Business Ethics Discussion

Post your response to the weekly question(s) by 11:59 PM (Eastern) on Sunday.  This posting should be at least 250 words.  Respond to at least 2 other postings on separate days in each forum by 11:59 PM (Eastern) on Saturday.  Your primary posting can end with a “tag-line” or a related question of your own.  Your secondary postings can either answer another student’s question, or comment on their answering my question.  In addition, please ensure that you answer all of my questions.

1st student response (Divya Garimella) :

 

The tone at the top defines and determines the ethical atmosphere at work place and the intensity of commitment by the organization’s board members and upper management are concerned that the employees to have an good ethical culture, being honest and have right to speak or open up. while leaders communicate the vision of the company, mission, core values and commitment to ethical behavior which drives the culture and resonates with employees, that is what they see and hear in everyday at workplace from their supervisors. The right tone at top and the risk culture  are the important drives of better organizational performance and have as a feature the risk management into their strategic planning and process and operating to have a competitive advantage. When upper management are not concerned about the ethical values and focuses solely on the bottom lines, it gives liberty to the employees to commit fraud and they feel that no importance and priority is given for ethical conduct at workplace (Cornelius. D, 2009)

Few factors needs to be implemented and addressed by executive management directors in regards with tone at the top by making a great effort to execute strong tone at the top, establish to support the organization culture, organizing a constant review of tone in the middle and tone at the bottom, make sure the effective escalation process is adopted in organization, internal auditing plays a key role in monitoring the tone of the organization, enable the right levels of organization fundamentals, include training or educate good risk management process, monitor on who do the right things and recognize and appreciate them, so that it encourages others to have good culture (Roboff. G, 2016)

References:

Cornelius. D, 2009, retrieved from https://www.compliancebuilding.com/2009/03/27/ethical-integrity-leadership-setting-the-tone-from-the-top/

Roboff. G, 2016, retrieved from  https://www.isaca.org/resources/isaca-journal/issues/2016/volume-6/the-tone-at-the-top-assessing-the-boards-effectiveness

Student 2 Response (Siva Krishna Kommineni) :

 

With the growth of technology and the multinational companies managing the company and the tone at the top has also become more challenging. It involves the top management and stakeholders in the company and their ethical behavior towards creating ethics at workplace. Leaders. Managers and the top-level management set the top of the tone and maintain it, encourage the ethical practices at work. There will be scenarios with multiple top of the tones and arises to the conflicts in any aspect related to the organization. Integrity is the main important factor that contributes the tone at the top where lot of fraud risks might occur in any organization’s financial divisions especially. Many accounting audits, internal process and regulations can help in setting good standards to the organization. Different directions have been identified in setting it up and the group is responsible for that process. Board of directors, Leaders and Managers, Leader’s from Client firm were part of the process and they have their own aspects and views on setting up the process. Leaders and managers show dominance from the organization perspective. The client firms are more interested in the audits and process of eradicating fraud risks in the systems. Board of directors view it from the corporate governance side. During this process everyone lack the voice of the middle level people in the organization. Identity is important aspect where everyone should be identified in the process. Everyone in the organization should be accountable for maintaining it (Warren, D. E., Peytcheva, M., & Gaspar, J. P. (2015)).

Good governance and focus on control of the control mechanism in the organizations, multinational companies especially in the corporate sector has been increasing and everyone is more focused in this area due to the widespread issues of failures in very large organizations. More focus on the cases show that the cheating in the tone from the top led to these situations even the organization stand or reported good governance systems. This shows the importance of the fraud risk assessment and the organizational culture effect due to the consequences. All the several dimensions from the organization perspective should be considered during the process which involve Social Responsibility, Accountability, Alignment, Financial stability, Process, Ethics, Process oriented, Good Communication and Risk assessment areas must all become the reflection of the employees and groups in the organization. Setting up some internal audits and process to monitor these actions and occurrences help reduce the risks. The main important need is that the person responsible or the top-level management responsible should be strong and be ethical in all aspects. Besides this the attitude of the top-level management towards the team members, commitment from the teams to the organization is very essential. Some scenarios like the lack of rewarding, credibility and overriding the control mechanism will break the rules and deviate from the organizational tone (Rubasundram, G. A. (2015)).

References

·       James Weber. (2010). Assessing the “Tone at the Top”: The Moral Reasoning of CEOs in the Automobile Industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 92(2), 167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0157-2

·       Rubasundram, G. A. (2015). Perceived “Tone From the Top” During A Fraud Risk Assessment. Procedia Economics and Finance, 28, 102–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)01087-4

·       Warren, D. E., Peytcheva, M., & Gaspar, J. P. (2015). When Ethical Tones at the Top Conflict: Adapting Priority