Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers’ posts (as well as any comments made by your instructor) in a substantive manner and provide information or concepts that they may not have considered.
Each response should have a minimum of 200 words. Support your position by using information from the week’s readings. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum.
Law & Ethics in the Business Environment
Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Forbes regarding the importance of business ethics and the benefits or positive outcomes that flow from ethical decision making? Explain why or why not.
I agree with Mr. Forbes that business ethics is important and ethical decision making has multiple benefits. Mr. Forbes said it well in simple words, “ethics is right or wrong” it is just “not what you say but what you do”. Businesses must be fair in their dealing with their customers, employees, and society in general. In addition, businesses must demonstrate an emphasis on ethics with their action than mere words or on paper with their mission statement. Business ethics must be the guiding principle at all times and in all aspects of the business like Mr. Forbes said: “A promise made should be a promise kept”. Ethical decisions demonstrate the values and character of a business organization which generate trust and reputation for customer and investors (Hopwood, 2018). Business ethics just not only helps with building reputation but helps develops good business practices like treating employees well which improves employee retention and attracts talent (CharterCollege, 2020). It also keeps businesses away from legal troubles by having environmentally friendly practices and following employment regulation (CharterCollege, 2020).
Provide an example from recent events that either illustrates a positive outcome or benefit to the business that flowed form ethical decision making or an example from recent events that illustrates a negative outcome or detriment to a business that flowed from unethical decision making.
I want to discuss my current employer Ash Grove Cement Company as an example to illustrate a positive outcome of ethical decision making:
- Safety standards: we have a big emphasis on maintaining a safe working environment for all employees. We have a stop the job program which empowers every employee to stop any job for safety concerns or to improve job safety. As an organization, we mean it when we preach Safety first policy. It has helped to develop a different attitude in employees towards safety and our safety program has evolved into an employee-driven safety program which has improved our incident rates.
- Environmental standards: Ash Grove follows strict environmental standards and we are governed by EPA regulations. We have limits on emissions, operators have full authority to shut the whole plant before violating any emission limits and they can shut the plant without any approval. We were recently awarded Energy Star by EPA for efficiently using and saving energy.
- Employee friendly employer: Ash Grove have taken initiative to make the plant employee-friendly. We are located in downtown, to help employees with their commute we have started 4 day work week and flexible hours for all employees. 100% tuition reimbursement is another great program which is helping employees achieve their personal educational goals.
Reference:
Langvardt, A. W., Barnes, A. J., Prenkert, J. D., McCrory, M. A., & Perry, J. E. (2019). Business law: The ethical, global, and e-commerce environment (17th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from https://www.vitalsource.com (Links to an external site.)
CharterCollege. (2020, March 11). chartercollege.edu. Retrieved from Why Are Good Ethics So Important to Businesses: https://www.chartercollege.edu/news-hub/why-are-good-ethics-so-important-businesses (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Hopwood, S. (2018, January 8). SeanHopwood.com. Retrieved from The Importance of Business Ethics: http://www.seanhopwood.com/blog/leadership-and-management/2018/01/the-importance-of-business-ethics-5107 (Links to an external site.)
Law & Ethics
I agree with Mr. Forbes regarding the importance of business ethics and the benefits or positive outcomes that flow from ethical decision making. The reason that I agree with Mr. Forbes is that Ethics in business is very vital because it creates trust and shows responsibility. For example, as a business leader if you have great morale ethics and you are truthful in your dealings with your employees and your customers, they will go all out for you because they know that they can trust you. No employee wants to have a leader that they cannot trust, and no stakeholder wants to be involved with a company that is not trustworthy and cuts corners. As a result, there are great benefits to having a great morale ethics in business. Those benefits can be seen in the growth and success of a company. Costco is an example of a company that had great success as a result of their ethical decision making regarding the way they treat their employees. Costco is a large retail company that pays their employees above the minimum pay for retail workers and the benefit is seen in their happy employees. Their employees are happy and well taken care of and it shows in the great service that the employees deliver to the customers. And hence the success of Costco as a company.
An example from a recent event that illustrates a negative outcome or detriment to a business that flowed from unethical decision making was seen when the CEO /Chairman of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance was charged “over allegations that he failed to disclose close to $80 million in additional compensation for 2010 to 2018 (B.Atkins; 2019). In addition, according to the article written by Betsy Atkins in “Business Ethics and Integrity” the compensations were hidden with deferral schemes as well as personal investment losses he managed to transfer to Nissan in 2008 (B.Atkins; 2019)
REFERENCE:
B.Atkins; (Feb 7, 2019). Business Ethics and Integrity: It Starts With The Tone At The Top. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2019/02/07/business-ethics-and-integrity-it-starts-with-the-tone-at-the-top/#36ef40f157c6