Business ethics: principles and applications

Business Ethics

Our patient referral company fields calls from clients with physical or mental disabilities and refers them to appropriate social workers, therapists, or doctors. The basis of the organization is highly ethical, as we do our best to match client and therapist and do not offer special treatment to any doctors. For the most part, our small office operates without any significant moral or ethical issues. Because we act as a tightly-knit community, we generally treat each other with respect and have created a healthy and diverse corporate culture.

However, I have also noticed some minor flaws in the moral practices of some company employees as well as of the company in general. First, the owners of the company remain distant from the employees. They rarely come by the office, and when they do not make an effort to learn names. For the most part, the owners ignore all the people who work in the office. Their attitude itself is not inherently amoral. However, their impersonal attitude carries over into the way they run the office. For example, pay raises are hard to come by; the owners have ignored several requests on the part of employees to raise our pay. Similarly, the owners have recently installed software on all office computers that prevents us from playing games or writing emails during our lunch hour. While intended to increase productivity, the software inhibits our rights to enjoy our lunch hour as we want.

However, the moral problem that is most unique to our company is the following. Because we deal with consumers with health problems, employees are privy to some of the private and personal information of clients. Occasionally, office workers will joke about a client's ailments or problems. For example, the other day a coworker made fun of a client who had twelve different anti-aging plastic surgeries. Even though the client would never find out what was being said, and even though we do not draft privacy contracts with our clients, the act still represents a moral violation of privacy and an ethical violation of trust. Moreover, the gossip makes many office workers uncomfortable. The rights of both employees and clients are being threatened through the seemingly harmless gossip.

Many of the jokes result in some laughter and a temporary sense of friendliness in the workplace, and therefore from a utilitarian perspective the gossip could conceivably be serving a positive purpose in easing workplace tension. A relatively small number of coworkers are bothered by the jokes. A utilitarian would say that the few often have to endure the greater interests of the many.

A utilitarian would also observe that no one in the office and none of the clients are getting physically or financially hurt by the gossip primarily because the information that we have is highly general and therefore not sensitive. For instance, we don't know any intimate details of the clients' life, but only such things as would be included on any patient intake form. Clients' rights are not being overtly violated because when they register for our referral services, they do not divulge any sensitive information. One could say they are assuming risk when they fill out our forms. On the other hand, when the client sees the doctor, social worker, or therapist, he or she does divulge sensitive information and does expect total confidentiality. The office workers also keep the jokes, and especially client names, within office walls. From this point-of-view, clients' rights are not actually being violated at all.

Similarly, it would be almost impossible for the client, the brunt of the joke, to find out about or be hurt by the gossip because when employees joke they do so without any references to the client's address or other vital information. A utilitarian could therefore argue that because the gossip causes more pleasure for the employees than it does pain for the clients, there is nothing morally wrong with the action. The few employees that are uncomfortable endure it as part of the tyranny of the majority, just as we have to endure other codes of behavior in the office like not being able to play games during the lunch break.

On the other hand, using utilitarian ethics to justify misusing client material by joking can be problematic. Joking about our clients' personal information represents an essential breach of ethics and a violation of privacy even when the client doesn't know about it. If I knew that my pharmacist was joking behind my back about my ailments I would be furious. Likewise, when an individual signs up as a client with our referral company, he or she expects to be treated with the utmost respect.