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I faced an ethical dilemma in the workplace where I was working as the accountant for the organization and my supervisor, Steve asked to submit a dinner bill for reimbursement. Steve told me that the dinner bill was from a meeting which he had with one of the clients of the organization the previous night. The dinner bill included quite a hefty number of transactions including food and alcohol. At the end of the day, Nadia, Steve’s girlfriend came to the office to pick him up. I overheard their conversion while I was going into Steve’s room to get his signature on some of the documents. Nadia was telling Steve that she had a nice time after a long time the previous night at the dinner. The restaurant name that Nadia was telling was matching the restaurant name in the bill submitted by Steve (Tsalikis, 2013). So I faced an ethical dilemma for the revelation of this information to the upper management of the organization. Me and my supervisor along with his girlfriend were involved in this ethical dilemma, where I was at a situation to decide whether to reveal the information to the upper management or hide the fact from the management. Both these decisions in workplace had different consequences. If I revealed the fact to the upper management and tell on my supervisor, then he might have kept the grudge on me and that might have affected my appraisal in a negative manner. If I had kept the fact hidden from the upper management, then I would have broken the guidelines and policies of the organization to reveal all the necessary and important information to the management of the organization. This situation happened in the workplace of the organization I was working in 2 years back. This ethical dilemma had my professional values of staying true to the organization and personal value of focusing on the performance or appraisal in the workplace, in conflict (Barua, 2013). So the value of maintaining professional ethics along with the norm of following the organizational guidelines were in conflict in this scenario. I had mixed feelings for the entire scenario in terms of the confusing between making things clear to the upper management of the organization or keeping my relationship with Steve good. I was scared for the possible consequences of telling on my supervisor to the management of the organization (Stanwick, 2013). I was also tensed about the guilt I have to bear in my mind if I keep the fact hidden from the management of the organization just to keep my relationship intact with my supervisor. I finally decided to reveal the information to the management of the organization and I would rate my happiness as 8 on a scale from 1 to 10. I rate the happiness 8 as I chose the professionally ethical option to reveal all the information to the management of the organization, but damaged my relationship with Steve to a significant extent (Koslowski, 2013).
There are a number of normative theories of ethics which can be utilized to analyze the ethical dilemma mentioned in the last section. Some of these theories are utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics and the categorical imperative.
This theory defines an action to be ethical or unethical on the basis of the total amount of good it does in comparison to the total amount of pain it causes. This theory evaluates the actions in terms of pleasure or pain they bring to a large number of people. As mentioned in the previous section, the ethical dilemma in my workplace including my supervisor can be analyzed by implementing this ethical theory. The request for reimbursement on the basis of falsified information by Steve brought some pleasure to him in terms of the bill of the dinner to be reimbursed by the organization. This in turn leads to pleasure of a single individual i.e. my supervisor Steve. But such a falsified reimbursement of his personal expense by the organization indirectly affects the budget of the various business processes as the budgets are already allocated to the business processes through effective planning and scheduling (Audi, 2012). This small change in the budget allocated to the various business process may end up as a significant negative factors for the other employees of the organization. The utilization of the organizational budget or monetary resources for the reimbursement of the personal expenses may result in the negative impacts on the appraisal of the other employees (Winfield, 2014). This can also demotivate the other employees if the information is revealed to the employees after the successful reimbursement of the personal expenses of Steve. So this situation can be defined on the basis of the comparison between the pleasure of a single individual versus the possible pain point of a large number of individuals working in the organization. Such a comparison of the pleasure and pain effects on the individuals directly or indirectly involved in the event that transpired in the workplace, allows this ethical theory to determine the entire event to be unprofessional and unethical (Jennings, 2014). The theory of Utilitarianism allows an individual to determine the best course of action in this situation, which I faced in the workplace of my organization. This theory of ethics allows an individual to define the entire event to be unprofessional and unethical, which in turn leads to the best possible course of action of revealing the information to the management of the organization in order to ensure that the reimbursement of the personal expense of Steve doesn’t lead to direct or indirect negative impacts on the other employees in the workplace of the organization. So as per this theory of ethics, the course of action I took to reveal the fact to the upper management of the organization was quite accurate and allowed the negative impacts to the other employees to be reverted (Peterson, 2016).
This theory of ethics focuses on the inherent character of the individual to define whether an event or action is ethical or not. This theory doesn’t weigh any other factors of a situation to determine whether it is ethical or not. The entire basis of the theory is on the internal characteristics or perception of the individuals involved in the ethical dilemma. The theory guides the individuals involved in the ethical dilemma on the basis of their internal perceptions and characteristics. This theory is also known as Aristotelianism as this theory was introduced and used by Aristotle. This theory of ethics can also be utilized for the analysis of the ethical dilemma I faced in my workplace including my supervisor. The theory allows actions of the supervisor to submit falsified information for the reimbursement of the bill to be considered neither as negative nor positive (Hartman, 2014). The values involved in this ethical dilemma are defined in terms of the characteristics or perception of the other individuals involved in the entire situation. In other words, this theory of ethics considers my characteristics or perception to determine whether the action of the supervisor was ethical or not. As per my understanding and perception, the actions of Steve are unethical and unprofessional as he was trying to get his personal expenses reimbursed by the organization by falsifying them to be organizational or business expenses. I think such falsified and inaccurate reimbursements in the workplace of the organization will lead to the inefficient usage of the organizational resources, which in turn will lead to the decrease in the performance of the organization. Along with the performance of the organization, the performance and motivation of the individual employees in the workplace are also affected negatively by such falsified reimbursements (Swanson, 2016). So I consider such an event to be unprofessional and unethical. So this theory of ethics supports my decision of letting the upper management know of the facts regarding the reimbursement request raised by Steve. Even if the revelation of these information to the upper management led to regulatory actions against Steve, this theory of ethics doesn’t consider the pain or negative impacts on Steve as long as my perception of the entire event is unethical and unprofessional (Buchholtz, 2012).
This theory of ethics was introduced by Immanuel Kant as the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy. Some of the common beliefs or focuses of this theory of ethics are mentioned below along with their utilization to analyze the ethical dilemma I faced in my workplace.
This theory of ethics is a non-consequentialist approach to the ethics theory, which doesn’t focus on the results or consequences of an action to determine whether it is moral or not. A number of ethics frameworks and theories focus on the results of an action to determine whether it is moral or not. Generally, these theories tend to consider the actions with negative impacts or destructive results to be immoral and unethical. But the categorical imperative theory of ethics doesn’t consider the end result of an action to determine its morality. So the action of Steve to lie about his personal expenses to get them reimbursed as business expenses are analyzed by this ethics theory not on the basis of the final result of the action (Ferrell, 2015).
This theory focuses on the intrinsic features or characteristics instead of the results or consequences of an action. So even if the final result of an action is negative, if the intrinsic feature or characteristics of the action is positive, then this ethics theory considers this action as moral (Hoffman, 2014).
This ethics theory also focuses on the intention behind an action to determine its morality without looking at the results or consequences of the action. The intention behind an action can be defined in terms of the goodwill behind carrying out the action (Edward, 2013). The goodwill considered by this theory of ethics can be derived from the duties of the individuals involved in the scenario. So this theory of ethics also supports my action of revealing the facts regarding the reimbursement request of Steve to the upper management of the organization as that aligns with my duties in the workplace of the organization. This theory of ethics also considers the action of Steve to submit falsified information for the reimbursement request to be immoral and unethical as there was no goodwill involved in the process of submitting the personal expenses bill as business expenses (Weiss, 2014).
The categorical imperative defined by this theory of ethics considers the morality of any action to be based on a principle, which can be utilized as a universal law without any logical contradiction. This in turn defines the morality of an action in the society to be moral if the principle behind the action can be defined as a universal fact for the goodwill. The formulations of the categorical imperative under this ethics theory can be done on the basis of two factors i.e. universal acceptability and humanity. A principle is defined as a moral law by this ethics theory on the basis of its acceptability by every rational agent along with the humanity among the individuals involved in the event (Bryman, 2015).
As mentioned in the previous sections, I faced an ethical dilemma in my workplace in terms of making the decision of revealing some information regarding a falsified reimbursement request raised by my supervisor. Steve, my supervisor submitted a bill which was a personal expense as a business expense in the workplace of the organization (Ciulla, 2013). At the end of this ethical dilemma, I decided to reveal this information to the upper management of the organization in order to ensure that the actions of Steve are not gone unnoticed and proper regulatory actions are taken in order to ensure no such actions in the future. The three ethics theories mentioned in the previous section analyze this situation or ethical dilemma which I faced in my workplace. The Utilitarianism theory of ethics defines the morality of an action based on the total amount of pain or please in brings to the individuals directly and indirectly involved in it (Abend, 2014). I feel happier by the analysis of the ethical dilemma through this theory of ethics. As the action of Steve to submit the reimbursement request for his personal expenses might have led to the pain to the other employees in the workplace, I feel better that I took the decision of revealing the information to the upper management, which in turn might have led to the pleasure of the other employees in the organization in terms of no negative impacts on the remunerations provided to them. The Aristotelian virtue ethics defines the morality of an action based on the internal characteristics or perception of the individuals involved in the process (DesJardins, 2014). This theory of ethics also makes me happier as I perceived Steve’s action to be unprofessional and unethical, which in turn allowed me to take the tough decision of going against him and revealing the information to the upper management. This theory also supports the definition of Steve’s action to be unethical based on the unprofessional characteristics shown by him. The other ethics theory used for the analysis is the Categorical imperative used by Immanuel Kant, which defines the morality of an action based on the intention behind it and the duty of the individuals involved in the ethical dilemma. The analysis of the ethical dilemma by this ethics theory also makes me happy as it was my duty to reveal the information to the management of the organization and Steve had no good intention behind the action. If I face the same ethical dilemma again, then I’ll take the same decision to reveal the information to the upper management of the organization as it’s my duty to be truthful to my employer along with being compliant to the organization policies and best practices (Shaw, 2016).
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