Management Ethics - Westpac Case Study

Running head: MANAGEMENT ETHICS
Management Ethics: Westpac Case Study
Name of the Student
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MANAGEMENT ETHICS
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion....................................................................................................................................2
2.1 Brief Description of the Case Study......................................................................................2
2.2 Identification of the Key Ethical Issues in the Case Study with the help of Ethical Theories
.....................................................................................................................................................3
2.3 Proposal and Justification of Recommendations and Strategies for addressing the
Identified Ethical Problems.........................................................................................................7
3. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
Management ethics could be referred to as the set of various principles and rules, which
are being dictated by the upper management for defining right or wrong aspects in a company
(Fernando and Moore 2015). This type of ethics is the guidelines, which becomes helpful for
directing the decisions of lower manager within the scope of his or her job, as soon as a conflict
of values is being presented. Management ethics is the core discipline for dealing with what is
good or bad or with obligation and moral duties. It is the major behavioral standard, which
provides guidance to the individual managers within their respective work (Sison, Beabout and
Ferrero 2017). This type of ethics is the set of few moral principles, which can easily govern the
activities of a group or an individual.
Business ethics can be stated as the subsequent solicitation of various ethical values to the
business relations as well as activities. As soon as managers assume social responsibilities, it is
being believed that they would do it ethically for understanding the correct or incorrect aspects
(De Los Reyes Jr, Kim and Weaver 2017). The most significant goal or objective of a manager is
to make the organization effective and also ensure profit maximization of the business by
identifying the central goals. This report will be outlining a brief description on the case scenario
of Westpac CEO being pushed out for child exploitation scandal with ethical approaches.
2. Discussion
2.1 Brief Description of the Case Study
The Chief Executive Officer of Westpac, Brian Hartzer became the first casualty of child
exploitation and money laundering scandal, which has taken a popular bank. The CEO was being
pushed out as Westpac has been battling a major investigation by the financial intelligence

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MANAGEMENT ETHICS
agency in Australia for money laundering as well as child exploitation. Hartzer resigned from his
post after he was accused for the scandal. Westpac became a failure in passing on information
regarding the origin of international funds transfer and keeping records as per requirement. They
even became a failure in introducing proper detection scenarios for detecting the typologies of
child exploitation to understand the risk assessments. There was an exploitation of 500000
dollars from customers in the South East Asia and Philippines.
2.2 Identification of the Key Ethical Issues in the Case Study with the help of Ethical
Theories
The organization of Westpac is one of the most popular and significant banking
corporations in all over Australia (Mastracchio Jr, Jiménez-Angueira and Toth 2015). They had
been doing business for more than 200 years and have been gaining major success in their work.
However, the scandal of child exploitation and money laundering has brought down the fame
and popularity of this particular organization. Ethical issues mainly take place when a given
action, scenario as well as a decision eventually ensures a major conflict with the subsequent
moral principles of this particular society. Individuals and businesses could be included in such
conflicts as any of the activities might be put into question from the ethical standpoints (Crane et
al. 2019). As a result, the ethical issues are required to be identified on top priority for dealing
with all types of complicated and difficult situations under every circumstance.
There are some of the most important and significant ethical theories and approaches,
which can help to analyze a specific situation (Trevino and Nelson 2016). The conflicts are
extremely dangerous as few of the options are present for solving them, however they often
breach the laws and regulations. In the case study of Westpac, the CEO was responsible for
money laundering and child exploitation (Werhane 2019). As a result, he had to leave the