Ethic in workplace

Workplace Ethics – The Basics
The word "ethic" is defined as, "The body of moral principles or values governing or distinctive of a particular culture or group" or "A complex of moral precepts held or rules of conduct followed by an individual"1. It has been said that having ethics is doing the right or moral thing when no one is looking. Ethics is a personal choice and therefore, how workplace ethics are governed depends upon the personal ethics of those who are in authority over that workplace and also those who work in that environment.

Workplace Ethics – Personal Standards
Workplace ethics are an extension of the personal standards or lack of them that is inherent in the people who make up the workplace. With all of the news and attention upon those who have proven that they were devoid of moral ethics in the way that they conducted their business, it behooves us to look at the basis for ethics that will stand the test and the trial of temptation in a world that seems to reward the "shady deal." It seems that the current worldview deems that the only wrong thing about shady business dealings and immoral workplace ethics is in getting "caught."

Is Islam teach us ethic?....if you say yes whythere are many muslim caught due to the unethical behavior in workplace...If you cant imagine the unethically manners occur in workplace lets discuss it in your daily campus life....lets start with:-

1. Photostat

Do you know that photostat book without permission of the author is like stealing....we have been teach to not steal others thing from our chilhod..but when we are in university we do this without feel guilty...it surprising me ..when one of my fren told me that during his study in USA ..there is not many photostat shop around the campus area...but in Malaysia....where there is an University the mushroom of photostat shop will appear in every coner...in your course your are study about intelectual property ...remember if you aware about that and practising it...means my duty done already..but if not the learning process is only in class....

2.Using scolarship to buy things that not related to your study

Let look this circumstances....you rather buy something expensive to your boy/girl frens rather than buy text book...is that ethical

ok i have to stop at this point...if anybody want to add other example... you are welcome.....just write at coment.....this is the place we improve our writing skill.....we are in learning process...all the best





Below is the example article found in the net...lets share

ETHICS IN ORGANIZATIONS: A BRIEF RETROSPECTIVE
By Cornelius von Baeyer

EPAC/APEC Magazine, January 2006, vol. 6, no. 1

What can we learn from the roots of organizational ethics? In the dim mists of the past, Jimmy Carter introduced various pieces of ethics legislation to clean up after the scandals of Richard Nixon’s presidency, and the defence industry undertook a major ethics initiative to keep Pentagon contracts rolling in. We now live in world where organizations of all sectors – public, private and voluntary – often have to justify themselves if they do not have an active ethics program in place.

Over the intervening years, we have seen public interest in ethics mushroom in Canada. Ethics stories from every sector of life used to generate perhaps a newspaper story per week, often with the word ‘ethics’ not used at all. Then it began to generate a story a day, and now we often see whole pages of ethics-related stories in a single day. TV is not far behind. Where once the word ‘ethics’ was seldom used, now it is everywhere.

Unfortunately, as evinced by a myriad of recent public opinion surveys, this exposure has led to a palpable increase in public cynicism about ethics in Canadian organizations. However, something encouraging is also emerging: the beginnings of a strong, continuing demand for real reform.

People are increasingly embracing measures such as fraud awareness, legal compliance, disclosure of wrongdoing and whistleblower protection. These are to catch the few individuals in organizations who are actually crooks.

But even more encouragingly, people are also talking about integrity in leadership, and examining accountability and assessment of ethical performance. People are looking into ethics programs with elements such as communications, training and dialogue, as well as codes, values and confidential advice. These are to motivate and assist the entire body of employees and managers in an organization.

It would be nice if we could claim that the talk of reform is driven by the desire to do the right thing, but in fact, serious reform in organizational ethics has generally come only as a result of scandals. Our neighbour to the south has in recent years given us a whole raft of bad examples to learn from, and Canadians have some home-grown ones too!

The particularly Canadian contribution to the story is that simply increasing regulations and crook-catching activities is not enough. Organizations also need ethics programs to help the vast majority of employees and managers to do the right thing the first time around. And that is precisely the insight that drove the creation of the Ethics Practitioners’ Association of Canada (EPAC).

EPAC was created in 1996 in the business community in Toronto. At its inception it was an association of ethics consultants and ethics officers in corporations. Its purpose was to establish some basic standards for the profession and provide mutual assistance and networking opportunities. Over time, the organization added a strong link with the expanding work on ethics in the federal public service. Soon EPAC began to publish in French as well as in English. This set the stage for a major expansion into Quebec.

While EPAC was growing, the international community was also busy on these issues. The OECD, for example, has put in place ethics guidelines for public servants and for corporations. The UN, the Organization of American States and other multilateral bodies have also entered these waters. A consensus is emerging on the essentials of an ethics regime for organizations, founded on a respect for the law but going well beyond it. Meanwhile, the International Institute for Public Ethics was created to further the debate in the public sector.

Comparisons with other jurisdictions provide a mixed result. The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ratings for Canada have been worsening of late. We have made bribery of foreign officials a crime, but we have no US-style sentencing guidelines to give legal recognition to the benefits of ethics programs in organizations. Many Canadian corporations have been unwilling to undertake work on ethics in bad economic times, while in several other countries legislation simply forces them to act.

So the ethical climate could be improved but is not terrible, and there are some solid achievements in ethics programs, particularly in parts of the federal and Quebec public sectors, and in some large Canadian corporations. The key lesson from the past? Get moving and keep moving on ethics. Virtue is its own reward, but the price of not improving is also sure to get higher and higher.

Cornelius von Baeyer is Past Chair of the Ethics Practitioners’ Association of Canada. He can be contacted at vonbaeyer@cyberus.ca.