III. Practice

1. Cross out the item which does not normally go with the key word

bribe	To offer	a cover-up	To be accused of	fraud	To make
	To borrow		To be involved into		To admit
	To pay		To be implicated in		To deny
	To accept		To be employed with		To be guilty of

illegal	To become	integrity	complete	ethical	questions
	To change		absolute		behaviour
	To declare smth		high		actions
	To make smth		serious		espionage

2. Complete the sentences below with the right word from the box. Some words are odd.

bribes; bonuses; corruption; industrial espionage; integrity; kickback; law-abiding; slush fund; whistle-blowers⁶

1 The police are investigating our DG⁷ for allegedly receiving ...... .

2 The director never did anything that could compromise⁸ the ..................of the company.

3 Managers were trying to silence potential ..................by promoting or relocating them.

4 Their summer collection has items so similar to our own new designs that we think this might be a case of .....

5 They operated a multimillion dollar ...................intended to corrupt government officials.

6 Corruption so often makes the headlines that you could forget the majority of people are in fact decent,...................citizens.

3. Match these sentence halves.

1 The fact that some politicians hold shares in big companies	a) but he was never found guilty of fraud.
2 Some vitamins that athletes used to take	b) for her fairness and absolute integrity.
3 His past may not be completely clean	c) have been involved in major cover-ups.
4 Many countries would probably become less corrupt if big businesses	d) have now become illegal.
5 Everybody praises our director	e) raises interesting ethical questions.
6 Most weapons-exporting countries	f) I stopped offering bribes.

4. Comment on the following. Provide your own opinion.

1.Ethics is not a recent discovery; over the centuries philosophers have developed universal approach to defining ethics.

2. Business ethics is a special set of ethical rules different from ethics in general and applicable only to business.

3. There exists a set of ethical rules that all societies share.

4. If a society's ethical rules say that dishonesty is unethical and immoral, then anyone in business who is dishonest with employees, customers, creditors, stockholders, or competitors is acting unethically and immorally.

5. The major purpose of business is to make profit, but following business ethics norms usually prevents companies from making considerable profit.

6. High ethical performance also protects the individuals who work in business. Employees resent invasions of privacy (such as unjustified polygraph tests) or being ordered to do something against their personal convictions (such as "midnight dumping" of toxic wastes) or working under hazardous conditions (such as entering unventilated coal mines).

7. Businesses that treat their employees with dignity and integrity reap many rewards in the form of high morale and improved productivity. People feel good about working for an ethical company because they know they are protected along with the general public.

8. To avoid unethical practices companies should avoid competition.

9. To run the good business in modern scenario one has to develop and follow ethics.

10. One of the major principles of business ethics is “Do no harm”. Thus, business firms and their employees are expected to observe this common-sense ethical principle.