Ethical Issues in Plummet Pty Ltd

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Ethical Issues
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Ethical Issues
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Introduction
The ethical issues in Plummet Pty ltd is analyzed in the below sections using different
ethical theories as the Chief Financial officer of the company is in an ethical dilemma and not
able to identify the right thing that he can do, so implementation of ethical theories would help
him in differentiating what is right and what is wrong. Ethical theories are helpful in highlighting
the questions that are overlooked or these theories help in the analyses of case in pure economic
terms (Smith, 2010). Ethical theories that are explained in the below section also helps in
identifying and defending the option that is best suitable for CFO in this ethical dilemma. But at
last, what to do and what not to do is depend on the person so a judgment will be given as per the
applicability and understanding of ethical theories.
Ethical theories
Ethical theories are important because it helps in setting up a strong foundation for all the
challenging situations related to ethics or wrong and right doing. Ethical issues in Plummet Pty
ltd are identified and on that basis two theories that are most relevant to these ethical issues are
explained and that are Utilitarianism and Virtue ethics. Utilitarianism is one of the most import
theory in ethical theories as it states that “an action through which most people get benefited is
considered as right or ethical action and if an action leads to bad outcome or affect most of the
people negatively than it is considered as an unethical action” (Barrow, 2015). In this case,
pleasure or benefit is measured in term of employees as if CFO disclose to local council about
the rates then it will resultant in penalty and the company is liable to pay amount in cash to local
authorities for 14years rate that will affect the job of current employees and lead to employee
layoff or job loss. This thing was not happened if the financial officer that was appointed earlier

Ethical Issues
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took the step at right time, it is not easy for an individual to stand for right thing but it is
important to stand to safeguard the interest of others and to protect the interest of stakeholders of
the company (Brooks & Dunn, 2018). Stakeholders of the company are affected by each and
every decision of the company and it is the responsibility of a company to take care of their
stakeholder’s interest by running the business in right direction (Henn, 2009). This decision will
negatively effect on all the stakeholders of the company. On other side, if chief financial officer
remains silent and follow the instructions of Harry then he violates the professional ethics and
his moral values are not allowing him to do so, in this case chief financial officer is in dilemma
whether to reveal the truth to local council or to remain silent and think for the tight cash position
of the company and about the employees.
Virtue ethics is considered as the normative ethical theories that emphasizes on virtues of
mind, sense of honesty and character of decision maker (Schwartz, 2016). Further virtues is
considered as the moral or individual characteristics that make him a god or bad person or
influences that helps the person to identify what is good and what is bad. Virtue ethics theory
mainly focus on the individual characteristics as the main aspect of ethical thinking rather than
focusing on the rules of ethics or rules on how individual should react in a particular situation
as deontology states this focus on person character on an individual (Bell, Dyck & Neubert,
2017). In this case, the company is not behaving responsibly and not following the professional
accounting standard to disclose its accounting statement in fair manner. Plummet Pty ltd is a
private organization and it’s the responsibility of Harry, CEO of the company to run his business
in the fair and ethical manner by considering all the aspects of ethics. From the perspective of
virtue ethics theory it is clearly analyzed that chief financial officer wants to open the flaws and
disclose all the misconduct to local community as his moral values not allow him to follow