Ethics is critical in the corporate environment. It eliminates discrimination and also creates a working environment which is in line with the regulations within the country. Ethics also create a positive culture among employees in an organization. Codes of conduct are critical to an organization since clarifies companies' missions, principles, and values linking them with the professional conduct of the organizations. Further, ethics and codes of conduct are valuable references in the company. They help employees locate services, relevant documents and other resources which relates to organization’s ethics. Amazon.com is a dominant company which has a large number of workforce. The company had ethical codes of conduct which guides the employees as they carry on their duties within the company. Amazon.com demands that employees should act lawfully, ethically and in the best interest of the company. In this paper, the Amazon.com Codes of ethics are critically analyzed.
Part A (1A)
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business approach which ensures that the company contributes to development by delivering social, economic and environmental benefits for all the stakeholders (El Akremi et al., 2015). In this case, the critical central aspect of the company operation is that it extends its service to the society and contribute positively to its development. One of the Amazon's codes of ethics is health and safety of the employees and general environment. The company provides healthy, safe and clean working environment for the employees. Within the company, the employees must report injuries, accident and also act in a manner which is harmless to the general environment. CSR mandate that a company needs to act in a way that is safe for the stakeholders. These include employees. When the company emphasized a code of conduct that enhances the safety of the environment, they contribute positively by ensuring that environmental hazards within the environment are eliminated. Further, the entire community can get a ripple effect of the safe environment policy within the company. Through this, Amazon contributes positively to the external and internal environment.
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Part A (A2)
A company must act in line with the legal guidelines within the country of operations. For instance, it is illegal in the U.S as a country to offer a bribe to acquire favor. In this case, Amazon.com has a code of conduct which ensures that employees don't engage in any corrupt dealing with the government official or with a private sector. Within the company, an employee should not make any illegal payment to officials from the government, whether themselves or through a third party. In case an employee involves in any business with the government official, the legal department within Amazon.com must be alerted. On the other hand, a person who has sensitive information which is withheld from the public is not allowed to trade in security by the law. This law state that employees of a company ought not to “trade in stock or other securities while in possession of material nonpublic information." Secondly, "they ought not to pass on material nonpublic information to others without express authorization by the Company or recommend to others that they trade in stock or other securities based on the material nonpublic information." Amazon.com has guidelines which ensure that this law is enhanced within the organization. The organization has the Amazon.com Insider Trading Guidelines that has all types of trade the employees need to involve in. These are usually availed to employees for them to review and comply with.
Part A (2A)
Failure to be in line with this laws means that the company must fall on the wrong side of the law. The company can be sued, fined and also, the image of the company can be destroyed.
Part A (A2b)
Legal safeguards are strategies which are in place to eliminate any potential legal threat to the company. For instance, it is illegal for any employee of Amazon.com who knows the securities of the company to trade on this business. To have such threat eliminated, Amazon.com have come up with the Amazon.com Insider Trading guidelines which show the employees types of businesses they should engage in. This is usually availed to employees for them to review and adhere to. The second legal, safe guide is the legal department which is instituted in the organization to handle any grievances and other cases concerning legal issues before they are exposed to the public. This ensures that in case of any legal matters for instance employee’s conflict, it can be handled by the organization before it reaches the legal bodies outside the company.
Part A (A3)
Culture defines how a particular group of people behave. In this case, it determines how people behave within the Amazon.com. One factor which brings about culture in an organization is the ethical codes of conducts. At Amazon, there is no discrimination of others based on their skin color race or religion. This brings about a culture where employees appreciate and work with each other despite their cultural background. Further, it brings organization cohesion between the employees and thus facilitates teamwork culture. This code of ethics also creates the culture of safety and the healthy working environment. At Amazon.com, there are specific means of reporting for any injury or potential threat of harm. This has created a culture of environmental sensitivity among the employees.
Part A(A4a)
In this organization, ethics is given a priority; the organization has codes of conduct which ensure that any activity or decision made by an employee is within the codes of ethics which are created by the organization. The organization has the legal department which is mandated to handle all the legal issues within the company before they are exposed to the public. In this case, an employee who has an ethical concern can report to the legal department in this organization to get help.
Part A (A4a)
Also, there are many resources available to employees which can help them deal with any ethical situations which they face within Amazon.com. The first resource is the Amazon legal department. This is a department which has legal personalities who are capable of handling any legal issues facing an employee within the organization. This department manages most issues concerning the ethical codes of conduct at Amazon.com. The second resource is the Amzon.com Insider Trading Guideline. This is a template which has types of trade which the employees can willingly involve in. These are resources which are usually availed to employees to use in case they are interested in any dealing. The last resource is the Amazon Owner's manual. This is a template which has codes of conduct and policies on the Equal Employment opportunities and the workplace harassments. All these can be utilized by an employee whenever they are faced with ethical decision making or dilemma.
Part A (A4b)
I would use legal department in case I am faced with any ethical or legal issues within the company. The legal department is instituted by Amazon and has a highly qualified person in the line of legal and ethical codes of conduct. These are individual with vast knowledge in this field and hence can answer all the question about legal and ethical codes of conduct which I can raise. They also help in clarifying ethics and legal issues and also help employees make a decision whenever they are faced with ethical concerns within the organization.
Part B (B1)
According to Chen et al. (2017), Whistleblowing is an act of exposing a foul deed within organizations. The illegal or unethical act can be corruption and much more. It is paramount for the organization to take a keen interest in the act that has been exposed by the whistleblower. Whistleblowing is critical as it can save the image of an organization. However, there are essential factors that need to be considered whistleblowing. First, the whistleblower must determine that the act is unethical as per the ethical codes of the organizations. Further, they have to ascertain that there were specific people involved. For this reason, it is critical for the whistleblowers to know who is involved. Also, he or she needs to have a rough idea of the illegal actions taking place.
Part A (B2)
An employer can raise such concerns to any person within the organization which he or she is sure can help him or her. These include the line managers, the chief execrative or any other officers in the organization who can initiate an investigation on the case. After having some concrete facts on the unethical action ongoing within the workplace, the whistleblower first can identify any person within an organization who he or she trust can help in handling the issues. Secondly, they can decide to use email, telephone or face to face communication and lobar to them their curiosity on specific facts which is ongoing in the dark. The whistleblower needs to give facts which can aid in investigating the case (El Akremi et al., 2015).
Part A (B2C)
One of the advantages of paying whistleblowers is that the laws protect the individuals. For instance, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) protect whistleblowers in the public organization through new protection if they disclose to law enforcement, to supervisors or to congress investigator that have a potential impact on the company share values. The SOX doesn’t give the whistleblowers incentives like the false claim Act (FCA) (Nelson & Trevino, 2012). This is a disadvantage. The FCA pays 15-30% of the damages that the federal government whatever is recovered from incidence. Further, the money paid to the whistleblowers is usually overtaxed under the False Claim Act. This is a disadvantage to the whistleblowers as asserted by Chen et al. (2017).
Part A ( B2D)
The court determines the severity of the offense based on circumstances or the nature of the offense in case a company is involved with U.S Sentencing Guidelines. The fine is based on the intentional loss inflicted on the victims, the pretax gained from the crime, and the commission which ranges from the $5, 000 to $ 72, 500,000 (Nelson & Trevino, 2012). These are the factors which are multiplied to come up with culpability score for unethical behavior. “These guidelines dictate behaviors because organizations are starting to hire ethical officers to avoid their culpability scores to increase. Following the actions such as self-reporting and remains a great part of the process” Chen et al. (2017).
Part A ( Bd1)
There are factors which determine the culpability score in an organization as they try to enforce ethics throughout the organizations. These factors can either increase or decrease culpability score within an organization. For instance, “having an effective program to prevent and detect violations of the law can result in a downward departure of 3 points.” In case the company decided to have a self-report of the incidence, then five point’s departure can be the result (Nelson & Trevino, 2012). Chen et al. (2017) noted that “Cooperating with authorities throughout the process and accepting responsibility can have as many as 5 points subtracted from the base culpability level. Each of these factors helps foster an ethical environment, and organizations are moving forward should adapt to more ethical behaviors while avoiding severe court sentencing."
References
Chen, C. X., Nichol, J., & Zhou, F. H. (2017). The Effect of Incentive Framing and Descriptive Norms on Internal Whistleblowing. Contemporary Accounting Research .
Code of Business Conduct and Ethics : Retrieved from: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-govConduct
El Akremi, A., Gond, J. P., Swaen, V., De Roeck, K., & Igalens, J. (2015). How do employees perceive corporate responsibility? Development and validation of a multidimensional corporate stakeholder responsibility scale. Journal of Management , 0149206315569311.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2014). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right, 6th Edition. [Western Governors University]. Retrieved from: https://wgu.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118903513/
