Ethical Dilemma Reason 1
Selfishness and Personal Gain
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Ethical dilemmas arise for a variety of reasons in this business world. Four of the most
common reasons are as follows:
1. Selfishness and personal gain
2. Profit pressures
3. Business standards conflicting with personal values
4. Cultural differences in global settings
We shall discuss in this page
Selfishness and Personal Gain
People who put their own interests above those of the business for which they work can
become ethical egotists.
Such people find the concept of business ethics worthless and often ignore the ethical
standards of their company and society.
An ethical egotist is one who believes that everyone ought to do what is in his/her own
interest. In another word: I should always focus on my ultimate goals and take the steps
necessary to attain them.
In general, an ethical egotist will make decisions based on the punishment or reward they
received for previous decisions. They often believe that such behavior will garner
recognition by superiors, advancement, and the acceptance of their peers.
One practice carried out by some managers is to reduce the time clocked by employees so
as to lower wage bill of their staff. By so doing, his performance in the organization is
shown to be better because he is able to make his subordinate produce more at lower
wage cost. For example, it was reported by New York Times on April 4, 2004
"Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time
records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe. The practice, commonly
called shaving time, is easily done and hard to detect -- a simple matter of computer
keystrokes -- and has spurred a growing number of lawsuits and settlements against a
wide range of businesses.
...
The pressures are just unbelievable to control costs and improve productivity,'' said
George Milkovich, a longtime Cornell University professor of industrial relations and co-
author of the leading textbook on compensation. ''All this manipulation of payroll may be
the unintended consequence of increasing the emphasis on bonuses.''
When a salesman achieves good sale, even through unethical sale tactics, he is rewarded
financially and given special treatment. He is therefore encouraged to continue to practice
such unethical sale tactics. Other salesmen will be tempted to do likewise even though
they may have strong reservation about such unethical practice.
Ethical egoists are not only not acting according to ethical principles, we shall see that
ethical egoistic practice is actually self-defeating to the ethical egoists themselves. Take
for example the situation where it is in the best interst of the ethical egoist to trust
another person such as her own lawyer, doctor or a loved one who in turn will have to act
in her own best interests which may be in conflict of the ethical egoist's best interests.
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Need to learn more on ethics? Here are your opportunities.
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Here are some of the useful courses on Ethics that you may wish to consider signing up for:
Corporate Governance and Ethics
This online course on Corporate Control and Governance employs a stakeholder management
framework, emphasizing business' social and ethical responsibilities to both internal and external
stakeholders. A twin theme of business ethics demonstrates how ethical or moral considerations have to
be included when dealing with the public issues facing organizations and during the decision-making
process. This novel and innovative program teaches companies and professionals how to lessen fraud
losses as well as how to effectively eliminate future frauds. This ethics course offers comprehensive
coverage of fraud detection, fraud warning signs, technological fraud detection tools, investigation
techniques (especially useful to auditors, security personnel, and managers), financial statement
screening, fraud risk in e-commerce, pro-active fraud risk and much more.
Ethics and Values - for Social Workers
There are questions of values and ethics everywhere in life. Each of us has his or her views of what is
right or wrong, or what is of greater inportance, hence having higher priority. We usually do not consider
ourselves as beginners when we deal with this topic of what we consider as right or wrong. This course
is an introduction to the topic, but new questions and dilemmas related to ethics and values will arise in
every piece of work you undertake as a social worker.
Business Ethics
The functions of an ethics program are stated, ethics defined, and general characteristics of the ethics
program listed. Identify ethical standards for fairness and honesty, precise record keeping, and complying
with antitrust regulations. Identify ethical standards for giving and receiving gifts, gratuities, and
entertainment with customers and suppliers, government and non-government personnel, and foreign
officials. Identify standards for managing conflicts of interest, financial standards, including preservation of
assets, restrictive trade practices, intellectual properties, and employee relations. Recognize the duty to
comply with and report suspected ethical violations, what disciplinary action could result from failure to
comply with or report violations, and how to raise ethical concerns and seek additional counsel.
Recognize the relevanc of ethics principles through learning from case studies.
Ethical Issues for Bankers
Ethical Issues for Bankers prepares students to meet the ethical standards expected of
financial services professionals. Students will learn the general guidelines that determine
banking ethics, gain the knowledge and skills needed to perform ethical decision-making,
and be prepared to observe their institution's code of conduct and Federal laws. Students
will also explore typical ethical dilemmas that tend to occur in financial institutions, and
learn how to apply a thoughtful three-step approach to such dilemmas."
Ethics - Standards of Professional Conduct : Especially suitable for Engineers.
Many organizations, particularly smaller businesses, do not have a written set of
standards to provide guidance to their employees on ethical matters related to their job
duties. While each job title, company and industry deals with unique circumstances, there
are some standards of professional conduct for engineers that are considered the norm
across a broad range of job titles, companies and even industries. In matters such as
conflicts of interest, use and protection of employer's assets, and disclosure of proprietary
information, there are universal standards of accepted conduct for engineers working for
employers based in developed countries (although the detailed policies may vary between
companies).
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has developed a document titled
"Standards of Professional Conduct" for its members. In addition to the aforementioned
examples of ethical issues, the ASCE's standards cover issues such as maintaining
accurate and complete records, outside employment/activities, acceptance of bribes or
kickbacks and whistle blowing. The ASCE's standards serve as an excellent model for
companies seeking to provide guidance to engineers on ethical matters related to their
position and the performance of their work tasks. It also provides a universal set of
principles to guide individual engineers on ethical matters in the absence of an employer
policy.
In this course, the student will be directed to ASCE's website to review the ASCE document
titled "Standards of Professional Conduct".
The student must take a multiple-choice quiz consisting of fifteen questions at the end of
this course to earn PDH credits.
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Brought to you by Jacob Gan, PhD (Michigan)
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