MGT301A - Business Ethics: Case Study Analysis of Ethical Issues

This report presents a case study analysis of business ethics, focusing on the application of ethical frameworks to address issues within a corporate setting. Part A identifies two key ethical concerns: the unethical termination of a long-term employee and employee theft. The report then applies ethical frameworks such as the Justice framework and the Common Good Approach to analyze these issues and propose solutions. Part B reflects on the role of an ethical officer in promoting corporate ethics, summarizing the issues and frameworks discussed in Part A and considering future workplace behavior to foster a more ethical environment. The analysis emphasizes the importance of fair treatment, addressing the root causes of unethical behavior, and promoting a culture of respect and compassion within the organization. The report concludes with recommendations for improving corporate ethics through strategies such as eliminating employee theft, fostering emotional connections, promoting cultural experiences, and developing leadership qualities among employees.

Running head: CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
[Document Title]
Assignment 2 A
NAME : DAM XUAN THANH
STUDENT ID : 00137940T
SUSMISSION: WEEK 6 - SUNDAY

1CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
Table of Contents
PART A...........................................................................................................................................2
1. Introduction of corporate ethics...............................................................................................2
2. Identification of the concerning issue-1..................................................................................2
3. An ethical framework for addressing issue-1 and justification of the choice..........................2
4. Identification of issue-2...........................................................................................................3
5. An ethical framework for addressing issue-2 and justification of the choice..........................3
6. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................4
References....................................................................................................................................5

2CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
PART A
1. Introduction of corporate ethics
According to the author (Hoffman et al., 2014), business ethics also termed as corporate
ethics is a means to eliminate any illegal activity or chaos within the business undertaking.
Business ethics is concerned with the manner in which the various business activities are carried
upon. Business ethics are formulated to keep in view the nature of the business and its
surroundings. Business ethics has two sides; these are normative business ethics and descriptive
business ethics.
The interest of the corporate sector within the field of corporate ethics takes place in the
era of the early phase of the 1980s and 1990s.
2. Identification of the concerning issue-1
These lacks of basic corporate ethics that the elimination in such manner is not
considered being ethical. This is not how the termination programme is to be carried out. As such
that Mr Rex Crane is one of the qualitative and reputed professional for the organisation. He is
an asset to the organisation. His knowledge and skills are remarkable; he has served the company
for a long period and has been productive in his work.
Therefore, taking into consideration his work performance and reputation, he should not
have been eliminated. Instead, he should have been communicated with the senior authority
bodies to arrive at a preferable position. Taking into consideration the above case study, it seems
like the practice of unethical act is being practiced. This will further make the organisation carry
out activities in a negative manner in the near future if such a situation of employee termination
occurs again (Cascio et al., 2015).

3CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
3. An ethical framework for addressing issue-1 and justification of the choice
Based on the ethical Justice framework, treatment to individuals must be equal or if not
then must be defended under fair justification. Consequently, Mr. Rex who has been contributed
to the organization with dedication and a quarter of his life, should not be terminated in such an
unethical way. Despite of old age, Mr. Rex still performs at the highest quality and accomplishes
all given task without any deficiencies.
An employee termination if required should be notified one month in advance with a
justiciable reason. There is a formal process for the termination programme that is being
implemented and is mandatory for every business firm to obey. Managers cannot terminate a
qualitative and productive employee with such a malignant approach. Moreover, there also exists
a law, that an employee who has been serving the corporate for a longer period will not be
simply terminated. He is to be considered as an asset to the organization. (Travis et al., 2017).
Significantly, the organization should consider the age factor of the concerning individual and
fulfil responsibility that is providing pension scheme to the employee.
4. Identification of issue-2
One of the most common and serious unethical behaviours within the workplace is
employee theft. This unethical behaviour is responsible for the loss of almost two hundred
million dollars in the US’s retailing industry in 2017. A study conducted by Jack L. Hayes
International (Jack L. Hayes International, Inc 2019) on 21 US large retail companies with
approximately 16,500 stores and over 1.4 million employees reveals that one in every 35
employees was caught stealing from their employer. Business firms should eagerly find the
solution for such issue as the number has escalated rapidly, only one in 40 employees was
apprehended five years ago.

4CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
This behaviour could occur in an unjustifiable and a more justifiable way. For the initial
case, the behaviour is merely come from the individual’s nature and should be condemned.
However, in different cases, this behaviour could be pushed by unethical behaviours from the
employer such as abusive behaviours towards employees or underpayment inequity (Greenberg
1990).
5. An ethical framework for addressing issue-2 and justification of the choice
In such issue of social exchange relationship, the Common Good Approach would be best
for people within the relationship to follow for maximization of happiness and welfare of all
participants. The ethical framework is based on the idea that everyone should act in respect and
compassion for others.
As mentioned above, if an employee steals from an employer due to his/her own instinct
and nature, the employer should act accordingly that is punishing that employee for the common
good. And in the other case where the behaviour was urged by unethical actions from the
employer, the employee’s action could be defensible as responding similar behaviour to the
relationships. In most cases, if employees are taken care of well, they will give their best attitude
and effort to the work. Consequently, to obtain a healthy social exchange relationship, both sides
are required to act in respect and compassion for all others.
6. Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that there is a need to bring out a change in the perception of the
corporate sector in terms of their attitude towards the traditional beliefs and customs. Also, a
specific set of rules and regulations are required to be followed by each of the corporate business
firms. The EO (Ethical Officer), the body should have concern towards such issues and should

5CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
make a number of efforts towards researching on the difficulties that the employees face in order
to comply with such rules and regulations.
PART B-
1. Introduction
This part of the research will comprise of the facts that a performing organisation face in
relation to corporate ethics and the role of ethical officer. What contributions are made by an
ethical officer?
What are the factors that result for the problem in the implementation of corporate ethics?
How to overcome such ethical issues. Some of the elements that can be implemented to deal with
organizational ethical problems.
2. Summary of issues and frameworks discussed in Part A
Two primary problems are employee theft and unethical behaviour. Taking into
consideration the above case study, these aspects can be dealt with the implementation of the
ethics officer. They are the body that primarily focuses on the area of gaps that make an
individual body to comply with such ethics. Rules and regulations should be formulated keeping
in mind the present organisation scenario. There is a need for ethical corporate governance body
in order to make align the practices of the ethical officer and that of the organisation to fall in the
same line (Kaptein et al., 2015).
Moreover the theft activity of employee, it was found that 1 among the 35 employee was
caught stealing from their employer. However, the number has reduced but there is still required
to undertake measure to completely eliminate it. The number has reduced to some extent, 5 years
ago it was 1 out of every 40 employees.

6CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
On the other hand, an individual should have respect and concern towards the other
individual. There is a need for psychological improvement and stability within an individual. AN
employee should have a social concern towards another individual by helping in times of need
instead of pulling each other down. An individual should recognize the need for undertaking
such changes and the resulting outcome that will be achieved by making use of corporate ethics.
A person should understand the basic difference between what is right and what is wrong?
3. Reflection on your future workplace behaviour
I hope to bring about innovation in the workplace by making use of the corporate ethical
officer. It is the vision that the future workplace will be positive in terms of ethical code of
conduct. The people irrespective of barriers in cultural traits and behaviours will be likely to
make use of standards rules of ethics that is being formulated for the general employees of the
organisation.
The future organisation rules and regulations should be based upon the vision and
supervision of the corporate governance body in general and that of the CEO of the company’s.
 Elimination of employee theft activity:
The major effort will be on the area to completely remove the employee theft. The employee
theft is leading to cause the well-being of the employee. The strategy would be making use of the
IT field to deal with this specific issue.
 Formation of more emotional connection:
Emotional attachment towards the objective of forming a one specific body irrespective of
geographical gaps and cultural barriers.

7CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
 Promoting the cultural experience:
When a rival or other employee promotes its healthy state of the corporate environment, it
influences the mind of the other corporate sector present therein. In return, the other corporate
sector starts to make a number of efforts in order to deal with corporate-related problems in order
to arrive at a preferable position.
 Concern towards intellectual experience
There are various courses available that an employee can undertake in order to understand the
immense need of corporate ethics. However, an employee need to develop interest and generate
time to go through the course materials or any other journals in order to understand the essence
of mutual understanding among the employees.
 Leadership bodies
If not every then an individual employee should possess certain leadership qualities in order to
understand the dynamic changes within the workplace. The positive efforts of one individual will
result in the positiveness of another individual. Companies will continue to promote their
workspaces and design them to facilitate interpersonal relationships between employees.
In today’s generation, a number of courses are available on an online platform like
Udemy, LinkedIn, Udacity, edX, and many more. The employee should make use of these
courses in order to understand and have an idea regarding previous corporate culture and the
concerning issues that were faced by the corporate firms (Hew et al., 2016).
The future organisations should operate on a centralised authority system such that
political, economic and cultural issues can be understood instead of raising other political issues

8CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
out of it. If the power of authority will remain less in the hands of the individual, then the
individual fails to raise any conflicts in regard to personal benefits.
However, there should be the presence of flexible working because as this will motivate
the employee's perceptions and interest to contribute more towards the organisational objectives.
When the employees are satisfied, they will make a number of efforts to make use of corporate
ethics and norms. They will develop the responsibility that they have towards the organisational
needs (Raziq et al., 2015).
Hope to see a better future where employee will help the other employees who are new to
traditional norms. When an individual employee helps another employee they feel like they are
been given priority and they start to communicate with others and share their issue irrespective
of various barriers in the path.
4. Conclusion
The CEO of the company should communicate with the local corporate governance body
to formulate new strategies to formulate rules and positive corporate environment taking into
consideration the present environmental problems. A joint session with that of the senior
employees to communicate with them and understand the area of concerning problem.
Active participation of the other employees and workers to share their visions, ideologies
and thoughts to generate a new set of rules and regulations.
Setting up another focus group that will be dealing with employee safety, by eliminating
the employee theft act. Understanding of the cause of such thefts by identifying the loopholes
will be one of the important ojective.

9CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
Setting up a focus group within the organisational premises to read the physical
behaviours of the employee, their perceptions, their intentions, their body language. This focus
group can impart their statement in terms of recommendations in regard to what are the
concerning facts that leads to make the employee behave in a certain pattern and how this issue
can be resolved. Such as flow of grapevine which is another issue in an organisation.

10CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
Reference:
Carroll, A., & Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and
stakeholder management. Nelson Education.
Cascio, W. F. (2015). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.employees. Advances in
Management, 10(1), 1.
Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of
pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 561-568.
Hew, K. F. (2016). Promoting engagement in online courses: What strategies can we learn from
three highly rated MOOCS. British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(2), 320-341.
Hoffman, W. M., Frederick, R. E., & Schwartz, M. S. (Eds.). (2014). Business ethics: Readings
and cases in corporate morality. John Wiley & Sons.
Jack L. Hayes International, Inc. (2019). Annual Retail Theft Survey - Jack L. Hayes
International, Inc.. [online] Available at: http://hayesinternational.com/news/annual-
retail-theft-survey/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2019].
Kaptein, M. (2015). The effectiveness of ethics programs: The role of scope, composition, and
sequence. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(2), 415-431.
Raziq, A., & Maulabakhsh, R. (2015). Impact of working environment on job
satisfaction. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, 717-725.
Travis, T., Sarah, S., Bharat, M., & Jitendra, M. (2017). How to manage difficult
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do
it right. John Wiley & Sons.

11CASE STUDY ON BUSINESS ETHICS
Waddington, C. H. (2017). The scientific attitude. Routledge.