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Central to the belief that companies should be operated in a socially responsive way for the benefit of all stakeholders is the belief that the managers will behave in an ethical manner. The
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Basic Duties of Employers It is also important to set some ethical conduct for the employers. Employers have the sacred task of caring for their workers. Theirs is the golden opportunity to become the ethical man for others. They must be fair minded and generous in their dispositions. The following are their basic duties towards their workers: Appreciate their work Respect the human dignity of the workers Never treat them as slaves for making money Never assign them task beyond their strength, do not employ them in work not suited to their age or gender Give them commensurate wages Provide for their health and social recreation Provide them time for the practice of their religion Instruct them on how to use their money wisely Instruct them to love their family Provide them with the opportunities for promotion. All of these things that should be stipulated in every corporate ethical conduct as supposed to promote the goodwill of every individual who are members in the labor force. In this way, they can promote the goodwill to the whole community as they continue to practice their profession according to the highest standards set by the ethical conduct.
Unethical Behaviors
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The Civil Service Commission of Philippines defined an unethical behavior as any behavior prohibited by law. In a dynamic business environment, a large gray area exists that makes it difficult and unclear to distinguish what is ethical. An unethical behavior would therefore be defined as one that is not morally honorable or one that is prohibited by the law. Many behaviors will fall in the classification including corruption, mail and wire fraud, discrimination and harassment, insider trading, conflicts of interest, improper use of company assets, bribery and kickbacks, compliance procedures, ethical relations with others, disciplinary action, fraud, illegal business donations, patent infringement and product liability.
It is a sad truth that the employees of just about every business, in every business, will occasionally encounter team members who are taking part in unethical behaviors. Such unethical behaviors include a wide variety of different activities. Among the most common unethical business behaviors of employees are making long-distance calls on business lines, duplicating software for use at home, falsifying the number of hours worked, or much more serious and illegal practices, such as embezzling money from the business, or falsifying business records. Though there is sometimes a difference between behaviors that are unethical and activities that are actually illegal, it is up to the business itself to decide how it deals with unethical behavior legal or not. Many employees find that discovering unethical behavior among co-workers actually tests their own values and ethical behaviors. After all, unethical behavior that is not illegal frequently falls in a grey area between right and wrong that make it difficult to decide what to do when it is encountered. Furthermore, different people have different views regarding what is ethical and what is unethical. For example, some people feel that it is alright to tell a little "white lie", or to make one long distance call on the company's nickel, as long as they can justify it in their mind. When employees discover other employees doing something that they know is wrong by the company's standards, their own sense of what is right and what is wrong instantly comes into question. That employee needs to consider how s/he feels about that particular activity, as well as informing about that activity, or turning a blind eye. Even by deciding to do something about it, the employee who has discovered the unethical behavior is presented with a number of difficult choices. Should the employee speak to the individual directly, or should the employee head directly to a company supervisor? To make this decision a bit easier, many companies have adopted several techniques that allow for the management of unethical activities. The first step is to create a company policy, in writing, that is read and signed by each employee. This erases most feelings of ambiguity when it comes to deciding what to do after witnessing an unethical behavior.
Insider Trading Insider trading is an unethical behavior which occurs when a person who has access to confidential information uses or shares the information for securities trading purposes or any other purpose except the conduct of regular company business. The confidential information of the company are not to be used for achieving personal gain neither are they to be disseminated directly or indirectly, to friends, family members and other outsiders who may in turn trade on or misuse the information. Discrimination and Harassment Discrimination involves not providing equal opportunity in employment on merit but on other basis such as race, sex, national origin, age, religion, or any other basis not related to the job.
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Wrong Doing A large number of people, including top management, are involved in wrong doing both in the public and in the private sectors. The managers of E.E. Hutton, for example, were found guilty of 2000 mail and wire fraud. were accused of falsifying time cards. Similarly, the supervisors of a defense contractor
Job pressure, according to the study, causes employees to engage in unethical behaviors
that include cutting corners on quality control, covering up incidents and lying to customers.
and (HRI), revealed that the ignorance that the acts are unethical and not knowing the seriousness of the consequences when caught, are causes of unethical behaviors.
Competition for scarce resources, power or position can cause individuals to engage in
unethical behaviors. Hosmer emphasized that an attempt to improve their corporate competitive positions made managers to take immoral actions. Bazerman and Banaji felt that the cause of the unethical behaviors in organizations is the presence of a few bad apples among organizational actors. The primary cause of unethical behaviors can be traced to lack of maintaining the type of consistent leadership that is necessary for running an ethical organization. This exposes the employees to opportunities that make them engage in unethical behaviors.
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CONCLUSION
Today, there is a tremendous loss of confidence in corporate conduct and there is an urgent need to work towards restoring it. Although ethics education seem to produce limited evidence of changing behaviors, the commitment of management to monitor annual ethics education for all employees will produce the desired favorable results. There should be clear communication to the employees of what are honorable and expected behaviors in the organization. They must maintain and stand firm on a clear cut policy that ethical methods are the only way of doing business.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Basu Kaushik (2011). Why, for a Class of Bribes, the Act of Giving a Bribe should be Treated as Legal. New Delhi, India
Omolewu Gabriel, Associate Professor of Management, Wilberforce University. Strategies for Improving Ethical Behaviors in Organizations.
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