Ethics Assignment

Objective: 

To get a deeper sense of how communication plays a role in business ethics case study in order to apply it to the current issues in the industry you are planning to work. 

Instructions:

1. Read the article entitled Top 10 Business Ethics Stories of 2018.  (Links to an external site.)

2. Choose three cases to review. They are very short, you likely have to do some external research to get a fuller picture.  

3. Watch this Ted Talk on business ethics.  (Links to an external site.)

4. Use the information about business communication ethics outlined in this article  (Links to an external site.)and this book chapter.  (Links to an external site.)You can also look at this code of ethics from the Public Relations Society of America (Links to an external site.) to get a sense of what professional codes say.

Now for each case, think about how improving communication could have helped the situation. 

• What could have been said to prevent this from happening? 


• What would have been the best way to deliver that message?


• Was there a communication problem before this incident happened? 


• What was not clearly understood before the incident happened? 


• WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES IN EACH CASE FROM A COMMUNICATION STANDPOINT?

These are just jumping-off points. But listen/watch carefully to the TED video.

What would you have done to resolve this situation? Schedule a meeting, make a memo, send emails, create a presentation? Based on the case studies, and using them as examples, talk about what should have been done to avoid these ethical business problems. 

1. Write an introduction discussing the similarities of each case (generally they involve misunderstandings or misinterpretations of product use or company policy)

2. Write a paragraph describing what you would have done as the Cheif Communication Officer of that company to prevent or to not have this incident happen again. Do this for each company you choose. 

3. Write a final paragraph that describes what you know think about business communication and ethics OR business communication ethics - depending on how you choose to tackle the case studies.