Sunday, April 13, 2008

Unethical Practices in the Workplace

There are many unethical practices that occur in large, big-name corporations every year. Some are bigger than others and easily identifiable. For example, Martha Stewart sold her shares of stock before disclosing the information to all shareholders the day before the stock plummeted. In 2004, Dick Grasso, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), resigned due to unethical practices and replaced by "Mr. Fix-It," John Thain. Recently, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, Stanley O'Neal resigned after unethical procedures and risky investment. At the end of that year (2007) Merrill Lynch posted a recored high $8 billion loss. And who did they call on to fix the problem? You guessed it-John Thain. After stabilizing the NYSE, John Thain was hired by Merrill Lynch as CEO. Other unethical practices, such as pocketing money and sexual and race discrimination happen everyday and may never be reported by employers. Many of these incidents go unreported because employers feel uneasy about reporting it to upper-level management or a anonymous, formal reporting procedure is not offered. Although it is morally correct to report these issues, employees may feel that their confidential reports may end up in the wrong hands and this could lead to an uncomfortable work environment. The best solution is to create an anonymous, formal reporting procedure to address unethical issues in the workplace. By doing this, upper-level management will pay closer attention to possible unethical claims.

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