How you would handle each of the following situations and specify which ethical

Question

How you would handle each of the following situations and specify which ethical principles apply.

You receive too much change from the cashier in a restaurant.
You witness a friend at work stealing merchandise.
You overhear a supervisor from another department making sexual advances toward one of his employees.
Your job requires you to choose the company to supply your business with office supplies. You are given a $200 gift card to the local mall from one of the office supply company’s salespeople in hopes that you will decide to purchase from her company.
You are traveling on business with another coworker, who tells you how to cheat on your expense report to get reimbursed for the money you did not spend.

Explanation / Answer

Now, to start with, let us first, in basic, understand Ethics and its principles.

Ethics in nothing but the basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent human conduct. It includes study of universal values such as the essential equality of all men and women, human or natural rights, obedience to the law of land, concern for health and safety and, increasingly, also for the natural environment around us.

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, can also be termed as a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining various concepts like good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.

Now to say, there are seven principles that form the content grounds of Ethics as a whole. Just to tell you in short, below are those principles listed:

Now, let’s start answering to the situations given:

1. You receive too much change from the cashier in a restaurant:

Firstly, Ethics tells us, as mentioned above, concepts like good and evil, right or wrong, etc. Thus, ethically, you shouldn’t harm or cheat anybody. Here, the cashier has done a small mistake by giving some change more than required. He might not be the owner or such. And hence, he might be held later for the deficit change while final accountings of the day or the week or month. His boss might charge him some fine or take the money from the poor chap's salary itself. Why to harm the guy for such a small mistake. you can point out his mistake so that he doesn’t repeat it ahead in life. He surely will help you and if luck favors, might try giving you discount or preference the next time when you visit the restaurant again. Such ethical moves make you be remembered.

2. You witness a friend at work stealing merchandise.

First of all, a friend or not, stealing is an offence. Ethically, it’s your duty to positively influence your friend towards not indulging in such unethical activities. Turning a blind eye towards such acts makes you a bit responsible too. So, ethically you should stop your friend from doing such things which can welcome big troubles, as if he isn’t stopped now, it might become a habit and one day, it would be to late. Thus, ethically, it’s your duty to stop your friend from stealing and make him understand where he is going wrong and how this habit can impact him negatively in his life.

3. Your job requires you to choose the company to supply your business with office supplies. You are given a $200 gift card to the local mall from one of the office supply company’s salespeople in hopes that you will decide to purchase from her company.

Technically, it’s a bribe. Ethically, it is wrong to accept a bribe. Off-course, he will insist you that it isn’t a bribe and just a token of appreciation sort of thing. But you should remember that you have been handed a responsibility. You have been trusted with that, and thus given this job. It would be unfair to that guy who trusted you. So, you should purchase from a company whose materials or products are really good and satisfy your requirements and needs. Just because he bribed you, you might compromise the quality and buy cheap or undeserving office supplies. That’s not right, morally or ethically.

4. You are traveling on business with another coworker, who tells you how to cheat on your expense report to get reimbursed for the money you did not spend.

This again is a wrong deed to carry. The money is company's money. It might be the investor's money which you might falsely spend. If the company is listed, it might be the hard earned money of various stakeholders’. They don’t deserve this. I know the money is comparatively way way less. But imagine, if you do it, your coworker will also be insisting and influencing others. Seeing you, others might also get influenced. This chain might spread. Ethically, this is misusing the trust laid upon you. If you don’t do this and report the extra cash handed to you or show how maximum you travelled in minimum expenses, superiors might be impressed by you and this act might be of some or the other kind of benefit to you in the future. Thus, ethically you shouldn’t cheat someone whose money makes your home run.

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