Recently, there has been an increase in the cases of business unethical behaviors in various workplaces. Such practices might include misusing the company’s time, abusive behavior by an employee and theft among them among other actions which are not accepted in the business world. The companies that have suffered these behaviors have incurred a lot of losses which sometimes affects their operations. Unethical behaviors come into being when employees go against the codes of ethics in the workplace hence leading to a crisis of leadership and cultures thus bringing an end to the era of the corporate social responsibility. To make an end to such behaviors, managers should be aware of the reasons behind the rise in unethical acts, what is being done and can be done to clean up the behavior after happening and what is prevent and create an ethical enterprise in the business society.

Causes of corporate unethical behavior

In the business world, various behaviors lead to unethical conduct in the workplaces. First, the absence of ethical codes is the main reason behind the rise in unethical practices in the business world. When employees do not know what is right to do, they will do anything that makes them happy within an organization. Such things might not be good for the managers and can result in losses to the organization. Again employees may fail to report the misconducts due to fear of reprisal as they fear that the managers might ignore their report. Sometimes employees fail to report unethical behaviors among them because of fear of losing their job. As a result, they are forced to go along with others as they are threatened by their supervisors to shut up, or else they lose their jobs. These cases have made many companies to suffer a lot of unethical behaviors which causes them to suffer forgets. Most of these losses result from the managers who abscond their duties to deal with the problem and ignore the employees’ reports.

Lack of accountability in the business has led to unethical behaviors such as theft from employees as no one is accountable for the losses. Theft can also result when employees’ opportunities and reputation are undermined. In their attempts to retaliate, they find themselves going against the code of ethics. Sometimes, the bosses yelled at the workers making them stubborn to take up actions from them. In this way, the managers set up a bad example that can be followed up by some employees who in turn will yell at their coworkers especially when a duty has been delegated to them. The employees who have been yelled at will feel inferior, with no one to report to, and they can decide to misbehave in a way to air their grievances. Unethical behavior always starts by ignoring small stuff which can grow into a big problem hence making it difficult to control. For example, when an employee exaggerates about a mileage business report and the managers ignored it, it will result into a big problem as the small amount of money from the mileage report can result into more massive falsified expenses hence leading to embezzlement of funds.

Lastly, unethical behaviors always result from the kind of punishment given to the employees in a situation that they go against the code of ethics. When the punishment is severe, the employee might fail to do work or go against the code of ethics as a way to protest on the punishment. The behavior can also come from the peer influence by other employees who might encourage their fellows to join them in the protest. As a result, they can opt for damaging the company properties and disrupt business operations. Alternatively, they can intentionally decrease the work effort, lose work time to avoid offender or lessen time spent at work. When they are asked about why such behaviors, they can give excuses such as the performance of the company have reduced, or they left because they did not want to work for long. Such behaviors are evil and should be discouraged as they affect the Morales of the company employees hence they cannot give their best to the company.

Actions to clean up the behavior

The managers should be in the forefront to fight the rise of ethical practices to ensure the company upholds its moral code of conducts. They should not tolerate the bullying of employees or yell up at employees by their supervisors and coworkers. In this way, the employees will not become stubborn but will remain true to the code of ethics and adhere to the rules that govern them in the organization. The reports that are given about unethical issue by the employees should be followed, investigated and necessary action taken against the people involved to ensure they the code of ethics are followed. Most organization use this to ensure that they make employees adhere to their rules and act normally. The employees should be made accountable for their conduct to make them pay for their misbehavior. This has promoted a culture where the employees are concerned about each other. They will know how their colleague is doing in their activities to ensure that they encourage a spirit of teamwork. To achieve this, employees should be put in groups, to ensure each group has a group leader who is accountable for the actions of the group members.

The management of an organization should ensure that they check the leadership culture to ensure supervisors who are punishing or yelling up at employees should are removed from the organization. Similarly, to achieve good leadership, companies should employ qualified personnel that knows how to deal with unethical issues to maintain ethical conduct among employees. Further, employees should be given good salaries, bonuses, benefits, and better working conditions to ensure that they do not involve in cases such as theft. An employee who is found guilty of misconduct should be sacked to prevent him/her from influencing his/her coworkers. These actions are good and can help a company to maintain a code of ethics that help them promote ethical behaviors among them. Cases such as violating company internet policies can be curbed through having strict policies that govern the usage of internet services among the employees. Generally, ethical behaviors in a company depend on the types of leaders and culture in an organization. Restructuring of the company’s culture which is inclusive to both the manager and employees is a way to ensure that the employees remain faithful to the codes and managers support them to make them exert much effort in their activities.

Preventing ethical enterprise

Ethical minds in a given organization grow both in the organization and the surrounding community. The managers should have cognitive minds to help them avoid issues that can stop ethical enterprise. Failure by the leader to manage the organizational cultures is a way in which they prevent moral enterprise. The thinking by managers that business and ethics are separate is the principal way of stopping it. Other techniques include lacking a respectful mind that allows one to have an open mind to understand and form a relationship with other people. Above all, it is being caused by the bad behaviors that are seen among the managers and undermining the ethical actions of the employees.

How to create ethical enterprise

Ethical enterprise always gives the business a good reputation and makes it successful. To develop such a noble enterprise in an organization, the managers should know that the company and ethics are one and should not be separated. Achieving this requires the business to have ethical and robust leadership who demonstrate ethical practices in all situations. The leaders chosen should make wise decisions to preserve ethical conduct even if it goes against the business goal of making a profit. When the ethical culture is active at the top leadership, it will trickle down to the employees and all sections within the organization. Secondly, to achieve a noble enterprise, the business should have a core value statement that contains the ethical value of the company. Both the mission and vision statement of a given organization should include the ethical behaviors that are expected from all the employees as well as the managers.

The company should uphold integrity and fairness in its operations that encompass ethical business. As such the organization should adhere to the laws and regulations that are put forth by the state and local authorities of a given area. The fairness includes how the organization deals with customers and vendors in terms of pricing, quality of products and timeliness in payment to the employees. Further, the company should work to ensure that they have respect for employees and customers. An organization should value the opinions and treat employees equally. Also, they should respect customers by listening to their feedback as well as responding to their needs on time.

Last but not least, an organization should be concerned about the people around the business and the environment.  Al the people who are connected to the business either directly or indirectly should be a point of concern to the business striving to be successful. It should be concerned about the stakeholder as well as the public in general for useful existence in society. On the other hand, an organization should be involved in the environment in which it operates in. It should include the cost of cleaning the situation should it pollute it during the production of the goods. To maintain a health organization show how ethical the business is in society. It should also be socially responsible by organizing some activities in society like donations to the public. All these actions will help the business to have an ethical enterprise which will make it promote a culture where it is liked by the employees as well as the public.

Generally, for an organization to be successful in the society, the managers should be aware of the various reasons that lead to the rise of unethical behaviors among the employees and actions on how to clean such behaviors. Further, they should know on the ways on how to create an ethical enterprise in society. To achieve all this, an organization should have strong and moral leadership that ensure that ethical behaviors in an organization are upheld at all costs. There should be a strict code of ethics along with policies containing conditions of work for employees that guides on how operations should take place in an organization. The management should ensure to motivate employees to prevent cases such as theft among them. To ensure that there is accountability in all the works done in a company, the managers should organize employees in small groups with a group leader who is accountable for the actions of the group members.

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