Making Ethical Choices

Indicate whether you consider each of the following actions ethical, unethical, or a grey area. Which of the actions would you do? Which would you feel uncomfortable doing? Which would you refuse to do?

1. Taking home office supplies (e.g., pens, markers, calculators, etc.) for personal use. I feel that if one person takes supplies then they will all do it. Furthermore, it is unethical if office supplies are taken, and personally I would not take supplies from an office because it is unprofessional.

2. Inflating your evaluation of a subordinate because you know that only people ranked excellent will get pay raises. I believe this is unethical because it is morally unacceptable and as a Christian man I would feel convicted doing it and would ultimately not commit this act.

3. Making personal long-distance calls on the company phone. If it’s an absolute emergency no, but other than that it is unethical. Employees should not use the company phone for long distance calls unless it’s an emergency. I would feel comfortable making a long distance call.

4. Updating your Facebook page and visiting the pages of friends during business hours. That is unethical and I know by experience that companies and business take this very serious. At my last job, I worked at a church and they had anonymous people looking through Facebook and Twitter to see who was on there posting during office hours.

5. Writing a feasibility report about a new product and de-emphasizing test results that show it could cause cancer. This is unethical and crazy. I would not falsify a product to make sales.

6. Coming in to the office in the evening to use the company’s word processor and computer for personal projects. Companies give employees personal computer for work and nobody else has access to. I find this ethical. They are resources I can use conveniently and it’s no different than going to a library to use Word. However, if its only one computer to the entire office I guess its an gray area.

7. Designing an ad campaign for a cigarette brand.
It is a basic practice that all companies’ use is ads and campaigns. This would be a gray area for me because it is not just cigarette companies that design ads. I would not support a nasty habit that takes lives.

8. Working as an accountant for a company that makes or advertises cigarettes.
This is still supporting a company that knows the side effects of their brand. I would not take the job for the largest cigarette company in the world. I would consider this unethical.

9. Working as a manager in a company that exploits its non-unionized hourly workers.
It is very unethical to use the non-unionized works. This could cause all kinds of problems, such as strikes or lawsuits. The companies should be responsible for their employees and they should be taken care of. I would not feel comfortable in the manager position.

10. Writing copy for a company’s annual report hiding or minimizing the fact that the company pollutes the environment.
Environmentalist would serve a company like this so fast and if there was word on a lawsuit then your biggest problem is not the polluting it is the lie that can be held up in court on the false annual report. This is unethical and I would not lie to get by on a report.

11. “Padding” your expense account by putting on it charges you did not pay for.
That is a red flag, a very unethical decision, because the IRS can sniff out illegal documentation of payments never made and that can lead to jail time. I would not do it.

12. Telling a job candidate that the company “usually” grants cost-of-living raises every six months, even though you know that the company is losing money and plans to cancel cost-of-living raises for the next year.
I was told coming to SAGU that they were lenient on the rules only to find out I was in for a big surprise. I think it is unethical to tell a candidate to come here on false pretenses, because it is not goodwill and very bad business.

13. Laughing at the racist or sexist jokes a client makes, even though you find them offensive.
This is very unethical, because that is just outright ignorance and immaturity. There is nothing funny about racism and sexist jokes especially when it is a serious crime and or case in America. It has slowed down, but not by much. I would refuse to affiliate with clients in that manner and would take my business elsewhere.

14. Reading Wall Street Journal on company time. That is for pleasure. It should only be appropriate to read for research, but on company time it is unethical to read the Wall Street Journal just to pass time. That is stealing from the company’s wages.