Small Business Ethics Experiential Exercise

Small Business Ethics

Experiential Exercise

Everyone is harmed in a class where cheating occurs. The students who actually do the work themselves are harmed because they do not compete on a level playing field. The person who cheats is harmed because he or she does not learn the material. All of the students implicated in the cheating are harmed, because their honest work (in the case of the 'helper) and their honest reputation (in the case of all of the students) are damaged. And the teacher's hard work in constructing an honest exam is lost.

Those actions that affect the ethics of others against their will -- particularly number 23 but also number 24 -- are most egregious. Pressuring someone to sign something that contains false information is encouraging someone to commit a crime, and number 24 is nearly criminal, harkening to the recent examples of individuals deceived or pressured into taking out mortgages on homes they could not really afford, and to sign documents they had not read, or could not understand to the point that the language was impenetrable. Number 23 immediately calls to mind accountants pressured to help perpetrate fraud at large companies and sign that their audits were conducted according to ethical professional standards, even though the lower-level accountants did not believe this was the case. If they had been pressured to do so at smaller companies, the unethical behavior inherent to these activities would be no less harmful. It shames the profession (or the person) who is being forced or pressured to sign a document they do not believe in as well as the person doing the pressuring -- and unethical actions can affect everyone at the company, employees and shareholders alike. Number 22 may not be as morally repugnant as 23 and 24, however it can have extremely serious consequences as well, if gifts are accepted from vendors that sell inferior products, or customers who, for example, are charging too much for government or private contracts in a way that does not affect the accepting individual, but affects the company or agency and thus the shareholders or taxpayers in question.

DQ3: The last example of flagrantly unethical behavior I saw was not in the business world, but in the world of my high school, when I knew individuals were cheating on exams by stealing the teacher's answer keys. Rather than report them, I simply looked the other way but did not participate. I didn't want to get the students in trouble at the time, and as a teenager I felt that it was the teacher's responsibility to catch the offenders, not mine, and there was no honor code at my school that required me to report offenders spotted cheating. I did not want to incur the social costs of being a snitch, although I did feel upset and angry that the hard work I had done, studying for the test, was undercut by the students' behavior and their perfect scores, given that I knew that they had stolen the answer key.

DQ4: As an ordinary employee, probably not. I would probably first confront the offenders to let them know that their behavior had been identified, and hope that shame and fear would alter their behavior. I would not want to deprive these individuals of employment as a fellow employee, although I know that their unethical behavior has the long-term consequences of driving up prices and would sympathize with the owner on a personal level.

DQ5: I would have to fire him or her -- more so than simple stealing, Numbers 23 and 24 are immoral as well as unethical.

Application 1: I learned I am reluctant to report unethical behavior, despite my awareness of how one unethical action affects everyone, often in ways that are difficult to perceive. However, when individuals are directly being urged to do something that could cause them great harm, like to perpetuate a legal fraud as in 24, to sign something that can cause them long-term financial or personal damage as in 23, or are being financially or physically harmed when a company or agency has a person in a position of trust accepting bribes and looking the other way, then I will take a stand.