How Personal Can Ethics Get, Essay Example

Ethical Concepts and Dilemmas

Having taken a close look at Valerie’s case, it becomes evident to the reader that the ethical dilemmas, raised in the story, are not an exception nowadays. Contemporary business environment is full of ethical contradictions and challenges, which are, in most cases, the results of the individual’s rush for quick and noticeable monetary gains. In Valerie’s case one can distinguish a number of ethical dilemmas, which need to be addressed. The first dilemma concerns Valerie’s possible decision to make accidently found financial information public. The main question for Valerie is how ethical it would be to tell everybody about her manager’s financial manipulations behind everybody’s backs. As it is noted in the lines of the story, according to the company’s policies “personal payments, bribes or kickbacks to customers, or suppliers or receipt of kickbacks, bribes or personal payments are absolutely prohibited”. In other words, manager Waters overlooked the company’s policy in favor of the personal gain. For this reason, Valerie is obliged to inform everybody of the found information, especially when the company’s image and future are on the line. However, it is at this point that the second ethical dilemma arises. Valerie is hesitant of the consequences that her public announcement would bring upon her. As a non-US citizen with a special working visa, she is apprehensive of loosing the job, which would most likely make her leave the country, and not be able to finish her master’s of science program at the University of Chicago, which she has just recently started and for which her tuition would be reimbursed by the company in case of all A’s and B’s. As a result of the hesitations, the second ethical question that Valerie is faced with is how ethical would it be to put personal interest ahead of the corporate and ethical one. As one can see, the above discussed ethical dilemmas are correlated because either-way solution of one of them will inevitably result in the solution of the other, so, in this case, Valerie’s decision is a trigger for a chain of events, which would never have the chance to be undone. Finally, another mind boggling ethical concept that has to be discussed in the light of the above discussion is the one concerning the ethicality of manager Waters’ private autocratic decision to use kickbacks as a way of dealing with Wisson’s supplying companies. The results of Waters’ conduct affected the company in a way that the majority of perfumer companies stopped cooperating with Wisson, and only two suppliers remained, who were willing to pay Waters $35000 in “commissions and fees”. Consequently, Wisson lost a big part of the competitive advantage in the perfume market as well as whined up on the road to potential law suits and public hearings.

Possible Solution

If I were Valerie, I would also take some time to consider all the possible options before making a final decision on how to behave in this particular situation. However, on the contrary to Valerie, my main concerns will be that of the company’s future and potential risks. It can be noted from the story that Wisson is an international company, which has undergone a number of reorganizational procedures, and the major part of the company’s success depends on the decisions and actions of the marketing department, where Valerie is a marketing manager. If I accidently found the prove of the financial manipulations of my boss, I would definitely report them because such kind of activities are crucial not only for the company’s financial statement but to the company’s survival on the whole. Someone may argue that it can be regarded as a betrayal, but, to my mind, in this particular case, it is the boss, Waters, who is betraying the company and its suppliers, and leaving the situation as it is will not only be unethical but also illegal. Knowing that I could lose my job and leave the country because of the absence of the US citizenship, I would still proceed with my intentions, because, first of all, in accordance with visa regulations, I would still have 30 days in which to find a new job, and secondly, I cannot but agree with Johnson and Phillips (2003), who noted that “you may lose lots of battles, but at least you can look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of what you see.”.

Stressors

When considering the main stressors that Valerie is experiencing in the story, we have to make clear first that those are “things in our environment that we are responding to” (Stress Management). They can be either bio-ecological, or psycho-intrapersonal, or social (Types of Stressors) and in the case of Valerie we can distinguish the last two types. As far as I can judge the most powerful and influential stressor for Valerie is her own internal struggle between personal and corporate interests. She is hesitant of her personal well-being, which is understandable. On the other hand, this internal struggle is being supported by another social stressor – the absence of US citizenship, which results in the unclear picture of the Valerie’s future in this country. Finally, one other influential stressor in Valerie’s case is her manager. He is known for his autocratic style of leadership and carelessness for any other, but personal gains, which makes all the employees be under his powerful influence, as basically their career is in his hands at this period of time.

Manager Waters’ Assessment

When assessing Waters’ conduct and ethicality in regards to doing business and heading employees, it is evident that manager’s behavior is a classical example of autocratic leadership style as noted above in the paper. As the author of the story points out himself “Waters was a constant example of how not be ethical in handling business and employees”. In my opinion, his behavior is unacceptable because it has put the whole department at risk. People could have lost their jobs or could have been faced with charges of financial manipulations. Judging only his own financial case, Waters endangered the well-being of his employees which goes far beyond the ethical principles of any manager. He undermined the idea that in order for the whole department to succeed and advance, the head of the department should have enough charisma and appropriate leadership style in order to thoughtfully encourage and motivate employees. His unethical behavior is a vivid example for all the managers out there of what a managerial conduct should never be like.

Corporate Culture Aspects

In today’s business world corporate culture is an important “concept in understanding how organization functions” (Davis, 2003). Looking at Valerie’s case through the corporate culture perspective makes us understand of how important and influential the conduct of each and every employee is. Valerie’s choice of either telling the truth or keeping it a secret will, sooner or later, affect the whole company. In case of the truth revealing, the company will be faced not only with law suits or other types of legal issues, it will have to face the fact that there was a weak link in the company, who might have cost the company its survival in the business. On the other hand, however, if the truth is revealed too late, Valerie is likely to suffer from the corporate pressure as well: she might be even considered a bigger traitor that Waters, because she knew the truth but put personal interests above the company’s ones, which can be considered as a betrayal or destruction of the fundamental norms and ethics upon which corporate culture is usually built.

References

Davis, M. (2003). Corporate culture as a driver of transit leadership practices. No. 47. Transportation Research Board.

Johnson, Larry & Philips, Bob. (2003). Where Do We Go from Here? Absolute honesty: Building a Corporate Culture that Values Straight Talk and Rewards Integrity. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Stress Management. North Idaho College. Retrieved October 26, 2009 from http://www.nic.edu/modules/images/websites/57/file/StressManagement.pdf

Types of Stressors. Stress Management. Retrieved October 26, 2009 from http://www.castonline.ilstu.edu/mjadams/154/Notes/Types%20of%20Stressors.ppt#256,1,Types of Stressors