Let’s face it: we probably all have taken a cookie when we weren’t supposed to, or copied an answer off a classmate’s worksheet right before it was due. However, I’m sure we haven’t let these deeds go too far as to shoplift or cheat on an exam. Unfortunately, many workers have committed some major unethical acts in their workplace and for a lot of the cases, they started off with smaller ways to cheat. This is what four university professors in the US called in their report about unethical acts in the workplace the “slippery-slope effect.”

Examples of this effect as mentioned in the article include a Ponzi schemer and a newspaper plagiarist. They took the easy way out to get more money, or to get the job done faster, but eventually the situation get out of hand and led to committing crimes and fraud – something one can’t get out of even if they wanted to.

I think employers should further promote the consequences of unethical work in order to prevent snowballs from becoming boulders. According to R. Edward Freeman, a business should be run so as to benefit everyone involved in an ethical way. There is a social responsibility that a business (including its operators and employees) must fulfill, and running it ethically will contribute to its customers and society as a whole.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140806-the-slippery-slope

Image: http://lawinquebec.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/white-collar-crime.jpg