Business ethics

1. The advice which I would give to a friend who wants to downsize the firm is that in planning the lay-off decision, he must value respect, intelligibility and consistency (Hartman, 2014). In general, ethics should be the key factor in guiding the process of decision making. All representatives must be included so that they can share ideas and raise facts. Other point is that before downsizing, employees should be informed about the condition of the organization and the reason for taking that action (Hartman, 2014). After listing the employees who will be terminated, they should be given notice earlier. In addition, he should refer to the theory of justice by John Rawls. There should be fairness and consider the consequences to both terminated and the existing workforce.
2. It is permissible to institute a diversity program in organization through affirmative action. There are important elements required in the affirmative action and these elements will help in implementing the programs. First are the legal requirements, judicial affirmative action and voluntary affirmative action (Hartman, 2014). The organization has all the relevant facts and understands that the program of the affirmative action should be nondiscriminatory and should be guided by corrective actions. The program should not be related with stereotyping assumptions (Hartman, 2014). In addition, the organization understands that the affirmative action should have less exclusionary policies and eliminate gratuitous barriers. The program should also act as a monitoring devise and comply will the nondiscrimination principles. The steps to take in the affirmative action include the following. The first step is designing the plan. In this case, there should be a formal document with institutional policies, academic expertise, design goals and timetables for providing equality and opportunity. The next step is implementing the plan. This should be done by developing an affirmative-action office and selecting an officer with faculty experience to improve cooperation (Hartman, 2014). Implementation of the plan will also be done through recruitment, screening, appointments, advancements and retrenchment. The last step is monitoring the plan. This will include the qualified faculty within the organization to play the role of promotion, retention and implementation of grievance procedures and nondiscrimination policies. The common pitfalls to avoid in implementing affirmative actions are data accuracy and effect of underrepresentation. If the data is inaccurate, it may contribute to adverse effects and people will admit that underrepresentation is as a result of discrimination of which is not true (Hartman, 2014).

 

3. Employers monitor employees at work for various reasons. First, they monitor to gather information through the use of technology. Monitoring helps the employers to have an effective management in the place of work and to implement the best affirmative action. Through monitoring, employers prevent the use of technology in inappropriate way thereby improving performance and effectiveness (Hartman, 2014). Monitoring is also a method of protecting resources through securing proprietary information.

 Employees are monitored in drug testing where employers ensure that employees are committed in their work. Ethical issues related with drug testing includes poor concentration, carelessness, failure to take risk, lower productivity, increased absenteeism, regular excuses and poor personal hygiene (Hartman, 2014).  In addition, monitoring is also done in polygraphs where employers are supposed to use health information such as medical record in employment process. Third, employers conduct genetic testing to get information on both employees and customers. Genetic information provides general personal and family information and this helps in eliminating discriminatory treatment.  Ethical considering with the genetic testing is that the information collected will help in offering Medical Leave Act and other specific condition (Hartman, 2014).  It is important to note that monitoring also has some costs which affect both employers and employees.  On the side of employees, monitoring creates a hostile workplace. Their freedom is limited and they are unable to have control on their environment. The restrictions causes stress and pressure which then causes physical disorder hence affecting performance. This will affect employers in that as a result of poor job performance and low productivity; there will be fewer returns (Hartman, 2014). However, there can be a balance of interest through implementation the following monitoring policy. Private areas should not be monitored, monitoring within the place of work should be limited, the information gathered through monitoring should be revealed to employees, the reason behind monitoring should be related with business interest and  information collected should be job-relate (Hartman, 2014).

 

4. The information is persuasive that term papers serve different purposes. The term papers are helpful in career development in that students can use them in doing their research. They can also refer to them as an example and improve their skills on writing (Hartman, 2014). In addition, faculty can use the term papers in setting assignments rather than repeating assignments which were done before. The important thing with term papers is that they follow the education system and so they present new topics and ideas which faculty can use in testing the students’ knowledge. However, term papers raise unethical issues and the person responsible in this case is the ultimate user. This is because, using someone’s information is referred to as plagiarism and it is illegal (Hartman, 2014). Unethical issue arises when the user does not use his or her ability to research but rather uses the exact information in the internet.

 

Reference

 Hartman P. Laura, DesJardins Joseph & MacDonald Chris (2014). Business Ethics.  Decision making for

Personal  Integrity and Social Responsibility. Third Edition. Published by McGrwa-Hill