Question -1

What is the underlying ethics as to why crimes against business are wrong?How do crimes by or against business affect society?

Question - 2

Like a person, a business can be held liable for any crimes it commits.There are two interesting differences between people and businesses when they commit crimes.

1. Businesses are not real people and therefore do not enjoy the right against self-incrimination or the right to privacy.Therefore it cannot protect corporate documents under the 5th Amendment whereas a person may be able to.

2. Businesses, unlike individuals, cannot be incarcerated. Therefore the principals of the business, whether they know of the crimes of their employees or they committed the crime themselves or on behalf of the business, can serve jail time.

So the ethical question is, how do punish businesses that commit crimes? Lets look at the following four ethical considerations

A. Should we monetarily fine a business? Why or why not does this option work?

B. If we do fine the business, what happens if the fine puts the business into bankruptcy or forces the business to lay off workers - is this ethically right?Consider: the government can only tax businesses that exist and workers that have jobs (let alone the workers now possibly being on welfare - a further drain on the financial resources of the government).

C. If a fine is not the answer, do we incarcerate principals for the actions of their employees? (We already know that any person that commits a crime is responsible for their actions.This question is asking if the principal of the company does not commit the crime but one of their employees does, should the principal go to jail too.)Explain.

D. If we do hold that the principal should go to jail, how do we reconcile (argue) putting someone in jail for a crime they did not personally commit? Discuss.

Question - 3

Mr.X a salesman.he approach potential clients and attempt to sell them your product.During his discussion with a potential new client who is a representative of a large corporation, Mr.x learn she is a huge NY Jets fan.Mr.x just so happen to have two tickets to this weekend's game that you can't go to so you decided to post the tickets for sale on craigslist, trying to make a little extra money.Instead, Mr. X offer to give the tickets for free to the potential client.

A. Is this offer of the tickets unethical?Why or why not?Is it criminal?Why or why not?

B. Has the client, by accepting the tickets, committed an unethical act?Why or why not? Is it criminal?Why or why not?

C. Three standard strategies for alleviating ethical concerns surrounding conflicts of interest are

• transparency,
• recusal,
• Organizational codes.

How could each of these strategies be applied to the conflict-of-interest issue of giving/accepting tickets?