Ethics in Business

9 Pages 2185 Words

Ethics In Business
From a business perspective, working under government contracts can be very profitable. In general, a steady stream of orders keep coming in, revenue increases and the company continues to grow. There are a few obvious downfalls to working with government contracts; a higher quality is to be expected as well as extensive research accompanied by accurate and complete documentation is usually required. If one part of the process fails to perform correctly it can cause minor flaws as well as problems that can carry some serious repercussions; for example the case of the failed computer chip at Company X. When both the employee and company are found at fault, the question arises of how extensive should the repercussions be? Is the company as a whole liable or do you look into individual employees within that company? From an ethical perspective one would have to look at the available information of both the employees and their superiors along with the role of others in the situation. Next you would have to analyze the final outcome from a corporate viewpoint and then examine the corporate responsibility as a whole in order to find a resolution for cases such as this.
The first mitigating factor involved in the Company X case is the uncertainty, on the part of the employees, on their duties that they were assigned. It is possible that during the testing procedure, an employee couldn’t distinguish between the parts they were to test under government standards and commercial standards. In some cases they might have even been misinformed on the final product that they tested. In fact, ignorance on the part of the employees would fully excuse them from any moral responsibility for any damage that may result from their work. Whether it is decided that an employee is fully excused, or is given some moral responsibility, would have to be looked at on an individual basis.
The second mitigating factor is one of th...