Ethics Issues Needed to Support Customer Needs Essay

Ethics are guiding principles that organizations or individuals consider while offering services to clients. Ethics are enforceable and when breached the clients could make complaints, which can potentially affect the operation of an organization. To promote a conducive working environment, the government has provisions such as ethical leadership that is required a business to thrive while satisfying needs of the clients (Fox, Crigger, Bottrell, & Bauck, 2007. Ethics influence the decisions which providers or services that a client will chose use, hence they are critical principles to guide operations in an organization. In this context, the essay shall focus on the ethics of confidentiality and integrity issues and how their breach or observance affects business activities

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Integrity is one of the moral principles that promote trust when dealing with clients. Thus, it is important to incorporate then while delivering services or goods to enhance trust (Somera & Holt, 2015). Betraying the trust of clients have both internal and external repercussions as both employees and clients will start to doubt the organization capacity to represent their needs and values. For example, in the year 2012, a New York Times newspaper article revealed unethical encounters at Goldman Sach, as reported by an employee. The employee indicated that he was leaving the bank after over a decade of working with the group which had lost its integrity while serving the clients (Smith, 2012). For instance, he stated that he joined the bank as an intern due to it high integrity reputation for putting clients' interests first, which was the in line with the of a banker he wanted to become. However, over a decade later after rising through the corporate ladder, he realized that Goldman only cared about the profit-making. Moreover, they would only promote those employees who recruited more clients who bring the company's more profits. Additionally, the bank could trick clients into making transactions that would not profit customers but improve the organization's profit margin. When looking at this case and as suggested by Somera and Holt, (2015) it is clear that integrity starts at the top management level. Hence, leaders in organizations should strive to show integrity in their conduct to avoid making chaos both internally and externally for the business.

Additionally, confidentiality refers to the state of privacy that clients expect from organizations handling personal data, which may potentially be misused by unauthorized third parties. The e-business creates the most vulnerable atmosphere where personal data for clients could be accessed and misused by malicious individuals (Velmurugan, 2009). Facebook is a popular social media website which creates a platform for people and companies to conduct e-commerce. Recently this year Facebook was in trouble for breaching the confidentiality of over 50 million users (Frenkel and Roose, 2018). In the case, a third party which did not have a contract with Facebook used the information from these users' profiles without owner's acknowledgment of the owners to influence USA election polls. Zuckerberg took full responsibility for the incident and was summoned to the Senate to explain the issue and share strategies that will stop the occurrence of similar cases in the future. Therefore, maintaining the confidentiality of the clients is a critical consideration for business to earn and maintain trust with clients. Business should ensure that only authorized parties have access to private information and use it strictly for the intended purpose.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ethics are key drivers of business success or failure. Integrity and confidentiality are major ethical principles that should be embraced to govern business practices. These principles start from the senior management and trickle down to the subordinate employees to benefit the clients. Hence, individuals and organizations should implement such principles to attract and retain clients.

References

Frenkel S. and Roose K. (2018). Zuckerberg, Facing Facebook's Worst Crisis Yet, Pledges Better Privacy. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/technology/facebook-Zuckerberg-data-privacy.html

Fox, E., Crigger, B. J., Bottrell, M., & Bauck, P. (2007). Ethical leadership: Fostering an ethical environment and culture. National Center for Ethics in Health Care. Available at: http://www. ethics. va. gov/docs/integrated ethics/Ethical_Leadership_ Fostering_an_Ethical_Environment_and_Culture_20070808. pdf. Retrieved from https://www.ethics.va.gov/elprimer.pdf

Somera, K., & Holt, M. K. (2015). Integrity in business: An evaluation of integrity across German and American culture. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 6(2). Retrieved from http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_6_No_2_February_2015/5.pdf

Smith G. (2012). Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-Goldman-sachs.html

Velmurugan, M. S. (2009). Security and Trust in e-Business: Problems and Prospects. International Journal of Electronic Business Management, 7(3). Retrieved from

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