Ethics in Practice

Please read instructions carefully. There are two parts. First part you will be writing a discussion post for me. Second part you will be responding to 2 peer posts(they are uploaded). Important to note in the instructions you are supposed to also add a graph along with the discussion, and my initial discussion should be at least 600 words. Please make sure to read everything in the instructions. A great essay equals to more business and more tips. Thank you in advance. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ BELOW CAREFULLY AND ASK QUESTIONS IF YOU NEED TO.

INSTRUCTIONS

Corporate Codes of Ethics vs. Corporate Behavior

All major firms have a code of ethics, which is a document that stipulates that they are committed to a standard of ethical behavior that goes above and beyond what the law of the land stipulates (if the firm was merely following the laws of the land, it wouldnt need a separate code of ethics). But do firms actually believe in their own code? Do its employees adhere to it? For this discussion, I want you to do the following:

1) Pick a company that has been implicated recently in a corporate scandal. For instance, you can choose to look at Volkswagen (the emissions cheating scandal), Facebook (privacy violations), Boeing (failure to ground faulty planes resulting in hundreds of deaths), McKinsey (one of the most famous names in management consulting that proposed cutting spending on food and medical care for migrant detainees in order to save costs), Wells Fargo (that opened millions of fraudulent accounts), Duetche Bank and Hongkong Bank (money laundering)… the list is endless. Read about the scandal from multiple sources. Check to see what the PR response of the firm was.

2) Look up the firms Code of Ethics (or Code of Conduct) on their website.

3) Answer the following questions:

(a) Did the company follow its own code of ethics? If not, why not?

(b) If the code of ethics is not enforced in so many corporations, what is the point of having it? What purpose do you think it serves?

Instructions:

Create a thread with your responses to the prompts above. Your post must be at least 600 words long, not counting any references.

Use as many references as appropriate to indicate what sources you are drawing upon in order to substantiate your answers. I am expecting you to use a minimum of 2 references for this post.

Please be sure that you organize your posts utilizing organizational methods like titles, sub-titles, bullet points, charts, graphs, etc. This will increased readability and exercise those business writing muscles! It doesn’t matter what you have to say if no one reads it. Take the time to organize coherently. Do not use an essay format.

All initial discussion board posts should have a minimum of one visual element. It can be a chart, graph, image, video clip or other supporting visual element. I HIGHLY recommend Statista for graphs and charts.

READINGS

Read Sections 5.1 to 5.5 from Chapter 5 in the textbook:

https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-management (Book is below)

BOOK

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tEeAU6TDKVLcrYlBv6mFJ3mg8ZpW10bf/view?usp=sharing

You should be able to answer the following questions:

(a) What are normative ethics?

(b) What are business ethics?

(c) What is the concept of intrumental values?

(d) What are some of the frameworks for understanding ethics? (The book talks about utilitarianism, universalism, rights-based approaches, justice, virtue ethics, etc.)

(e) What is ethical leadership?

(f) What is the role of corporate culture in the ethical behavior of the employees of an organization?

2) Despite the fact that all major organizations have a formal code of ethics which is written in very righteous language and aspires to sound like the corporation really cares about ethical behavior, the fact is that many corporations engage in unethical behavior when it suits their purpose in complete disregard of their own stated principles. It appears as if their code of ethics is mere lip service to a cause that can be supported as long as it does not interfere with the profit making of the corporation. Look at the following partial list of corporate scandals over the last 3 years:

(a) The 10 Biggest Business Scandals of 2017:

https://fortune.com/2017/12/31/biggest-corporate-scandals-misconduct-2017-pr/

(b) 10 Big Corporate Scandals of 2018:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-big-corporate-scandals-2018-184157192.html

(c) The Biggest Business Disasters of 2019

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/had-a-rough-year-well-these-5-brands-had-year-from-hell.html

3) Ethisphere has been publishing a list of the Worlds Most Ethical Companies for the last 14 years, based on a set of criteria that are labeled governance, corporate citizenship and responsibility, culture of ethics, ethics and compliance program, and leadership and reputation. Here is the list of 2020s honorees:

https://worldsmostethicalcompanies.com/honorees/

5) Here is one (of many) lists that rank companies on their CSR score:

https://www.newsweek.com/americas-most-responsible-companies-2020

Pay attention to the methodology used to rank the companies:

https://d.newsweek.com/en/file/459820/methodology-americas-most-responsible-companies.pdf