1. Who Blew the Whistle? What if you have knowledge of serious wrongdoing and are not in a position to stop it yourself? Whistle blowing potentially involves serious risks – to your reputation, career, and financial stability. Before you take this step, you should consider the importance of the issue to you, your intentions, and the risks and benefits of acting or not acting. When planning the action, it is important to review the power structure of the organization, consider timing issues, develop alternatives, and carefully strategize about how you will communicate the issue. When blowing the whistle, you should try to respect the chain of command. That means starting with your immediate manager and then going to the next level if you are not satisfied with the results. If you still don’t get a response, this is the point where you should use the company’s internal ethics reporting system, if one exists. Only after these options are exhausted should you consider going outside the chain of command. And it is only when all else fails that you should consider going outside the company.

For your discussion: Locate an article in the Library databases that discusses whistle blowing. Discuss the situation that led to an employee blowing the whistle on the organization. Should employees have freedom of conscience? Why or why not? Considering the long-term effects on employees of blowing the whistle, when should they engage in whistle blowing tactics? Identify some reasons why external whistle blowing occurs in any given situation.

2. Conflicts of Interest Conflicts of interest arise in all organizations. This module shows that no organization, whether public or private, is exempt from issues related to conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest result in being pulled in two different directions. Good people can make bad decisions that result in bad actions, especially when a conflict of interest exists. Our own sense of self-interest can negatively affect ethical decision making. As explored by Gunia et al. (2012), self-interested conversation leads to less ethical decisions, while contemplation and moral conversation lead to more ethical decisions. For your discussion: We all have faced conflicts of interest within our workplace. Often, these conflicts are not even consciously considered or evaluated as part of our decision-making process. Identify problems that you, as an employee, must deal with on a daily basis. Consider possible conflicts of interest you or others in your workplace must face. How does this affect decision making? Are these types of conflicts of interest avoidable? If, so, how? If not, what can be done to minimize the possible unethical impact?

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Ethics and Morality 1 Whistleblowing Situation When it comes to introducing a new product in the market various organizations use interesting strategies in order to make sales Apparently even the medi... View the full answer