Business Ethics: Case Study 1 Liberty University Business Law – BUSI561 Betzaida Aponte Abstract In this brief response to the business ethics case study, I will highlight findings that question the integrity of Next Step Herbal Health Company according to Ramona Alexander’s research on the company and her observations of the CEO’s engagement and the recruiter’s response to her raised concerns. There were three major issues I found that were questionable in making a final decision of accepting any offers from Next Step. I will elaborate on the following points: Leadership integrity in both the recruiter and CEO. Biblical perspective on integrity Questionable business practices, such as People want to know that their leader can be trusted, will keep promises and follow through on their commitments (Boa 2005). Workplace surveys also emphasize the importance of leader integrity to employees. According to Reave 2005, Walker Information, Inc. did a study of loyalty in the workplace in 2001. They surveyed 2795 employees, discovering that the integrity of senior leaders was found to have a strong effect on loyalty and retention, with 40% of those who believe their senior leaders to have high personal integrity falling in the truly loyal category. In contrast, only 6% of employees who believe that their senior leaders lack integrity are truly loyal, leading to the conclusion that employees are about seven times more likely to be truly loyal when senior leaders have personal integrity than when they do not (Reave 2005). According to this survey, if Ramona accepted the offer from Next Step, she would be at risk of not remaining at the job long term when knowing that senior leaders lack integrity and are untrustworthy. There is a theory that hypothesizes that people that associate themselves with organizations that have positive reputations are happiest according to Brammer et al. 2007. More recently, it has been suggested that employee perceptions of a firm’s ethics, values and social responsiveness play a significant role in shaping employees perceptions of the attractiveness of particular organizations (Greening and Turban, 1997).
