Describe four of the common ethical issues that managers face in business: bribery, corrupt payments, employment and personnel issues, marketing practices, impact on the economy and environment, and employee and customer privacy.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but should include four of the following.
Bribery—Payments are made to others to cause decisions that are favorable to the person providing the bribe.
Corrupt payments—Payments made to allow the company to avoid scrutiny of their actions by government agencies.
Employment and personnel issues—Bias, child labor, forced labor, and other discriminatory labor practices all create the danger of unethical decisions.
Marketing practices—Dishonesty in marketing and the hiding of safety and quality defects may be tempting because of the cost of being honest.
Impact on the economy and environment—Unethical activity on the part of financial institutions can create terrible economic consequences, and other organizational actions that don’t take the consequences of those actions into account can cause irreversible harm to the environment.
Employee and customer privacy—Personal privacy can be harmed by unethical actions on the part of company employees, especially the use of databases with large amounts of personal information for unauthorized purposes.