Business Ethics: An Investigation

Ethics- What is it?
          The topic I wanted to look into more as part of our final project was business ethics in the workplace. I wanted to discover the difference between what is right and wrong in the workplace, and also just how impactful these ethical issues can be on short and long term health of business. Ethics can be described as a moral dilemma about distinguishing between what is right and wrong, and also acting on these decisions. Experts say the word ‘ethics’ can be commonly interchanged with the word ‘morality.’ Some of the world’s largest and most successful corporations have fallen due to employees using a lack of proper judgment when it comes to unique situations in which the right choice is not always clear. Companies must pour time and money into training employees the best they can for these situations, but they still cannot always be prevented. As an investigator of this issue, I hope to find out what types of ethical dilemmas occur during business operations, and how they are handled.

Real Ethics Cases
          One of the main reasons I wanted to look into this issue was because of news stories I have seen in the past about corporations crumbling after officers have used a poor lack of judgment. Perhaps the most famous case of this was the case of Enron Corporation. The multi-billion dollar energy business went bankrupt after years of lying about their financial statements to shareholders, as well as to the public. Granted, they’re behavior was not only unethical, but also illegal. However, there were many other decisions that led to these illegal acts, and soon, the financial officers of Enron realized that one unethical decision after another can lead to a terrible downfall. This perplexing and controversial case is one of the reasons I wanted to investigate this issue.