Question

Legal Pressure to Violate Confidentiality Please answer the following questions. Be sure to write complete sentences and to check your response for correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Your answers should consists of a 3 to 5 sentence paragraph response for each question. After completing your initial response, please respond to at least one other students' postings.   

1. Should ethics officers guarantee confidentiality to those who report wrongdoing, and should they violate that confidence to protect the firm from prosecution? Please explain your answer.
2. What factors would you want to know before making this decision?
3. Can you imagine any creative way out of this dilemma? Please explain your answer.
4. To whom does the ethics officer owe duties? Who are the stakeholders?
5. What are the likely consequences of either decision? What fundamental rights or principals are involved?

Answer 1

1. Yes, the ethics officer must guarantee confidentiality to those who report wrongdoing in a firm. Without confidentiality the reporting program will lose its credibility and confidence of the workers. The legal aspect of confidentiality should be communicated to the reporter. No, they should not violate that confidence to protect the firm from prosecution as allowing the wrongdoing will further encourage the accused people to repeat the same mistake again in future. The management should take appropriate action according to the respective law and regulations. Violating the confidence of the reporter will only damage the firm in the long run.

2. I would like to know the possible damage to the firm from that wrongdoing. People who are responsible for those actions and what made them take such wrong actions. Whether the management could take necessary action against the responsible people. Whether prosecution could be avoided through appropriate action and feedback process.

3. First, the ethics officer should properly consult with the reporter to understand the matter. If the management could take necessary action against the responsible persons, it should do it within a stipulated time frame. Then the management should come up with a strategy to minimize the damage to the firm. If there is a way to avoid prosecution without violating any rules and regulations then the firm should select that strategy.

4. The Ethics Officer reports to the chief ethics officer. The chief ethics officer reports to the CEO of the firm. Chief ethics officer also have some access to the board of directors. So, the stake holders are the reporter, chief ethics officer, CEO and board of directors of the firm. The ethics officer reports to the chief ethics officer and the chief ethics officer report to the higher management of that firm. Here the people who are responsible for wrong doing are also part of stakeholder.

5. If the ethics officer doesn’t violate confidentiality and take necessary action. In the short term, it may create an unfavourable consequence for the firm, but it long it will benefit the firm. As no other employee would be part of such wrongdoing. But if the ethics officer violates the confidentiality and protects the responsible for the wrongdoing. In the long run it will do more damage to the firm. In the future, any other employee may find out that wrongdoing and publish it. Which might do more damage to the firm.