College of Business Administration

Seminar in Business and the Good Society

Discussion Questions for April 30, 2003:

1) What is the importance of ethics in the workplace and what is ethics to you?

2) Have you been in a situation where you had to balance conflicting ethical values at work? Outside of work? Are you happy with your decision?

3) As a manager or employee is there a time in which it would be ethical to be dishonest? (For example: To protect an employee from incrimination, release a product or service to a customer that was known to be defective but in turn would save thousands of jobs, release a product that was made to harm or kill people.

4) The Josephson Institute of Ethics describes six pillars of character that are necessary to facilitate ethical behavior. One of these six pillars of character is citizenship. What defines a good citizen? What are some ways that corporations can be good citizens?

5) The Josephson Institute also states that loyalty is one of the six pillars of character required for good ethics. Are there times when it is more ethical for loyalty to be limited?

6) Do you have a written code of ethics at your company and how does your company reinforce the use of these ethical guidelines?

7) If you were working for a company that was involved in unethical operations would you:

a. Quit and look for another Job?
b. Look the other way and ignore the problem as long as it did not directly affect you?
c. Try to change operations to be more ethical?

8) If there was no chance of you ever being caught and there was no direct harm done to an individual or company, would you act unethically for your personal benefit? What if there was a small chance of being caught but the company you were working for was soon to lay you off so the company would become more profitable? Would this change your answer?

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