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Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................ 2
Ethics and It’s Influencing Factors..............................................................................2
Importance of Ethics at Workplace............................................................................. 3
Laws that Promote Ethical Practices...........................................................................3
Concept of Corporate Social Responsibilities:............................................................4
Issues and Rules at newly Joined Organization...........................................................4
1. Taking Initiatives............................................................................................... 5
2. Being result oriented......................................................................................... 5
3. Ready to learn new skills.................................................................................. 5
4. Positive attitude and Team Player....................................................................5
5. Being responsible.............................................................................................. 5
People’s GDPR Rights................................................................................................. 5
Working in Collaboration............................................................................................ 6
Definition - Collaborative Working...........................................................................6
Collaborative Working Strategies............................................................................ 6
Values and Required Interpersonal skills.................................................................6
Benefits of Collaborative Working...........................................................................7
Equality and Diversity in the Workplace..................................................................8
Consequences of Poor Collaboration.......................................................................8
References................................................................................................................. 9
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Introduction

The main purpose of any business is to maximize profits for its owners but for
sustainable financial returns it is very essential to take into account the interest of
others stakeholders such as; employees, customers, society and the environment.
Most of the corporate organizations implement business ethics programs to create
an ethical workplace and culture because ethical behavior of every employee within
the organization affects both the individual and the organization.
Within an organization it is very important to ensure that people are treated with
dignity and collaborative working culture is being followed by everyone. The key
objectives of this report is to discuss the concept of ethics at workplace and figuring
out the cultural and environmental factors that influence business ethics. The report
will also focus on understanding the strategies of companies to create and promote
ethical working environment. Ethics is a broad terms and for many years’
philosophers and thinkers have been pondering over ethical issues. It is still a
subject of research. This report due to its limitations will review main business
ethics and its impacts on entire organization.
Task 1

Ethics and It’s Influencing Factors

In simple terms ethics is the philosophical study of morality or in other words ethics
refer to a system of moral principles. Ethics is the study of what are good and bed
ends to pursue in life and in the conduct of life what is right and wrong to do.
(Deigh, 2010). That means ethics cover dilemmas such as; how to live a good life,
what is right and wrong and making moral decisions about what is good or bad.
Ethics is one of the branches of philosophy used to study ideal human behavior and
ways of being. (Rich, 2020)
An organization can define some ethical values to be practiced in order to achieve
common goals with dignity but individuals working with the organization not
necessarily would appreciate those ethical values. There are various factors that
affect business ethics in an organization. The types of factors are; individual,
organizational, social and opportunity factors. Individual factors include; work
experience, gender, ethical development, and political orientation. (James H.
Conley, 2004). Person’s attitudes, moral values, and personal goals are also the
parts of the individual factors that affects business ethics. Organizational factors
are; work group, the seniors, or supervisors, company policies, and organizational
culture. Factors such as; cultural norms and the actions and values of coworkers are
the social factors and in last opportunity factors include; the amount of freedom or
flexibility that exist in an organization for any employee to behave in an unethical
way if he/she choose so. For any organization small or large, perfectly implementing
business ethics is not possible. Through introducing effective business policies,
unethical behavior could be reduced within the organization. According to prior
researches rewarding ethical behaviors is more effective than punishing unethical
behaviors. (James H. Conley, 2004). Among all the factors discussed above,
individual factors seem the strongest because every individual goes through
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different ethical development. For example, regardless of how attractive the award
is the principled person would not behave ethically for the reward.

Importance of Ethics at Workplace

In order to maintain reputation, every organization has an ethical code to guide

process of decision making and business activities. Ethics at workplace ensure that
employees work with honesty and integrity to achieve a common goal. Ethics at
workplace very important to improve the organizational performance because when
employees become ethically positive, hardworking, honest, and driven by principle
the over morale get increased within the organization. The key aims to establish
business ethics are promoting integrity among employees and gaining trust from
stakeholders such as; consumers and investors. (Schroeder, 2019). Most of the
companies are seriously devoting additional resources to business ethics in order to
avoid the negative implication. Another benefit of business ethics at workplace is, it
improves profitability because it is directly linked to customer loyalty and business
ethics cultivate trusts that results in strengthening branding and increasing sales.
(Schroeder, 2019).
On the other side when a company choose to walk away from business ethics, it
causes huge fall in profit, company’s credibility goes down, and consumers and
stakeholders lose their faith in company. The recent users data scam by Facebook
and its consequences are the wakeup call for any organization which is involve in
such type of unethical activities.
According to the article published in (bbc.com, 2020), the tech giant Facebook
recorded huge annual fall in profits in last five years, their profit sank 16% in 2019
to £14.1bn. Company faced this fall in profit despite of the revenue increased by
27% in 2019 from their advertising business. It was a privacy scandal. During 2016
elections Facebook handled fake news and was involved in improper sharing of user
data with Cambridge Analytica. Another unethical practice by Facebook was,
company did not scrutinize and clean up political adverts on its site for fake
contents. The consequences company had to face was being charged with $5bn fine
in order to settle this privacy concerns. Company also paid $550mn to settle an
Illinois lawsuit because they used photos for their facial recognition technology.
Any company that involves in unethical practices have to face negative
consequences sooner or later. DuPont is also a biggest example of running business
unethically by releasing toxic chemicals in running water.

Laws that Promote Ethical Practices

Government laws and regulations are very effective to encourage and support
ethical behavior within the organizations. Unethical practices must not be ignored
from any type of organization small or a large. The effectiveness of design and
operation of regulatory system is based on; policies of supporting ethical behavior,
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ethical regulators, a learning culture, collaborative culture and proportionate

responses. (Hodges, 2018).
There are various laws to promote ethical working environment in UK within the
organizations. Here two laws are discussed briefly.
1. Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap) – From April 2018, under the Equality
Act 2010 regulations, every organization with more than 250 employees are
required to publish the information about the pay gap between male and
female employees on annual basis. (Lopez at el, 2020). This law is very
effective to promot an ethical practice to reduce the pay gap between men
and women, it enables government to know how female employees are being
treated withing the organization in terms of compensations or their wages.

2. Regulation (EC) No 18/2002 – This law promotes the retailers transparency to

remove risky foods. Under this laws retailers are required to withdraw any
harmful, out of date foods from their supply chain that is risky for public
health. (Waldron, 2018).

The organization that runs its business ethically must adopt business ethics
practices in everything that is done throughout the organization. Ethical approach
must be universal or must be equal for everyone that means it must be led from the
top and existed in practice at every level. (Hodges, 2018).
Task 2

Concept of Corporate Social Responsibilities:

The concept of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibilities) refers to the management

concept in which companies integrate environmental and social concern in their
inside operation of business and interaction with stakeholders. In other words CSR
enables organizations to remain economically viable and have positive impact on
society and preserve environment.
The practice followed by TOMS Shoes to donate a pair of shoes for every pair they
sell fall under the concept of the Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise
because with social entrepreneurship company built positive social impact into the
mission from the day it is founded. (Lumen Learning, 2018). But according to some
experts TOMS practice is the most impressive example of Corporate Social
Responsibility as (Brown, 2013) mentioned in her website blog and stats that TOMS
CSR program is inseparable from its mission. Starbucks aim to hire 25000 veterans
by 2025 also fall under the concept of CSR.
Rolex CSR Activities: - There are millions of companies in the world running their
business with intention to sustain in long run and make profits but every company
doesn’t practice CSR with full capabilities. Rolex is one the top 10 companies with
the best CSR reputation and this company’s CSR is embedded in the business
philosophy. (Harvey, 2018). Rolex is performing its obligation to the society through
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defining and executing the most effective CSR goals. These goals are mentioned
below;
1. Increasing employment opportunities in order to improve people’s living
standard because Rolex believe in working for the people and working with
people. (Harvey, 2018).
2. Company works to enhance the health and wellbeing of communities through
distributing health and hygienic products.
3. Rolex is also involved in designing process to reduce land and water pollution
and all products that company manufactured are recyclable.

Issues and Rules at newly Joined Organization

Regardless of how professionally experienced any person is but when he starts

working with new company, he would surely face some challenges and issues
because of being unaware of company culture, organizational structure, and
company’s values. The key issues at new job are; fitting in or in other words getting
to know new coworkers and boss, learning new procedures and handling load of
information, fitting into the new corporate culture and finally learning new
technologies and tools. There could be other issues as well that a person may face
at new work place. Knowing company policies, rules, and regulations related to
work ethics is also a challenge at new workplace.
There are few rules to be followed by an employee that company and public would
expect. These rules are briefly discussed below.
1. Taking Initiatives
Employer always expects that his team members should not hesitate in
taking initiative and must be willing to complete the tasks without being
asked.

2. Being result oriented

It is very important to be result oriented that means employee must focus on
making things done regardless of any difficulty or challenges presented. In
other word employee must be work at his best to obtain desired results.

3. Ready to learn new skills

Every company has its own ways and strategies to run a business so it is
expected from the employees that they are ready to learn new skills when
required and must welcome new changes within the organization. Employee
are expected to participate in training programs.

4. Positive attitude and Team Player

Managers or supervisor wants their team member perform the task with
positive attitudes because all days are the same sometime individual’s
performance may go down. Another rule to be followed is being a team
player which is important to encourage team spirit and spread positivity in
entire team.
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5. Being responsible
Every employer values his employees if they are ready to take responsivities
for their behavior and actions and also come to work on time.

People’s GDPR Rights

– General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides individuals eight rights

relating to personal information. Organizations must ensure that every individual is
aware of how to exercise these rights and failing to do that is the violation of the
GDPR. (Irwin, 2021). These eight rights are; (Irwin, 2021).
1. The right to informed – This right enables individual to know what data is
collected, how the date is going to be used and how long it will be kept.
2. The right of access – Every individual has a right to access a copy of his or
her personal data.
3. The right of rectification – Individual holds the right to rectify inaccurate
personal data or complete the data if it is incomplete. Another point to know
about this right is, an individual can make rectification request either verbally
or in writing.
4. The right to ensure – In some circumstances individual has right to ask
getting the data erased.
5. The right to restrict processing – Individual has right to ask to restricting
the processing their personal data.
6. The right to data portability – For their own purpose individuals have
permission to obtain and reuse their personal data. This right of data
portability applies only to the personal data that an individual provided
through signing consent or a contract.
7. The right to object – Individual also holds the right to object the processing
their personal data. They can object if their personal data is being processed
for marketing purposes or if their personal data is processed for public
interest.
8. The right in relation to automated decision making and profiling – In
order to make calculated assumptions about the individuals GDPR has
provision for decision making without human involvement.

Task 3

Working in Collaboration

This is time of technological innovation and because of that people’s skills sets are
getting more specialized. Working in collaboration has become more important than
ever because of specialization with a particular skills sets.
Definition - Collaborative Working
Collaborative working can be defined as the practice in which group of people come
employees come together and contribute their expertise to achieve common goals
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and to benefit shared objectives or mission. (Moseley, 2019). With the help of
collaborative working approach companies can get their work done faster so it can
be said that collaborative working is the process that enables people to explore
their ideas, utilizing their expertise in order to complete the assigned task faster
and more efficiently.
Collaborative Working Strategies
Through implementing strong collaborative working strategies companies can
strengthen people’s ability to perform complex tasks and maximize the
effectiveness. The practices to create strong strategies for promoting collaborative
working fall into four categories such as; executive support, strength of team
leader, structure of the team and HR practices. (Erickson, 2007). In case if I am
asked to create strategies to promote collaborative working within the organization
I would follow the strategies such as; identifying individuals’ strengths and
encouraging them to contribute their expertise, clarifying goals, allowing open-
mindedness at the workplace, introducing reward policies, celebrating success and
supporting sense of community. Assigning right team leader who is both task and
relation oriented could be one of the most effective way for promoting collaborative
working.
Values and Required Interpersonal skills
Collaborative working is not just about working successfully with others, it is not
about what you do but how you do it. (RingCentral Team, 2016). There must be
some values to ensure the success of collaborative working, some values are; trust,
empathy, positivity, clarity and accountability.
1. Trust – Within a trusting environment people feel safe and confident in
giving and receiving constructive feedback and remain inspired by a common
goal. People feels that their leaders and teammates are supporting and truly
interested in teamwork.
2. Empathy – Successful collaboration required to have better understanding of
how team members are performing and what challenges they are facing. If
leaders or supervisors in team try to bring any team member down, it may
harm the entire collaboration working spirit.
3. Positivity – Positivity must be maintained all the time to make collaborative
working successful even if the any project in recent past went poorly. And the
fresh task must be taken as a new start with positive attitude and
enthusiasm.
4. Clarity – Team is built from individual and every individual has his own
priorities and interests. So it is very important to identify everybody’s agenda
and priorities upfront.
Interpersonal skills – Promoting collaboration becomes challenging in case when
people lack of interpersonal skills. Basic interpersonal skills must be considered and
developed to bring success to collaborative working. These skills are; goal setting,
communication & active listening, problem solving and time management.
(RingCentral Team, 2016)
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1. Goal Setting – To ensure that every team member is committed to success

and aligned with common goal, whole team must have the understanding of
purpose and the vision behind the project.
2. Communication & Active Listening – This is very important to
communicate clear intentions with teammates during working on any project.
Communication must be done throughout the team in case any change is
required to make in the plan. Changes must be communicated when any
unexpected incident occurs or team doesn’t achieve expected result. Active
listening is another skill that is required to make teamwork successful.
Leaders or supervisor must listen closely to every team member’s feedback,
advice and ideas and showing respect in responding.
3. Problem Solving – In case of any issues arises within the team, this problem
must be analyzed calmly without blaming one person. Through focusing on
working together to find solutions, being transparent and making every team
member feel comfortable are the best ways to solve any problem.
4. Time Management – Time management skills refer to prioritizing and
scheduling tasks that ensure the team meets deadlines to complete and
deliver the expected results on time.
Benefits of Collaborative Working

Working in collaboration benefits the organization in many ways for example it

create a knowledge sharing environment and enable every team members
understand their role. Few benefits of collaborative working are discussed below.

1. Teammates Learn from each other – Every team member while working
in collaboration gets an opportunity to learn from other member’s success
and failures. In collaborative working practice, company doesn’t deviate from
because tasks are assigned to those who can reach the target.
2. Effective Approach to Problem Solving – Working in collaboration means
people from varied talents are working together and these people possess
different skills and knowledge. Problem solving becomes very effective when
people from various skills come together.
3. Breakdown Barriers – Collaboration working also supports in breaking
down the barriers because it provide great feedback loop and every team
member can express their opinion to deliver company goals.
4. Faster Production- When people work in collaboration and effective
coordination the entire working strategy get changes, the process of
production catch speed and final result or outcome becomes better than
expected.

Equality and Diversity in the Workplace

Organizations are made of individuals and every individual comes from different
religious background, political beliefs, personal values, and different personality
traits. It becomes very important to promote and respect equality and diversity
within the organization and for that purpose few most effective approaches can be
considered. These approaches are; identifying and preventing bias, being careful
with language, avoiding discriminating, respecting religious events, and offering
training to promote equality and diversity.
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Consequences of Poor Collaboration

On the one hand we have seen various benefits of collaborative working but on the
other risks are also associated with it if collaboration is not implemented or
practiced effectively. There key risks associated with poorly managed collaboration
are; wastage of time, ineffective project management, bad execution of the
strategies, negative impact on morale and team members and security risks. Poorly
managed collaboration can harm the team spirit and employee may lose trust on
company. The end result when the collaborative working strategy collapse cannot
even be close to the expectations.

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