BUS 323 Discussion

PLEASE RESPOND thoughtfully and throughly to EACH post in 100 words or more. There are 3 posts. Must be complete by 5 PM PST with no plagarism. Your responses to fellow students should contain substance, should be more than just opinion, and must go beyond a simple agreement or disagreement.

RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING POSTS:

Original post for response-

Companies tend to ignore unethical behavior because they have spent too much time and money in ethics training. There are goals that reward unethical behavior to best benefit the company which causes unethical behavior hard to break away from. Conflicts of interest seem to play a large role. It tends to motivate people to ignore bad behavior when they have something to lose by recognizing it. This is where unethical behavior cripples the work place. Individuals are blinded by their behavior because it is in their best interest to remain ignorant about what it really taking place. (Bazerman & Tenbrunsel, 2001)

     Conflict of interest is a where a person or a firm is involved in decision making of a company such as rights of employees, methods of production, communications skills among others. (Yoo, Woo & Yang, 2016). In many organizations today, conflicts of interest arise in areas like where someone he/she may employ their relatives or friends which are nepotism, create a conflict between the employer and the employee. Whereby the organization feels the urge to hire the person with more qualifications, but the employee prefers to hire their families or friends to do them a favor which can be unethical behavior. (Han & Lee, 2015)

     In other situations where we have seen friends or people doing the business receiving gift goods which may be branding, transportation, containerizations among others from individuals or enterprises doing business with the company. Such an act has created monopoly forcing many firms out of business because they cannot be able to compete with other companies because of the unhealthy competition, this also causes unethical behavior because they company has their best interests in mind with no regards to anyone else.

     Are these types of conflicts avoidable? Yes, if only the manager, coworkers, supervisors, workers, the staff and customers can stop manipulating, arguing and have a common ground of making the wise decision that governs the whole company such as increase of salaries or modern method of production among others. These ideas will place the needs of its employees as the first priority before considering factors such as profit merge as a growth of the company or making any other unethical decisions that best suit the company only.

References

Bazerman, M.H., & Tenbrunsel, A.E. (2011). Ethical breakdowns. Harvard Business Review, 89(4), 58-65.

Kim, S., Yoo, Y. J., Woo, S. J., & Yang, H. K. (2016). Conflict of Interest. Korean J Ophthalmol, 30(2), 153-155.

Park, H., Han, Y., & Lee, Y. K. (2015). Conflict of Interest.

POST 1 RESPOND TO POST BELOW IN REFERENCE TO ABOVE IN 100 WORDS OR MORE-

"A conflict of interest occurs when ... objectivity is compromised,"(Trevino & Nelson,2014).  In your case, what would people say if you did give a gift expecting a favor ? Would you then be guilty of conflict of interest? If you did not take the time for reflection on this potential conflict of interest, would you have made the same choice?

Trevino, L.& Nelson, K. (2014,6th ed.). Managing business ethics: straight talk about how to do it right.  Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.  

POST 2-

A few years ago my unit mail room was inspected by the installation inspectors while I was on leave. This was a surprise inspection however no inspection is a surprise is if you are performing your duties to standard. So needless to need say the unit mail room failed and it was so bad installation almost closed it though they didn't. The unit was given four weeks to fix the issues and they would be back to conduct another inspection. The military is easy from my perspective since they usually tell you almost exactly what you need to do and this situation was no different. There is an inspection checklist and if you by it you can’t go wrong. I contact the officer that was in charge from our administration section and told him I would be there to conduct a pre-inspection prior to the next day’s installation inspection. Once he opened the mail room it was very easy to see that none of the issues that were highlighted from the previous inspection were fixed and more than likely the mail room would fail yet again.

So as I discussed the issue with him it became clear that he thought the mail room didn't fail the inspection even though the paperwork clearly said that it did. This was the conflict of interest. I was seriously thrown for a loop with this and was getting know where asking him questions except frustrated. I had to walk out and regain my composure in order to readdress the situation and ensure I didn't say something that would get me in trouble since he was an officer. With a calm head, together we managed to get the mail room up to pare and pass the inspection the following day. This situation taught me that each individual interprets words written and spoken differently and this comes from their experiences. After that when I had to deal with him on anything I ensure first that we both had an understanding of the issue at hand. Then we start to discuss ways to get it fixed.

In this situation it was better for me to walk away and come back because it gave me time to think on how to deal with this instead of just staring at him looking for an answer to the problem. There are always going to be conflicts in the workplace especially in the military. You just have to remain calm assess the situation and think before you speak.

POST 3

Conflict of Interest

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Conflict of Interest in the military can cause problems. Using myself as an example, when I became an Equal Opportunity Advisor for my United States Army I was assigned to conduct my duty at the same Brigade that I was assigned to. I must also mention that I am in a dual military marriage, with my wife being a First Sergeant in another unit in the Brigade. Upon completion of my military training for EO duty, I was assigned to the Brigade Headquarters but my subcommand was with our Engineer Battalion Headquarters. Originally, the Battalion wanted to make my wife the Headquarters Company First Sergeant (1SG), however this would have been a conflict of interest for myself as well as her. With her being the 1SG and myself assigned to the Headquarters Company, would have been bad. Not only was she the highest ranking enlisted in the company, having a spouse that is in charge of the EO program for the brigade in her formation could be perceived as favoritism and conflict of interest. Although I am exempt from certain duties that others must perform, it could be perceived as she would have favored me with not conducting duties and responsibilities that others have to perform. The soldiers don’t realized that it is stated in Army regulation that as an Equal Opportunity Advisor I will not be subject to no other additional duties except EO. It is highly suggested that I will not conduct any Staff Duties within the unit, but I still can if my Commander deems it necessary. If he or she chooses to make me available for Staff Duty, then this will also become a conflict of interest. With me being in charge of Staff Duty for 24 hours, if I was to see an EO violation transpire, I couldn’t do anything about it because I am on Staff Duty as the NCOIC for the Brigade and not as an EO Advisor for the Brigade. Therefore I couldn’t do my job that I charged to do for the Army. Soldiers would perceived favoritism because the Company 1SG is my spouse, and she is exempting me from all duties such as Staff Duty. Also as an EO Advisor for the unit, if my spouse was subjected to an EO complaint, I could not take the complaint being that she is my wife. (Conflict of Interest) The EO case would have to be transferred to another EO Advisor and I would be subject to the investigation as well because it could be perceived as me telling her exactly what to say and do to mislead the investigation and the case to become unsubstantiated. Most soldiers don’t know exactly what my duties entail, they only know that I am trained on Equal Opportunity. Being in a dual military marriage is great, but it can also be subject to conflicts of interest a lot, especially if you are in a position that I am in right now.

References

Army, H. D. (2014). Army Command Policy. Washington DC: Department of the Army.

*****100 words or more for EACH post with thought to response.