Business Ethics Corporate Governance Fiduciaries: Persons placed in positions of trust who use due care and loyalty in acting on behalf of the best interest of the organization Duty of Diligence: A duty of care to make informed and prudent decions Duty of loyalty; All decisions should be in the interests of the corporation and its stakeholders Conflict of Interest: When a person in a powerful authority uses the position to obtain personal gain usually at the expense of the organization BoD and Officers’ compensation ! To remove the opportunity for employees to make unethical decions; developed formal systems of accountability, oversight, and control are knwn as corporate governance Accountability: How closely workplace decisions are aligned with a firm’s stated strategic direction Alco compliance with ethical and legal considerations Oversight: A system of checks and balances that limits employees’ and managers’ opportunities to deviate from policies and strategies and that prevent unethical and illegal activities Control: Process of auditing and improving organizational decisions and actions Collusion; A secret agreement between two parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose Deceitful purpose; “any sort of trickery, misinterpretation, or a strategy to lead others to believe one truth but not the entire truth” Honesty “Tell the truth to the best of your knowledge without hiding anything” Confucius Li Yi Ren Absence of honesty = ? Fairness Being just, equitable and impartial Equity Reciprocity Optimization Integrity Being whole, sound and in an unimpaired condition Uncompromising adherence to ethical values Unwillingness to deviate from standards of behaviour