Values Affecting Business Behavior
Evaluate ethics in your career as a business professional in the following scenario:
You have just started out as a junior executive in the purchasing department of your organization. Your boss
has spent fifteen years in this department. One day while you are in a meeting with your boss and a potential
vendor, you see your boss accepting a large yellow envelope and tucking it quickly into his pocket. This
concerns you because you suspect the vendor is a member of a local gang. You have heard that the person
has a criminal record and has a history of bribing local businesses to gain accounts. However, due to a lack of
evidence, the person has never been charged. You ask your boss about the individual, and he tells you not to
worry about it. You wonder whether you should report the incident to human resources or your organization’s
legal department or not.
Later, as you continue to question your boss about “the envelope,” your boss finally responds and says it has
been a long-established tradition for local vendors to donate to the purchasing organization’s favorite charity,
and in return, the organization gives special consideration to the vendor in making purchasing decisions.
Based on the given scenario, address the following, supporting your perspectives with scholarly research:
What choices did you have prior to hearing your boss’s explanation of the envelope? What would you have
done and why?
Given what the boss later responded about the envelope, how did that explanation impact your thoughts,
choices, and actions on the matter?
Explain whether the choices you would have exercised were based on internalized or externalized behaviors
and values.
Which ethical beliefs would support reporting or not reporting your boss?
Can ethics be taught? What role does on-the-job training play?
While responding to your peers, consider where your choices were similar and where they differed and why.
Discuss the reasoning behind the paths taken.
Week 1 Project
Assignment
Task: Submit to complete this assignment
Due June 8 at 11:59 PM
Throughout the course, your project assignments will recommend and defend a new corporate social
responsibility (CSR) project for a global, publicly traded organization.
In Week 1, you will select a global, publicly traded organization. (Hint: The Fortune 500 list of companies is a
good source for this kind of information).
You will need to research the chosen organization through primary and secondary sources and investigate the
organization’s mission and vision statement and code of ethics. Begin thinking about a potential social cause
you might recommend for the organization (that is different than any current social cause the organization
pursues).
For example, you may decide that you want to select Google as your global, publicly traded organization. In
doing research on Google, you find that it supports a number of charities, including improving computer
science education, empowering women and girls, and fighting trafficking and child abuse. However, for this
session-long project, you should identify another cause for Google to support beyond what it is already doing.
Tasks:
Citing research from a variety of sources, including the company’s website, social media sites, company blogs,
industry and trade sources, and other sources, provide a summary of the organization, including the
organization’s products or services, customer or client base, areas of operation or distribution, history, main
competition, and the organization’s current situation.
Analyze the mission, vision, and values of this organization.
Evaluate the ethical principles and policy under which the organization works.
Defend the reasons (e.g., personal, professional) and rationale leading you to select the organization. What
drew you to this particular organization?