Of the over 3,000 workers polled in the "2009 National Business
Ethics Survey," or NBES, by the Ethics Resource Center, 49 percent
observed ethical misconduct in their workplaces. These issues ranged
from company resource abuse to bribes and illegal political
contributions. In the two years since the 2007 NBES, however, workplace
ethics have improved. The Ethics Resource Center says that ethical
misconduct declines when the economy struggles and rises when there is
not as much economic pressure. This is reflected in the 2000 NBES, after
the dot-com burst and the 2003 NBES, after the Enron scandal and the
downfall of Arthur Andersen, one of America's oldest accounting firms.
Both reports showed decreases in ethical activity from the previous
reports.
Employee Mistreatment
Ethics problems can come in the form of coworkers mistreating and
harassing each other or managers and business owners mistreating their
employees, even to the point of breaking the law. In the 2007 book
"Diversity in Organizations," author Myrtle P. Bell talks about the
common practices of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace along
with the exploitation of immigrant workers in the form of low wages,
abuse and excessive hours with no overtime. "Are You A Bully?," the June
1999 Newsletter of the California Department of Transportation,
outlines common workplace bullying tactics, such as spreading rumors,
shouting, insulting coworkers, discrediting others, age or ethnicity
discrimination and taking credit for others' ideas.
Customer Mistreatment
Forms of unethical customer treatment include intentionally
releasing shoddy products, lying to consumers and discriminating against
clients by gender, familial status, nationality, age, sexual
orientation and education level, according to the 2011 book "Business
Ethics." Since a customer may not report mistreatment, it is important
that all employees understand what unacceptable behavior is. Clearly
defined ethics programs and highly ethical leaders or owners can
establish an environment in which ethics violations against coworkers
and customers are seen as wrong and are reprimanded.
Unethical Employee Behavior
Employees polled in the "2009 National Business Ethics Survey" said
they observed other employees abusing company resources, falsifying
their time sheets, abusing substances, breaching customer privacy, using
the Internet and email accounts for personal matters, turning in false
expenses and stealing. Whereas 49 percent of employees reported seeing
ethical misconduct in 2009, the numbers were down from 56 percent who
reported misconduct just two years earlier in 2007. Ethical misconduct
numbers dropped between one and four percent each in most of the
aforementioned areas, due in part to clearer guidelines, stricter ethics
programs at work and anonymous hotlines to report unethical behavior.
Corporate Intelligence Issues
The authors of "Business Ethics" have also identified practices in
which businesses act unethically against each other or employees of one
company steal and sell corporate intelligence, or C.I., to a rival
company. These acts include "dumpster diving" for confidential
information that a company may have thrown away, hacking into a computer
system for information and tricking someone into revealing valuable
information. Advancements in technology make it simpler to commit C.I.
crimes, since they can be committed remotely. Even though the overall
ethical misconduct numbers are declining, more C.I. issues have arisen.
Whereas in 2000, most workers polled for the NBES cited the main issues
as abusive behavior, lying and discrimination, in 2009, more people were
reporting misuse of confidential information and insider trading.
Accounting Practices
Falsifying company expenses or sales, altering financial documents
to benefit the company and releasing misleading statements to employees
or investors about a company's financial stability are all unethical
accounting acts. Due to the increase in accounting fraud and unethical
financial practices, legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
requires top managers to certify their companies' financial statements
and makes chief executive officers and chief financial officers
personally accountable for these statements. In 2004, the United States
Sentencing Commission changed its guidelines to make sentencing more
strict for organizations that commit federal crimes and to outline
components of the most effective ethics programs for organizations. Many
companies use these Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations as a
framework for their ethical compliance initiatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment