Corporate Business World: Ethics and Morality Essay

theology and morals atomic number 18 a requirement in the corporate business world. Each sidereal day employees be faced with moral and ethical issues and because they pee their own singular set of morals, they behave differently. Many have formed a assuranceworthy understanding of the basics of piety, leadership, morality and social responsibility but most do non re all t overagedy understand the true meaning of values, moral philosophy and morality. The roots of ethics in America teach us 10 Universal Values, namely, h wizardsty, integrity, promise-keeping, fidelity, fairness, caring, respect for others, responsible citizenship, pursuit of excellence, and accountability. However, recent history teaches us 12 ethical principles that include two additional values, namely leadership, and genius and morals to the list that I will discuss in this essay. I will too discuss the differences between ethical and moral issues. In business, ethics and roughage count. Therefo re, I will also discuss round organizations that have been destroyed or damaged due to their unethical and flagitious behavior in business.Lets begin with Merriam Websters lexicon definition of ethics. According to this dictionary, ethics is defined as an area of exact that deals with ideas just ab break what is true(p) and bad behavior a branch of philosophical system dealing with what is morally right or wrong (Merriam-Webster). According to our text, ethics is defined in two ways. First, it states that ethics are the principles of conduct that g all overns an individual or stem. An example would be the rules by which an individual lives his or her individual(prenominal) life (Text pg 8). A great example would be when a peasant makes the decision tobreak the rules of a game, he is creating conflict between himself and his playmates. because again, the child who chooses to play by the rules ultimately enjoys friendship and closeness with his playmates, which is a benefi t to himself. Our text defines ethics from the dictionary as the study of morality. Ethics may deal with morality, but it is not the same as morality (Text pg 8).Our text states that ethics is a kind of investigation that includes both(prenominal) the practise of investigating as well as the results of that investigation. Whereas, morality is the subject guinea pig that ethics investigates (Text pg 8). This brings us to the dictionary definition of morality which defines it as beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior, or the degree to which aroundthing is right and good the moral goodness or badness of something (Merriam-Webster). Two good examples are correcting a financial error in your favor when you know that it would never be discovered and a co-worker stealing food out of the freezer. These are crimes, the moral issue is do you report them or not? There are behavelines and standards in which employees are expected to follow if an employee decides to die hard employed.Ethical principles serve as a guide to making decisions and they also serve to establish the criteria by which your decisions will be judged by others. In the business world, it is critical how people judge your character because it is the basis of trust and credibility. Your reputation is what people perceive of your actions. Are they honorable and ethical? Whereas your character is defined by your actions and if they are they honorable and ethical according to the following(a) 12 ethical principles1. Honesty Be honest in all communications and actions.2. Integrity Maintain individual(prenominal) integrity.3. Promise-keeping Keep promises and fulfill commitments.4. subjection Be loyal within the framework of other ethical principles.5. beauteousness Strive to be fair and just in all dealings.6. affectionateness Demonstrate compassion and a genuine concern for the well-being of others.7. lever for others Treat everyone with respect.8. Law Abiding Ob ey the law.9. Commitment to excellence stick with excellence all the time in all things.10. Leadership illustrate honor and ethics.11. Reputation and Morale Build and protect and build the familiaritys good reputation and the moral of its employees.12. Accountability Be accountable. two character and reputation should be a concern for triumphful executives because both can be destroyed by their actions that are perceived to be unethical (http//josephsoninstitute.Ethics are an integral learned part of the success or failure of a business. Several large organizations such as Enron and WorldCom have been destroyed and some organizations such as AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac have been seriously damaged due to unethical practices of their top executives. Most notable is the Ponzi scheme by Bernie Madoff and other executives of Enron Corporation who convinced thousands of investors to fork over their savings by falsely promising consistent profits in return and falsely inflate d the accompanys revenues, through their write up practices that made them become the seventh largest company in the world. When the scheme was uncovered, the company fell unraveled and, consequently, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, 2001. Seven years later, Madoff was caught and aerated with 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft after conning his investors out of $65 one thousand thousand and went undetected for many years. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison (S. Yang 2014).More locally, my daughter previously worked for the Finance Department of the Marion Housing bureau and was terminated by Executive Director, Frederick Hunt, for not participating in practicing that ethically and morally wrong. After a three-year investigation, Hunt was arrested and preliminarily charged with two counts of forgery, one count of corrupt business influence and four counts of theft for misusing to a greater extent than $20,000 in Marion Housing Authority fund s. According to the Grant County Prosecutor, checks were written to a sub-contractor, Hunt forged the payees name and deposited the funds into his own personal account charged over $12,000 on a company reference card and made several in his hometown of North Carolina (C. Franks 2014).According to our textbook, traditionally the view of an individualsresponsibility for corporate acts have claimed that when an organise group of members (i.e. corporation) act together, then their act should be attributed to the corporate group and not the individuals of whom the group is made and they must be held responsible for the act. content that each and every person who knowingly and freely cooperates to produce a corporate act is morally responsible for that act. The law, however, attributes the acts of a corporations managers to the corporation as a whole and not to the managers as individuals. (Text pg. 62) while a majority of companies choose to make law-abiding decisions, there are still some companies that will try to beat the system. This is where the Sarbanes-Oxley achievement of 2002 comes in. This impress discourages the crooks of the corporate world from being noncompliant with security violations due to the Acts criminal and civil penalty provisions and it encourages independent auditing by certified external auditors. This Act requires elevated levels of corporate disclosure in the areas of executive salaries, financial reports, and insider trading. Although the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is considered a burden by some companies, it gives the investing world a greater level of confidence in their investment activities by complying with its provisions.In conclusion, ethics is the branch of philosophy that theoretically, rationally, and logically determines right from wrong, moral from immoral, and good from bad conducts and behaviors. Simply put by some as walking the talk. With regard to basic values, morals guide people toward permissible behavior they are judgm ents, standards and rules of good conduct in society. Hopefully, one day all executives and managers will come to realize the old saying that honesty is the best policy.References12 Ethical Principles for Business Executives by Michael Josephson. (2010, December 17). Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http//josephsoninstitute.org/business/blog/2010/12/12-ethical-principles-for-business-executives/ Ethic. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2015, fromhttp//www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic Franks, C. (2014, July 14). originator Housing Head Arrested. Chronicle-Tribune. Retrieved January 8, 2015. Morality. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http//www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality Understanding ethics and morality in business Smart Business Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http//www.sbnonline.com/article/understanding-ethics-and-morality-in-business-there-are-distinct-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/ Velasquez, M. (2012). Business ethics Concepts and cases (7th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall. Yang, S. (2014, July 1). 5 Years agone Bernie Madoff Was Sentenced to 150 Years In Prison Heres How His synopsis Worked. Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http//www.businessinsider.com/how-bernie-madoffs-ponzi-scheme-worked-2014-7BA 3200 ESSAYexist.