1. What is ethical behavior?
2. What is an ethical dilemma?
3. What is an example of personal values?
4. What is an example of corporate values?
5. What is the purpose of a mission statement?
6. Why is your reputation important?
7. Explain how to determine a company’s policies on issues such as gifts, conflicts of interest, and so on.
8. Define a “conflict of interest.”
9. What is whistle-blowing?

Answers

1. Ethical behavior is morality applied to specific situations; it is behavior that addresses your obligations.
2. An ethical dilemma is a situation in which options are presented that may be right or wrong.
3. Personal values include (but are not limited to) honesty, integrity, accountability, drive, determination, and sincerity.
4. Corporate values may be the same as personal values, which may also include teamwork, open and honest communication, and diversity.
5. The process and reason for creating a mission statement, whether it is for a person or a company, is the same: to develop a roadmap, a guide by which all future decisions will be made.
6. When you work in sales, you are selling yourself; you will have greater success with customers if you are someone they want to “buy.” When a customer buys from you, they are investing in your reputation.
7. The employee handbook will outline the company’s policies concerning gift giving, nondisclosure of company information, and other areas of behavior.
8. A conflict of interest is “a situation in which a person, such as a public official, an employee, or a professional, has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her official duties.”
9. Whistle-blowing is the act of publicly exposing the misconduct of a company or organization.