Business 629 Week 1 Disc 1

Ethical behavior can be viewed at a personal level, as well as a corporate level. In business, personal ethics is often tied to the agency theory and at the corporate level tied to corporate social responsibility.For this paper: First, identify one real-life example of personal(healthcare finance) ethics and one real-life example of corporate social responsibility in the financial field from the last five years (no Enron or WorldCom examples, as these are too old). The example can be positive or negative. Next, explain each ethical example and what might have been done differently, as well as what you learned from the example. Finally, select one financial business regulation (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, etc.) and debate how it does or does not promote ethical behavior. Be sure to be specific when describing the regulation. What are other ways to ensure strong ethical business decisions?

Ethics guides us to make a positive impact through our daily decisions and actions. I worked for a private hospital in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was required to enter patients’ data into excel, keeping data on their payments for specific departments for further analysis. The manager rarely supervised me and hardly cared to know whether I was active throughout the working hours. There were no goals or standards for me. But, I felt the need to do the right thing as the data was crucial for the hospital. A company that has engaged in a series of notable corporate social responsibility projects is PayPal. In 2021, PayPal committed over $100 million to advance financial inclusion and economic empowerment of women and girls (PayPal, 2021). Through the company’s community impact program, its employees would contribute more than 10,000 hours of capacity-building and skill-based volunteer services to charities advancing gender equality.

For a personal example, the manager in charge of data entry and analysis neglected his duties and allowed me to work unsupervised. He should have used Zoom as other managers often did with my colleagues to ensure everything ran smoothly. He never created the daily or weekly goals described in my onboarding letter, so I did the job without any standards or objectives to achieve. On my part, I did the best because I felt the need to work as expected and deliver for the hospital to improve its services and serve patients better. PayPal’s example of corporate social responsibility is an important project today, especially after the global economic recession post-COVID-19. I have learned that ethics starts with an individual’s conviction and proceeds to established rules. Ethics might not amount to regulations, but they help us treat other people rightly.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 promotes ethical behavior in its various sections. Section 302 of the regulation requires that principal executive and financial officers review financial reports and certify their accuracy (Williams, 2018). “Section 406 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has led public companies to adopt codes of ethics for senior financial officers” (Harper Ho, 2020, p. 16). Although this regulation does not expressly provide for the creation of ethical role models in the corporation, the prevention of unethical corporate behavior is one of the act’s implicit purposes.

Other ways to ensure strong ethical business decisions include creating a code of ethics, engaging with employees and customers, reinforcing the benefits of the code of ethics, training employees, rewarding ethical behavior, and using industry regulations as a starting point when making decisions.

References

Harper Ho, V. (2020). Non-Financial Reporting & Corporate Governance: Explaining American Divergence & Its Implications for Disclosure Reform. Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2018-0043

PayPal. (2021). PayPal Commits Over $100 Million to Advance Financial Inclusion and Economic Empowerment of Women and Girls. PayPal Newsroom. https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-06-30-PayPal-Commits-Over-100-Million-to-Advance-Financial-Inclusion-and-Economic-Empowerment-of-Women-and-Girls

Williams, T. (2018). Role of management, corporate governance, and Sarbanes-Oxley in fraud: A focus on the precious metals industry. In Sustainability and Social Responsibility: Regulation and Reporting (pp. 391-409). Springer, Singapore.