Ethical Issues in Business: Case Studies and Solutions

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University of Suffolk
BA in Business Studies
(Foundation Year)
Context of Business
Essay on
Ethical issues in Business
I declare that this assignment is all my own work and that I have acknowledged all materials used from
the published or unpublished works of other people. All references have been duly cited.
Student ID:
Submission Date:

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Introduction:
In business organizations, ethical issues occur in the situation where there is a depletion or
difference occurs between ethical, right things and unethical or wring activities for business
profitability related issues or any other reasons. In business management studies nowadays there
is a great importance of corporate or ethical principles which are implemented by the managerial
department or others to solve ethical issues arrived in the business environment. In this essay, I
have taken the topic Ethical issues in business as nowadays there are enormous incidents are
happening in the global business organizations related with ethical issues such as Reliance,
Apple, Microsoft, and others. These entire topic related issues and ethical principles are
discussed and argued below.
Body:
During making this essay, I have gone through enormous primary and secondary sources of
information regarding ethical issues. In this context, I have observed that there is some basic
reason behind the occurrence of such ethical or corporate issues in business organizations. Such
reasons are accounting related issues, social media related wrong interpretation of pieces of
information, harassment and discrimination, employee’s health and safety related issues, and
finally the most crucial confidentiality related issues (Ferrell, Harrison, Ferrell, and Hair, 2019,
p. 495). In public trading companies, most serious ethical issues occur due to accounting-related
abysmal practices. Examples of such accounting related issues are occurred in the Americal
energy producing company Erion where the chief accountant was caught red-handed due to the
violation of accounting rules in the field of tax deposition and others. Finally, this company
stopped its operation and it had made more than lakhs of people unemployed. Social media is
another platform where all of the private sector based employees are pushed by their
management department to work after a proper working hour and these platforms have snatched
the personal life of employees also (Arend, 2019, p. 62). In this aspect, the ethical issue occurs
because in social media all of the posts should be free and human beings should have the right to
express their sentences freely. But, nowadays, in social media also there are various watchdogs
who make a clear judgment of their employees in social media round the clock. It interrupts the

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freedom of human beings (Islam, 2019, p. 11). Rather than, all of these complicated ethical
issues, there are some universal issues also which clawed business environment from a long ago,
and that is discrimination. The government of enormous countries has already implemented
several legal rules to stop discriminations in racial, gender, national, color or other based issues.
But, in society, there is till now discrimination between employees regarding their wages,
working hours, influences and it creates a great dilemma in the normal daily business operations.
I have observed that, only in the United States, all of the companies have deposited $380 million
for discrimination ground, published in reports of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC). Across the world and the Families, responsible discrimination hs
increased 280% and FRD is the types of an ethical issue which are nowadays found to be present
in all kinds of organizations. Safety and health maintenances related to the corporate issue is a
crucial thing which is reflected in the reports of international Labour organizations. According to
this report, every day more than 6500 peoples passed away due to the working environment
related to unhygienic practices, work-related stresses, depressions. The final reason for this
ethical issue is the spying nature of employers. It is found to be present in enormous web reports
that more than 40% companies have tracked their employee's internet connection, browsing
history, keyboard strokes and others (Cavazotte, Cohen, and Brunelli, 2019, p. 263). It interrupts
the normal working fluency of employees and it acts as great barriers behind the establishment of
dedications of employees for organizational monitoring. So, from these examples, I want to
establish the fact that, employees should be cautious about the revenue generating operations of
the organizations but there should be some rules, regulations, and code of conduct also.
Maintenances of ethical principles are very crucial to maintain employees’ health, performance
and activation level.
Importance of ethics in business (Clammer, 2019, p. 45):
1. Employees all are social human beings. So, all the employers should be cautious of their
basic human rights.
2. All human beings will be benefited from maintenances of ethics in business activities and
above all, it is one of the key points to maintain global reputation also.
3. Maintenances of ethics enable an organization in its decision-making process in both of
the time and cost-effective way.

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4. Following the ethical principles in business, organizations assist an organization to work
with complete honesty and integration among their employees.
5. Above all, business or corporate ethics makes their consumers also to get and enjoy their
rights. Ethics enables all the stakeholders, employees, vendors and suppliers to ask for
their interest and protect them from all kinds of exploitation.
6. Rather than, business profitability related facts, business ethics helps in maintenances of
health safety, mental stress level and guide towards a life with balanced social and
working life.
From all of this discussion, I have deduced the common point that business ethics is very
crucial to maintain socio-economic aspects of an organization. When corporate ethics are
followed in an organization, it helps in socio-economic growth and development of the
organization.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the above discussion that, maintenances of business ethics is very
crucial for every organization. It helps their employees to lead a healthy life, and provide the best
performance level towards their organization. In this way, organizational operations will be the
best. So, ethical principles should be followed in every business organization to achieve the best
working environment. It is the only way towards gigantic socio-economic growth and
development of organizations with the best performance level of employees.

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References:
Arend, R.J., 2019. Conflicts of interest as corrupting the checks and balances in the
postpublication oversight of academic business journals. Journal of Management Inquiry, 28(1),
pp.57-66.
Cavazotte, F., Cohen, M. and Brunelli, M., 2019. Business Ethics in Brazil: Analyzing Discourse
and Practice of the Brazilian Contractors Involved in Operation Lava Jato. In Corporate Social
Responsibility in Brazil (pp. 251-275). Springer, Cham.
Clammer, J., 2019. Cultural Rights, Business and the Ethics of Development: Bringing Social
Ethics Back In. In Cultural Rights and Justice (pp. 35-52). Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Ferrell, O.C., Harrison, D.E., Ferrell, L. and Hair, J.F., 2019. Business ethics, corporate social
responsibility, and brand attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Research, 95,
pp.491-501.
Islam, G., 2019. Psychology and Business Ethics: A Multi-level Research Agenda. Journal of
Business Ethics, pp.1-13.