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Another ethical decision had to be made by a marketing company that received two checks from a client for the same $50,000 project. There was no way the client would have discovered it, yet the marketing firm immediately sent the second check back. rent Bucharest apartmentThese kinds of ethical dilemmas occur every day in business. Although these two entrepreneurs did what they believed to be ethically correct, not everyone.operates under the same standards of ethics. The employee who steals notepads, pens, and computer disks because "the employer won't miss them," the executive who abuses his or her expense account, and the business owner who evades taxes by not reporting employee income demonstrate the lack of a clear ethical standard that is accepted too widely and costs entrepreneurs both time and money. Entrepreneurs face special problems when it comes to ethical issues. Their small companies generally are more informal and lack systems and controls. They often don't have the time or resources to focus on ethics during their attempts to keep their businesses alive, and they often take for granted that everyone in their organization and everyone with whom they do business share their values. This is a mistake, because unethical behavior can contaminate a business for as long as it exists. Another very practical reason why small firms should pay attention to the ethics of employees concerns their ability to defend themselves against criminal action in a court of law. The U.S. Sentencing Commission's guidelines assert that an effective ethics program can serve to protect a company from criminal penalties, or at least in lessening their impact, if an employee violates federal law. In general, ethics dilemmas in business are found in four areas: conflicts of interest, survival tactics, peer pressure, and pushing the legal limit. |