Business Ethics, the Changing Environment, and Stakeholder Management I. Exercise 01: “REAL- TIME ETHICAL DILEMMA”
a). Summary:
I am a staff associate at a major public accounting firm and graduated from college two years ago. And I am working on an audit for a small, non- profit religious publishing firm. After testing on the royalty payable system, I find out that my firm owes to authors the royalties of their publications for the past 5 years. And none of the authors ever received their royalty payments. After presenting this fact to my senior auditor, he suggests me to pass over this finding. I think the senior auditor is respone for this error because he perfomed the testing phase in all of these years just before his promotion. And he is frustrated with me. I don’t know what to do! Should I tell the truth? Or just silence to keep my career safe?
b). Questions:
1. What would I do in this situation? Why? What are the risks of telling the truth for me? What are the benefits? Explain.
In this situation, I would tell the truth, I want to show this errors of royalty contracts to the authors and the one who have a higher status of my company (CEO, chairman, etc). Because of these reasons: * I can’t betray my conscience. * I think the autors deserve to know the truth, and they deserve to receive their royalty payments. * The senior auditor is respone to this situation, he just thinks about the firm’s profit so he hides the truth by making a miscalculation of the royalties before his promotion. * Thinking and acting ethically is very important nowaday, because I think somedays someone will find out the truth and the company will blame this false to me.
The risks of telling the truth for me: I am just a small person in this firm, if I tell the truth, the senior auditor will write a bad review for my personel file and promotion review. He is a very popular employee, it will be a big bet for my future if I against him. That why