3.4 Ethics Response

Reflect back over the reading related to business ethics and the other class activities. As a business communicator, you may face various ethical dilemmas in your career. Many factors can determine your choice of an action to take.

For this activity, choose only one of the issues listed below and respond with how you would handle the ethical question. Be sure to refer back to Figure 1.15 Five Questions to Guide Ethical Decisions on page 31 of the text and work through the guidelines as the discusses. Be prepared to share the thoughts. The instructor may assign the Ethics Checks to ensure that each scenario is covered by at least one group.

• Ethics Check 1 – Some workers use BCC (blind carbon copy) to copy their friends and colleagues on emails when they do not want the recipient to know that a third party will also read the message. Do you believe that hiding copies from the recipient is harmless and acceptable? Also, what are your thoughts on forwarding a BCC email that you received to others in the organization?
• Ethics Check 2 – Lucky U.S. consumers enjoy some of the world’s most generous merchandise return policies. It is no wonder, perhaps, that some customers presumably buy video cameras or dresses for special events and return them afterward, no questions asked. Is this so-called renting, or wardrobing, wrong? Do retailers invite such behavior with their liberal policies?
• Ethics Check 3 – You work for a large corporation with headquarters in a small town. Recently, you received shoddy repair work and a huge bill from a local garage. Your car’s transmission has the same problems that it did before you took it in for repair. You know that a complaint letter written on your corporation’s stationery would be much more authoritative than one written on plain stationery. Should you use corporation stationery?
• Ethics Check 4 – Direct marketers sometimes resort to scare tactics – for example, to make us purchase alarm systems or subscribe to monitoring services. They may also appeal to our compassion and guilt before the holidays in soliciting money for the less fortunate. Are such emotional appeals ethical? Explain why or why not.

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Each individual should create a document and provide your response to the ethical issue that your group was assigned (this is an individual paper because you may disagree with members within the group concerning the issue), then upload your response. (The response that you draft should be at least one page in length, taking into account APA Style – Double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman Font, 1-inch margins). Don’t forget to use the Five Questions to Guide Ethical Decisions as a foundation for your individual response and also include your personal experiences as your respond.

• Please use the APA Paper Template (Links to an external site.) to develop your response (you will need to click “File” then place your mouse over “Download As” and click on “Microsoft Word.” This will create a WORD document for you to type into, save, and submit your personal file).