Conclusion
Now that we have reviewed the processes by which we
arrive at our personal ethical principles, let’s consider
what happens when we take the study of ethics into
the business world. What happens when the decision
that is expected of you by your supervisor or manager
goes against your personal value system? Consider
these situations:
• As a salesperson, you work on a monthly quota.
Your sales training outlines several techniques to
“up sell” each customer—that is, to add additional
features, benefits, or warranties to your product
that the average customer doesn't really need. Your
sales manager draws a very clear picture for you: If
you don’t make your quota, you don’t have a job. So
if your personal value system requires that you sell
customers only what they really need, are you willing
to make more smaller sales to hit your quota, or
do you do what the top performers do and “up sell
like crazy” and make every sale count?
• You are a tech-support specialist for a small computer
soft ware manufacturer. Your supervisor
informs you that a bug has been found in the
soft ware that will take several weeks to fix. You
are instructed to handle all calls without admitting
the existence of the bug. Specific examples
are provided to divert customers’ concerns with
suggestions of user error, hardware issues, and
conflicts with other soft ware packages. Th e bug,
you are told, will be fixed in a scheduled version
upgrade without any admission of its existence.
Could you do that?
How organizations reach a point in their growth
where such behavior can become the norm, and how
employees of those organizations find a way to work
in such environments, is what the field of business
ethics is all about.