Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Discussions

To participate in the following discussions, go to this week’s Discussion link in the left navigation.

  1. Resolving Ethical Business Challenges: Gerard

Read “Resolving Ethical Business Challenges” in Chapter 7 of your text, and then address the following points.  Support your response with evidence from the text.

  • Identify the ethical and legal issues of which Gerard needs to be aware.
  • Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each decision Gerard has made and could make.
  • Discuss the issues of accounting firms going into the financial services market.
  • Discuss the types of groups that are influencing Gerard.

Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ postings.  Respond to at least two classmates by sharing how you might decide to move forward if you were George.  Support your decision with evidence from the text or other external sources.

  1. Federal Compliance Law 

Listen to a podcast of Linda Thomsen, former director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission: How Sarbanes-Oxley has affected corporate culture. Discuss how the Sarbanes–Oxley Act has changed corporate culture.  A transcript of the podcast is also available through the URL.

Expand on how the Sarbanes–Oxley Act impacts organizational culture and why federal oversight like this is needed. 

Additionally, Linda Thomsen mentions in the podcast that she expects further misconduct to occur.  Why do you think this type of misconduct continues despite these regulatory laws? 

Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ postings.  Respond to at least two classmates by posing a question or adding insight regarding the likelihood and reasons behind continuation of misconduct.  Support your views with evidence from the textbook or at least one article from the Ashford Library or another scholarly source. 

Assignment

To complete the following assignment, go to this week’s Assignment link in the left navigation. 

Leadership and Corporate Culture

An organization’s leaders have influence and power to shape the corporate culture and motivate ethical conduct. 

In a three to five page paper excluding title page and reference page(s), evaluate the influence and power that corporate leaders have in shaping the corporate culture. 

Include the following in your evaluation:

  • Description of important ethical leaders in an organization and their various roles.
  • Illustration of the relationship between ethical leaders and stakeholders.
  • Summarization of the various leadership styles and classifications and their impact on corporate culture. 
  • Analysis of the influence of leadership style on ethical decision-making, including specific examples drawn from research on today’s business leaders.  Be sure to include reference to two or more articles from the Ashford Library or other scholarly sources that highlight the influence of power and leadership style on corporate culture.  These two sources apply toward the total requirement of three sources for the paper.

To conclude your evaluation, summarize your position on the influence of ethical leaders in contributing to a corporate ethical culture.

Support your evaluation with at least three resources from the Ashford Library or other scholarly sources, in addition to the textbook.  Your paper must be correctly formatted according to APA 6th edition style guidelines.