether
people would see you as a good person for what you want to
do?
And consider that your actions that you’re about to take
provides a window, which through people are able to see your
true self.
You also will need to consider the main integrity characteristics,
such as honesty, responsibility, ... etc.
•
Trusted friend test:
This test is basically based on how somebody’s action would be
affected if their trusted friends knew what there were about to
do, and are they going to behave differently if they knew that
their friends would know about it?
• Reciprocity test:
This basically means that the person needs to treat others like
they want to be treated.
• Universality test:
This’s testing if the person is comfortable or would consider
some behavior acceptable if other people done it.
12
• Obituary test:
Whether the person is comfortable with looking back at her\his
actions and still be comfortable with it.
Examples of lack of integrity:
Example 1:
Ali is a seals person in some clothes shop, at one day a customer came to
the store to buy some clothes, but when he wore the t-shirt he asked Ali if
this t-shirt 100% from cotton or not because he need it from cotton, Ali took
a while to think, then he realized that he doesn’t have this information,
whether the t-shirt is 100% cotton or not, but although he decided to tell the
customer that the t-shirt is 100% cotton, without asking his leader, when
the customer took his new shirt home he found out that this t-shirt isn’t
100% from cotton so he lost confidence in this store.
Example 2:
Sami work in media organization for 8 years and have huge experience in
this work, one day he saw his coworker work on a project and he must
finish it in two days and he has some difficult steps to finish his project and
doesn’t know how to do these steps, Sami know how to finish this project
and can help his coworker in order to not let him be in trouble and meet his
deadline but he choose to not help him.
The importance of paying attention to ethical issues in
workplace:12
1- Paying attention to business ethics improves the workplace, and
increase the productivity, and improvers the society as whole,
through issuing rules that confirms the business ethics by limiting the
12
Mcnamara, Carter, (2010), Benefits of managing ethics in the workplace, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020
https://managementhelp.org/blogs/business-ethics/2010/10/23/10-benefits-of-managing-ethics-in-theworkplace/#:~:text=Ethics%20programs%20support%20employee%20growth,with%20whatever%20comes%20the
ir%20way
13
working hours, harassment, cheating and made company to adopt
fairness and equal rights.
2- Ethics programs helps maintaining morals in crises and unstable
time, when a company is facing some sort of fundamental changes, it
needs to focus on maintaining ethical behavior in the institutions this
sensitize the leaders and the employees as well to how they want to
act and helps them to differentiae between the right and wrong in the
conflict and disagreement times.
3- Ethics programs implant strong teamwork and productivity through
lining up employees’ behaviors with the top priority of the ethical
values which is preferred by leaders, paying attention to the ethical
behaviors in work builds integrity and openness.
4- Ethics programs promotes public image ad makes it stronger, when
the organization pays attention to the business ethics this leaves a
good impression on the audience, by paying more attention to
business ethics more than the profits.
5- Ethics programs improves employee’s development by helping them
to face the reality whether this reality is good or bad, which builds
their confidence and making them able to deal with anything that
comes in their way, therefore this benefits the company as whole.
6- Ethics programs helps in handling some values associated with thing
like strategic planning, quality management, and diversity
management, to achieve this benefit more attention is required.
7- Ethics programs functions as an insurance policy that insure the
employees aren’t taking any unethical action which may cost the
company.
8- Ethics programs help avoiding criminal acts, and lower the company
fines in case of violations, paying attention to the ethical behaviors in
14
the company allows the leaders to spot any violation very soon before
it turns to something bigger such as a crime act, and if the company
is paying good attention this also would lower the fines it had to pay
in case of violations.
9- Ethics programs also has other advantages, such as legitimizes the
managerial acts, strength and improves the consistency of the
organization, also improves the relation between the employees and
each other, and also between the employees and their leaders, and
create a healthy working environment.
10Ethics programs helps the workers in an organization to know
the right thing to do.
Reasons managers ensure that their firms are running
in an ethical manner:
• To protect the brand and its fame.
• Managers ensure their firms are operating in ethical manner
because this is the right thing to do.
• This will gain the costumer loyally and trust.
• Helps improves public acceptance
• Increase investors’ confidence
Rationalizing Unethical Behaviors:
To reduce the unethical behaviors in the organization, you can use the
ethical tests for taking business decisions through these tests:
• Transparency:
this’s based on whether the person is comfortable with people
knowing what he decided.
15
• Effect:
this’s based on determining who will be affected by these decisions,
and how it will affect them.
• Fairness:
This refers whether the decision is considered fair to those which the
decision has impact on them.
Conclusion:
In conclusion we’ve explained the term of business ethics, and briefly
summed the history of this term and how it developed among time.
And we discussed the concept of integrity as the absence of this concept is
one of the most prominent problems in the context of business ethics, and
illustrated the behaviors that shows and donate the existence of high
integrity, we attached examples of integrity behaviors to show how workers
can be integrity in work place and how it help the organization to not stop
improving.
Then we show other examples of lacking integrity and the tests of
behaviors to know if these actions meet the characteristics of the integrity
or not.
finally, we stated the importance of paying attention of the ethical issues in
business, and how to eliminate the unethical behaviors in working
increment.
16
References:
1- Abend, Gabriel, (2016), How to Tell the History of Business Ethics, [available online]. Retrieved
3 June 2020
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301302245_How_to_Tell_the_History_of_Business_
Ethics
2- luka, valon, (2010), Business Ethics: Some Theoretical Issues, [available online]. Retrieved 1
June 2020 https://mpra.ub.unimuenchen.de/26716/1/business_ethics_some_theoretical_issues.pdf
3- George, Richard, A history of business ethics, [available online]. Retrieved 31 May 2020
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/BBVA-OpenMind-A-History-ofBusiness-Ethics-Richard-T-De-George.pdf.pdf
4-
(2020), What is work ethic, [available online]. retrieved 29 May 2020
https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting-dictionary/work-ethic
5- George, Richard, (2010), A history of business ethics, [available online]. retrieved 31 May 2020
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/a-history-of-business-ethics/
6- M, Manjulate, (2020), Business ethics, [available online]. retrieved 29 May 2020
https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/business/business-ethics/31798
7- Kenton, Will, (2019), savings and loan crisis- s&l crisis, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sl-crisis.asp
8-
(2020), definition and examples of integrity, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/integrity-at-work
9-
(2020), what is integrity in the workplace, [available online]. retrieved 30 May
2020https://www.michaelpage.com.au/advice/career-advice/productivity-and-
performance/what-integrity-workplace
10- (2018), humility at work. What it mean and why it’s so important, [available online]. retrieved 31 May
2020 https://www.ceoforonemonth.com/humility-at-work/
11- (2020), Examples of integrity, [available online]. retrieved 30 May 2020 https://www.indeed.com/careeradvice/career-development/integrity-at-work
12- Mcnamara, Carter, (2010), Benefits of managing ethics in the workplace, [available online]. retrieved
30 May 2020 https://managementhelp.org/blogs/business-ethics/2010/10/23/10-benefits-ofmanaging-ethics-in-theworkplace/#:~:text=Ethics%20programs%20support%20employee%20growth,with%20whatever
%20comes%20their%20way
17
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