SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

Social Philosophy

Social Philosophy

Introduction

Ethical Integrity is doing what is right and fair when it comes to people dealing with people. Corporations should make an effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work, work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible and meaningful to its practitioners and to determine how best to increase the good work in our society. Most companies have a Code of Ethics in place to aid them in doing so. The need to follow the law is of upmost importance to the stability and long term success of any company. When decisions are made, values, principles and ethics come into play. Equal Opportunity for all employees is covered by law and should be a policy for all companies. This prohibits against prejudice in regard to race, color, religion, handicap, national origin, sex, age or veteran status. All personnel decisions such as selection, hiring, training, transfers, promotions, demotions, layoff, disciplines and termination must be based only on job-relation factors.

Ethical decision-making processes that companies may make are the decision to not have the appearance of a conflict of interest. This may be a policy that prohibits purchases from companies that might have a financial interest in the company. The purpose of this policy is to prevent even the appearance that there is a conflict of interest other than an employee has used inside information for personal gain.

Various types of entertainment and courtesy expense are normal in the conduct of commercial business including meals, beverages and other forms of entertainment and hospitality. Some of the questions that companies may ask is does the courtesy expense violate the laws or regulations of the organization. A good “rule of thumb” to this policy is if it feels wrong, simply do not do it.

If co-workers complain at the amount of time that is spent playing games on the computer, the company has to determine how much is too much. Employees have the right and obligation to question activities and to raise issues when others appear to be doing wrong. When the company knows the complete situation, perhaps it will be merely a matter of perception. Perceptions could damage relationships if allowed to linger.

Business ethics is certain behavior that a business follows when dealing with people in the business world. Many businesses have made a bad reputation for themselves because they are only interested in making money. Many of today's top corporations have been fined a lot of money for unethical decisions. (Diversity and Opportunity, 2008) Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco have made some unethical business behaviors. Perhaps the pressure to meet unrealistic business objectives/deadlines could be a factor in the fall of these corporations. WorldCom falsified internet traffic reports and accounting fraud. They also encouraged overinvestment in long distance capacity and internet backbone capacity. Their Internet traffic data was proprietary and WorldCom dominated Internet backbone services. WorldCom was subject to regulatory oversight. It was reasonable for rival carriers to believe WorldCom's misrepresentation of Internet traffic growth ...