Analysis and Evaluation of Business Ethics Case Study

This report provides an in-depth analysis of a business ethics case, examining ethical principles such as integrity, honesty, and responsibility within a business context. The report outlines ethical decision-making models, including the RELECT and ETHICS models, to address ethical dilemmas. It identifies key stakeholders, such as employees and financial accountants, and assesses the impact of ethical issues like non-payment of minimum wage and the absence of formal employment contracts. The responsibilities of a financial accountant in ensuring ethical compliance are also discussed. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adhering to ethical principles for businesses to avoid ethical issues. The report includes references to various academic sources to support its arguments.

Ethics Case

INTRODUCTION
Business ethics refers to the applied ethics or professional ethics that helps
in providing the solutions of various ethical problems arises from the
business operations (Hartman, DesJardins and MacDonald 2014). The
main aim of this report involves in the analysis and evaluation of different
aspects of business ethics to solve the ethical issues in the provided case

OVERVIEW OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Integrity: Business entities are required to be honest and straightforward
while conducting their business operations along with truthful towards
employees and stakeholders.
Honesty: It is the responsibility of the business entities not to involve in
any dishonest code of conduct in the business operation that can mislead
the key stakeholders of the businesses.
Responsibility: Business entities are needed to be responsible enough to
discharge their business duties in the honest manner.

OVERVIEW OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Fairness: Fairness principle puts the obligation on the business entities to
treat all of their employees in equal manner.
Competence: Business entities are needed to have the required
competence to fulfil the needs and demands of the customers and other
stakeholders.
Reliability: Business organizations are required to gain reliability from the
customers by providing them with superior quality of products and
services (DesJardins and McCall 2014).

ETHICAL DECISION MAKING MODEL
RELECT Model
RE: Recognition of potential issues or problems
F: Find the relevant information
L: Consult with the peers and supervisors
E: Evaluation of the available options
C: Arrive to the decision
T: Take time to reflect

ETHICAL DECISION MAKING MODEL
The ETHICS Model
E: Evaluation of the ethical dilemma
T: Thinking about various outcomes
H: Receiving help
I: Considering all the relevant information
C: Risk calculation
S: Selection of an action

STAKEHOLDERS AND EFFECTS ON THEM
Employees: The employees are being deprived from getting minimum
wage that affects their financial situations. In the absence of formal
employment contract, there is not any guarantee of employment for the
employees.
Financial Accountant: It is the responsibility of the financial accountants
of the companies to ensure the correct calculation of the salary and wages
of the employees so that they can receive the correct amount of salary.

ETHICAL ISSUES
Non-inclusion of Employees in the Formal Payroll: The company has
not included a significant number of employees in the formal payroll and
has failed in discharging its resomnsbilty that has contributed towards the
ethical issue
Non-Payment of Minimum Wage: The company does not pay the
minimum wage to their employees and created an ethical issue by violating
the honesty ethical principle

ETHICAL ISSUES
Absence of Formal Employment Contract: The company has not
provided the employees with formal employment contract that leads to the
breach of ethical principle like integrity, honesty and responsibility.

FUNCTION OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT
• The first major responsibility of the financial accountant is to make sure
that the computation of minimum wage is done in the correct manner and
needs to check that whether the company has complied with the regulation
of Australia for the computation of minimum wage payment.
• The financial accountant needs to make sure that all the employees have
been included in the formal payroll of the company and is required to
check the financial control related to formal payroll (Michalos 2017).

FUNCTION OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT
• It is the responsibility of the financial accountant to make sure that all the
employees have records of formal employment contract and to contact
with other personnel like the Human Resource Manager for the enrolment
of the employees informal employment contracts (Nica 2013).

CONCLUSION
Ethics play an integral part in the business organizations and all the
companies are required to comply with all the required ethical principles
like honesty, integrity, responsibility and others to avoid ethical issues.

REFERENCES
• Craft, J.L., 2013. A review of the empirical ethical decision-making literature: 2004–2011. Journal of business ethics, 117(2),
pp.221-259.
• Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization.
Oxford University Press.
• DesJardins, J.R. and McCall, J.J., 2014. Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage Learning.
• Ford, R.C. and Richardson, W.D., 2013. Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. In Citation classics from the
Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 19-44). Springer, Dordrecht.
• Hartman, L.P., DesJardins, J.R. and MacDonald, C., 2014. Business ethics: Decision making for personal integrity and social
responsibility. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Hartman, L.P., DesJardins, J.R. and MacDonald, C., 2014. Business ethics: Decision making for personal integrity and social
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Economics Research (Online), 14(3), p.83.
• Michalos, A.C., 2017. Issues for business ethics in the nineties and beyond. In How Good Policies and Business Ethics Enhance
Good Quality of Life (pp. 197-212). Springer, Cham.
• Nica, E., 2013. Social Responsibility, Corporate Welfare, and Business Ethics. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource
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