Ethics in the Workplace The workplace is considered the professional environment which should be characterized, at least in theory, by a high degree of professionalism and a clear distinction between the work environment and mindset and the personal one. In cases of issues related to ethics in the workspace, the line between professional and personal can be breached and in some cases even broken.

There are numerous situations in which ethics is put under a question mark at the workplace. Some examples vary from private use of company resources for personal purposes to obtaining financial gains as a result of professional position inside a company.

The first example relates to simple and apparently non-offensive acts that most of the employees tend to make use of during working hours. These include using the company email for personal use such as online shopping to using company resources such as the printer, the fax, the scan, or any other readily available resource that the company puts at the free use of the employee during working hours. Despite the fact that most of the employees in major corporation do it, without any clear and quantifiable effect or loss for the company, it is in fact in breach of the company policy concerning ethics. In this sense, "in most workplaces there's a principle called "occasional use" that keeps the majority of workers from losing their jobs simply for checking their eBay auction during their break or dropping kids off at school with the company car in an emergency. Occasional use means just that you can use company resources for personal use as...

Yet, this does not affect in a major sense the company or the employer, still it reflects a tendency of the employee to act against rules and procedures of the company.
At the other end of non-ethical behavior lie the more important, significant, and damaging non- ethical behavior at the workplace. When dealing with severe breach of ethical behavior, this often relates to high-level employees. In this sense, it is important to take into account the fact that "work-place ethics are most often related to decision-making processes. Most leaders face the opportunity to choose between alternative courses of action in their work situations and other aspects of their lives. Work-place ethics refer to choosing the option that is determined to be the moral or legal "right" choice, even if the other alternative(s) are very attractive and even if you can "get away with" the less ethical choice." (Bush, n.d) Therefore, ethics refers to choosing between right and wrong, when both options are available.

Bribery is not only a legal offense but also an ethical one. Despite the fact that decision-makers are in a position to influence, through their behavior, the decision making process, they also have access to processes they manage or influence that determine a certain course of action. If their behavior is non-ethical, and in here bribery or favoritism are included, this course of action is not only against ethic…