Issue Identification: Ethics and Enterprise Report, BUS-FP4801

This report focuses on identifying and analyzing an ethical dilemma faced by a real-world organization, specifically concerning the ethical implications of Amazon's employee tracking devices. The paper explores the issue, identifies stakeholders and their concerns, and explains the importance of addressing the ethical problem through organizational policy. It discusses the relevance of the issue in today's business environment and examines the need for businesses to develop guidelines on ethical issues and address breaches. The report draws parallels to historical cases like the Enron accounting scandal and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, highlighting the significance of ethical conduct in financial reporting and corporate governance. It also emphasizes the need for companies to prioritize resolving ethical issues to maintain stakeholder trust and avoid legal and financial liabilities. The report also highlights the importance of comprehensive accounting principles to avoid deception, as well as the significance of policies that cover employee relationships, clients, management authority and business partners.

Running head: ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
Issue Identification: Ethics and Enterprise
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

1ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to define and clarify a possible ethical dilemma faced by a real-
world organization, and to address the present significance of the issue. An identified ethical
problem can only be addressed through an organizational policy. Business ethics can be regarded
as a gray area, it has become important for every company to develop guidelines on ethical
problems when determining how to address breaches of these problems should they occur
(Rendtorff, 2009). The explanation will also be given regarding the requirement of a policy for
this problem in the first place.
Discussion
Many authors are of the view that the behavior of the individuals changes with the
conditions of changing environment. Organizational rules designed to uphold acceptable
standards, need to be revised to keep pace. Periodic analysis of ethical criteria helps companies
improve shrewdness and expertise in determining the best perseverance available when
confronting ethical dilemmas. Numerous frameworks are present there for supporting decision
making and analyzing ethical dilemmas. The logical solutions to ethical issues and concerns
control by various prevailing theories. No prevalent method is deemed perfect for any situation.
Yet applying pragmatic methods to various dilemmas can lead to useful involvement in the
development of appropriate ethical resolutions. It has been stated by many authors that that
immoral accounting practice is considered to be very serious problem all over the world.
Especially in public companies. A very famous incident in this regard is the accounting scandal
of American Energy Company Enron of 2001. For several years the accounting department made
inadequate and improper reports purposely and the auditor of the company, namely, Arthur

2ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
Anderson, signed all those documents despite of knowing the fact that all of those documents are
incorrect. At the time when the truth came out in front of everyone both the companies walked
out. After this incident the shareholders of Enron lost almost 25 $ billion and the previous
accounting firm, namely, ‘Big Five’ had some employees who worked on behalf of the Enron.
The closure of the Enron resulted in the job lost near about 85000 people. However, it has been
found that in order to respond the Enron case some initiatives had been taken by the Federal
Government at that point of time. Not only that this initiative also helps to protect the
shareholders and other stakeholders of the company from this type of incidents. The Sarbanes-
Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 which mandates the certain new requirements to preserve the
rights and interests of the shareholders (Bainbridge, 2007). The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ is
considered to be a famous movement in this regard. There are also some other issues which
states that the public still did not believe the corporate financial accounting.
Many authors and researchers are of the view that the fraud is a worldwide problem
which places a heavy burden on both government and private organizations. As per the report of
2017 Report to the Nation made by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners it has been
observed that every year the average company is losing almost 5 percent of its profits due to
fraudulent activity made in the accounting reports. If this calculation is right, fraud is liable for
damages in excess of $3.5 trillion annually (Ofurum & Gabriel, 2019).
Executing and applying comprehensive accounting principles helps companies to avoid
deception from occurring, which is considered as much inexpensive and more operative than
identifying fraud. Some authors are of the view that, even if fraudulent activities are detected, the
money involved is generally disappeared by the time they are found, and there exists a very
small chance to recover those lost money. This type of issue related to accounting frauds are

3ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
usually resolved by organizational polices. It can considered as a difficult process to address
ethical issues, and the steps that will need to observe can vary marginally depending on
situations. However, generally speaking, the organization will need to collect as much
information as it can, assess the options and commit to the greatest potential action plan
(Ferrario, Loi & Viganò, 2019).
In the professional life, ethical dilemmas are very much significant, because these types
of problems occurs within the workplace frequently. It has been observed that there are several
companies and business organizations which generally follow their own codes of behavior and
moral standards in order to maintain the adequate financial accounting and breach of these
standards may result in punitive sanctions. Sometimes many organization form their own
policies to resolve these types of issues because it is a proven fact that without having a strong
policy it is not possible for an organization to resolve those ethical issues. More to that, often
these policies involve severe penal provisions. Therefore, whoever tries to violate these policies
shall be punished. For this reason many authors are of the view that policies are effective to
resolve an ethical issue within the workplace because these policies may contain relationship
with the fellow workers, clients, managing authority and business partners. If effective policies
cannot be formed by the organization it may result in severe consequences for the business
organization and company (Tuliao, Chen & Yeh, 2019).
Organizational ethics are considered to be polices, process and values of following the
right steps whenever face difficulties and controversial matters. Topics of ethical issues
challenge the functions of the organization which are not limited to fiduciary, discriminatory and
social issues. It has been observed that currently ethical issues related to follow adequate
accounting process are very much relevant in constructing a progressive corporate work culture,

4ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
enhancing the confidence of the customers, reducing the financial liabilities, minimizing
probable legal proceedings.
It cannot be ignored that the main objective of a business organization is to maximize its
profit ethically. Conflicts related to ethical issues may arise within the workplace but it is the
duty of the management of an organization to resolve those issues as soon as possible. The
proper financial reports, such as an adequate balance sheet helps the shareholders to take vital
decisions regarding investment. If those reports will not be prepared correctly and perfectly then
it will may affect the investment of the organization. Therefore, any types of ethical issues must
be resolved at highest priority. Many authors are of the view that it is important to resolve ethical
issues in order to gain trust from the shareholders and investors (Sanney, et al., 2019).

5ISSUE IDENTIFICATION: ETHICS AND ENTERPRISE
Reference
Bainbridge, S. M. (2007). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: How we got here, and what it means. In The
complete guide to Sarbanes-Oxley (pp. 1–37) . Cincinnati, OH: F+W Media.
Ferrario, A., Loi, M., & Viganò, E. (2019). In AI We Trust Incrementally: a Multi-layer Model
of Trust to Analyze Human-Artificial Intelligence Interactions. Philosophy &
Technology, 1-17.
Ofurum, U. A., & Gabriel, J. M. O. (2019). Multidimensional Ethical Dilemmas of
Contemporary Organizations: A Literature Review. International Journal of Innovation
and Economic Development, 5(3), 7-18.
Rendtorff, J. D. (2009). Responsibility, ethics and legitimacy of corporations. Copenhagen,
Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press.
Sanney, K. J., Trautman, L. J., Yordy, E. D., Cowart, T., & Sewell, D. (2019). The Importance of
Truth Telling and Trust. Available at SSRN 3430854.
Tuliao, K. V., Chen, C. W., & Yeh, Y. J. (2019). Cross‐national assessment of the effects of
income level, socialization process, and social conditions on employees’ ethics. Business
Ethics: A European Review.