Business Law
Resolving Ethical Business Challenges
Chapter One
1. What are the potential ethical issues faced by Acme Corporation?
Acme is essentially bribing buyers to purchase their products. This could backfire on them if the buyers company gets wind of it. The reaction of the company may be to fire their buyer and cut off Acme all together. This of course could be potentially fatal for Acme in two ways, one by damaging their infrastructure though lost revenue and two by damaging their corporate reputation.
2. What should Acme do if there is a desire to make ethics a part of its core organizational values?
Acme needs to developed a new strong internal business ethic code of conduct
and see to it the its present corporate culture is abolished. This may require a turnover of
its present staff, but at the very least they need an agreement of all current and future
employees to abide by new ethical conduct codes as outline
3. Identify the ethical issues of which Frank needs to be aware.
There are several ethical issues that Frank needs to by aware off, the first is his own personal integrity. Frank needs to understand that ultimately his reputation is as much at risk as Acme’s. While Frank is acting as an agent for Acme, he is also always acting as an agent for himself. Frank’s participation in Acme’s bribery could come back to him in the form of a reputation in his industry, which could impede his future employability. Frank also needs to be aware that he is setting a precedent in the way he sells. This could be a future problem for Frank in that he will not develop the necessary skills he needs for ethical sales, which will mean that he will most likely have to revert to a “bribery technique” to get the job done, thus stunting his future potential.
4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each decision that Frank could make.
Frank could have chosen not feed into the bribery offer of Otis. This may have resulted in Otis
Chapter One
1. What are the potential ethical issues faced by Acme Corporation?
Acme is essentially bribing buyers to purchase their products. This could backfire on them if the buyers company gets wind of it. The reaction of the company may be to fire their buyer and cut off Acme all together. This of course could be potentially fatal for Acme in two ways, one by damaging their infrastructure though lost revenue and two by damaging their corporate reputation.
2. What should Acme do if there is a desire to make ethics a part of its core organizational values?
Acme needs to developed a new strong internal business ethic code of conduct
and see to it the its present corporate culture is abolished. This may require a turnover of
its present staff, but at the very least they need an agreement of all current and future
employees to abide by new ethical conduct codes as outline
3. Identify the ethical issues of which Frank needs to be aware.
There are several ethical issues that Frank needs to by aware off, the first is his own personal integrity. Frank needs to understand that ultimately his reputation is as much at risk as Acme’s. While Frank is acting as an agent for Acme, he is also always acting as an agent for himself. Frank’s participation in Acme’s bribery could come back to him in the form of a reputation in his industry, which could impede his future employability. Frank also needs to be aware that he is setting a precedent in the way he sells. This could be a future problem for Frank in that he will not develop the necessary skills he needs for ethical sales, which will mean that he will most likely have to revert to a “bribery technique” to get the job done, thus stunting his future potential.
4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each decision that Frank could make.
Frank could have chosen not feed into the bribery offer of Otis. This may have resulted in Otis