While companies don’t openly support unethical actions in their business place, management, through lack of involvement allows such actions to take place. Many guidelines are set in place to ensure deadlines are met and regulations are followed, however the expectations of the company when it comes to ethics is rarely ever touched on. In the article “the slippery slope of getting away with small stuff” the author provides examples of cases when an employee makes a few small unethical decisions and by everyone turning a blind eye to it pretty soon that environment allows the individual to make detrimental decisions to the business. Very often famous scams such as the one by “Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff” mentioned in the article starts with just small actions. Giving the employee the benefit of the doubt and not implementing consequences for small unethical actions is what makes scandals possible. It may start with a small amount of stealing or lying but if they get away with it the first time, there is a stronger incentive to do it again. If an employee feels pressure to execute their tasks efficiently and successfully, they may end up cutting corners and taking shortcuts, unaware whether the business disagrees with their actions or not. I think businesses should have clear and obvious rules when it comes to ethics in the workplace because they owe it to both their employees and consumers.

References:

Borzykowski, Bryan. “The Slippery Slope of Getting Away with Small Stuff.” BBC Capital. BBC, 7 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140806-the-slippery-slope>.

Shapiro, Mike. Cartoon on the devil and business ethics. Digital image.Cartoon Resource. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www.cartoonresource.com/archive/business/ethics/bet140-sh.aspx>.