Report on Ethical Issues, Codes of Conduct, & CPD Plan in Business

This report addresses the critical issue of corruption in the global business environment, highlighting its impact on investor confidence and employee morale. It explores the implementation of codes of conduct and the role of professional bodies like the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC) in combating corruption. The report assesses the impacts of these measures on business communities, emphasizing the importance of ethical communication and adherence to anti-corruption policies. Furthermore, it includes a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) plan focused on enhancing analytical, research, and writing skills for career advancement. The report concludes by underscoring the need for organizations to prioritize ethical practices and support employee development to foster a culture of integrity and accountability. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

Preparing for a Professional
Career
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A- REPORT ........................................................................................................................3
Defining issue or challenge ........................................................................................................3
Codes of conduct that can assist in resolving the practice of corruption....................................4
Support from the relevant Professional Bodies .........................................................................4
Impacts that code of conducts and assisting bodies have from the view of business
communities................................................................................................................................5
PART-B CPD PLAN ......................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
In this project task, one ethical business issue and challenge will be discussed that global
business environment is facing these days. This report includes the explanation of code of
conducts that can be implemented to address the given issue. It also defines the impact of
following the code of conducts and how they can improve the situation. Furthermore, this report
also discuss the relevant professional bodies that is best suited to provide solution for the given
challenge. In addition to this, it assess the impacts of both supporting bodies and code of
conducts which has chosen for providing solutions.
PART A- REPORT
Defining issue or challenge
Global business environment is facing many contemporary challenges these days. One of
the major issue that is being addressed in business environment is Corruption. It is a deceitful
activity conducted by those who possess power in their position such as managers and
government officials and take disadvantage of their post or superiority to exploit individuals.
This includes the misleading act of offering or taking bribes, inappropriate gifts, double dealing,
laundering cash and other such activities. Corruption is highly exercised by people who are
working on higher posts due to various factors including the size and structure of government
bodies, complicated political systems, economic autonomy, salaries of civil servants, cultural
factors and other such determinants. The practice of corruption in a business affects the
confidence and trust of investors and shareholders (Baxter, Holderness Jr and Wood, 2017).
When misleading practices are being followed in an organisation, the threat of loss increase by
business owners. The corruption affects negatively the behaviour of employees and demotivate
them to work harder. It creates a sense of insecurity and dishonesty among the employees who
gets exploited in the hands of powerful superiors. Companies are making efforts to eradicate the
practice of corruption by careful analysis of laws and other regulations. Conducting risk
assessment and due diligence is suggested to resolve and mitigate the misleading practices of
corruption. An effective policy framework formulation which includes policies regarding fraud
and corruption helps the companies to take precautionary measures against corruption.
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Codes of conduct that can assist in resolving the practice of corruption
A code of conduct is a set of principles and rules that impose expectations and standards
on behaviour of employees ensuring abidance of disciplinary actions in an organisation.
Implementing codes of conduct in the areas of fraudulent practices of corruption is very
necessary to imply control on misleading activities. Formulation of anti corruption commitments
mainly emphasise upon identifying the areas of activities which are not acceptable and working
on their consequences (Blanc, Branco and Patten, 2019). In a business environment, it should be
clearly communicated that nobody offer or accept any kind of inappropriate gifts, payments,
donations, sponsorships, hospitality, benefits etc. to achieve a personal or misleading advantages.
Internal measures needs to be adopted for the purpose of risk assessment which helps in creation
of ethics for the organisation. The adoption of internal control system containing different
channels for reporting like whistle-blowing. Anti-corruption programmes are conducted and
understood in order to learn and analyse the measures of monitoring corruption. Top level
authorities should abide by anti-bribery and anti-corruption legislature structure to ensure high
commitment in order to combat false and dishonest practices. Moreover, the employees
compliance with code of ethics and policies is most important. The employees must fear to
commit such false actions to avoid penalties, punishments and suspension. Beside this,
companies constantly need to work upon updating and reviewing their framework of policies and
principles in respect to fraudulent practices (Wiprächtiger and et.al., 2019).
Support from the relevant Professional Bodies
Rising issue of corruption faced by global business environment is a matter of serious
concern and need immediate attention. Organisations and associations are forming considering
the growing pace of corruption that are working to mitigate false and misleading practices. Some
of these groups and professional bodies are discussed below:
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) : CPS is a principle public agency which is responsible for
conducting and investigating criminal prosecutions and helps combat international corruption.
This agency helps in providing legal advise during the course of investigations (Li and Reuer,
2021). It conducts decision making regarding the course of action that needs to be taken for the
suspect, whether the person should face criminal charges for the offence.
The serious fraud office (SFO) : SFO is a non-ministerial governing body which is responsible
for investigating fraudulent activities and attempts to corruption. The serious fraud office is the
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principal enforcer of the Bribery Act 2010, which has been formulated to enhance and maintain
proper corporate governance. This was designed to ensure good reputation of the city of London
and a safe as well as secure environment for UK to conduct business.
The International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC): IACCC is a body of specialist
law enforcement officers from various agencies formulated to solve the issues of corruption
(O’Shannassy, 2017). The objectives of the IACCC is to inform, assist, collect, coordinate and
collaborate in order to offer assistance to organisations regarding practical actions and advice.
Impacts that code of conducts and assisting bodies have from the view of business communities
A code of conduct cover the areas of communication of ethics and principles regarding
corruption practices which ensures employee's security against fraudulent activities. It helps in
communicating set of policies allowing the corporate culture to follow their standards to avoid
offences. However, failure in compliance with code of conducts can have major legal and
financial impacts which could result in long term negative image of the group. The assistance
provided by governing bodies to control corruption faced by businesses is helpful in feeling
sense of guidance. The anti corruption departments provides necessary advices on tackling those
who are engaged in illegal corruptive activities (Sadeghi and et.al., 2019). These associations
strictly investigate dishonest acts of bribery and other offensive practices. If found guilty, the
organisation is obliged to face serious consequences. This can lead to ruining the reputation and
goodwill of the entity which the accused employee is a part of. These governing bodies impose
serious charges, punishments and penalties on the accused corporate body.
PART-B CPD PLAN
Continuing professional development plan is created to choose and enhance the learning
that is required to obtain necessary information for career efficiency. It helps in identifying the
opportunities that are necessary for better understanding of career objectives. This requires
selection of certain skills and activities that are useful in the plan of a certain career
accomplishment (Soreide, 2018). Moreover, it is important to keep track of time to know your
learning capacity and capability better. The choice of sources for learning plays important role in
deciding the value and results of the selected study. The most significant aspect of CPD plan is
to evaluate and analyse the outcomes of the learning to ensure skill development.
What do I want What will I do to achieve this? What resources or support will I
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to learn? need?
Research skills
This skill refers to the process of obtaining
information on a topic and conduct in
depth study regarding that particular topic.
Conducting a research involves various
aspects to cover and gain knowledge on
related areas to obtain proper information
about a subject. I will start with basic
important step which is to recognise the
accurate source to start the research.
Secondly, I will arrange and organise the
data obtained from various sources. I will
select the most important and convenient
piece of information along with various
books.
 Books and journals
 Articles
 Newspapers
 Wikipedia
Analytical skills Analytical skill is the ability to deform the
content into small fragments to obtain
summary and based on that make
conclusions. The areas included in this are
logical reasoning, critical thinking, data
analysis and other such things. To enhance
analytical skills, I will pay emphasis on
reading constantly along with practising
mathematics on a regular basis. Playing
brain games can be very helpful in
sharpening analytical skills. Beside this, I
will engage myself in the activity of
logical answering to enhance reasoning
abilities.
 Books and magazines
 Mathematics Exercises
 Analytical Apps
 Google
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Writing skills Creative writing is the ability to explain
the ideas and opinions in a impressive as
well as elaborated manner. To develop
high writing skills, I will focus on
continuous reading and journal writing. To
express through words in the most creative
and verbose way, I will attempt to observe
writing styles of different authors.
 Novels and journals
 Dictionary
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that global business environment is facing
critical issues including the involvement of business professionals in major practices of
corruption. It has been observed that how higher authorities and personnel possessing power take
inappropriate advantages of their power going against the ethics and values of corporate
structure. It is further analysed that misleading actions of corruption creates feeling of distrust
and insecurity in the organisation. This report examined various code of conducts and governing
associations which assist in controlling corruption along with their impacts on company and
communities. In addition to this, the objective and format explaining CPD plan has been
concluded.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baxter, R. J., Holderness Jr, D. K. and Wood, D. A., 2017. The effects of gamification on
corporate compliance training: A partial replication and field study of true office anti-
corruption training programs. Journal of Forensic Accounting Research, 2(1), pp.A20-
A30.
Blanc, R., Branco, M. C. and Patten, D. M., 2019. Cultural secrecy and anti‐corruption
disclosure in large multinational companies. Australian Accounting Review, 29(2),
pp.438-448.
Li, C. and Reuer, J. J., 2021. The impact of corruption on market reactions to international
strategic alliances. Journal of International Business Studies, pp.1-16.
O’Shannassy, T. F., 2017. Gift Giving, Guanxi, Bribery and Corruption Challenges in Australia–
China Business: an Ethical Tension Between the Global South and the East. In Ethics in
the Global South. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Sadeghi, V. J. and et.al., 2019. An institution-based view of international entrepreneurship: A
comparison of context-based and universal determinants in developing and economically
advanced countries. International Business Review, 28(6), p.101588.
Soreide, T., 2018. Regulating corruption in international markets: Why governments introduce
laws they fail to enforce.
Wiprächtiger, D. and et.al., 2019. Access-based business model innovation in frontier markets:
Case study of shared mobility in Timor-Leste. Technological Forecasting and Social
Change, 143, pp.224-238.
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