Unethical Action Witnessed in Goldman Sach (Essay Sample)

Name:
Lecturer:
Course:
Date:
Business Analysis
In the contemporary world, business managers aim to run ethical organizations, but there is a challenge emanating from corruption which is rooting in most corporations. To some extent, the problem is bound to the leaders who are crooks and keep on directing malfeasance from the top management. In most occasions, it is believed that employees break ethics rule just because the top leadership is blind to any form of unethical conduct and may even encourage without prior knowledge. The paper provides an analysis of a business behavior that led to the retraction of organizational moral gravity. The occurrence was witnessed in the Goldman Sachs who left the company in an ethical dilemma when the workers were found taking confidential documents from the Federal reserves. This was against the ethical provisions expected from an employee working for any organization as it may have adverse impacts on the company reputation.
Unethical Action Witnessed In Goldman Sach
In the case of the Goldman Sachs, an employee known as Rohit Bansal worked as a banker in the organization and indulged in the forwarding of emails to a particular team from Jason Gross. He obtained confidential information from company’s information system with the aim of having personal gain. The individual anticipated to commerce ahead of the client merger, but the issue was noticed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Goldman Sachs is among the companies which have employees who once worked for the Federal Reserve before joining the organization. Thus, recruiting individuals who had initially worked in the Federal Reserve inducts a conflict of interest among the people. This implies employing an individual who was once overseeing the bank, and this opens room for the individual to carry along sensitive market insights. Following the incident, the employee was fired together with his supervisor. Besides, the bank said that it would consider changing the policies. However, it was the responsibility of the institution to ensure private and confidential information is kept safe to avoid any leakage or exposure. The two victims were found guilty, and Goldman had to pay a $50 million penalty to the state regulators.
Goldman never disclosed whether the supervisor had any information concerning the confidential documents despite the fact that they were found on his table. This institution is among the companies based upon trust that sensitive information will not be disclosed to anybody or be misused, but valuable information was stolen from its systems. This particular untrustworthy member of the company workforce revealed the company’s inability to ensure its employees exercise their duties ethically and it ruined the enterprise’s reputation.
Stakeholders Affected by the Action
Stakeholders in this situation include global clients, the U.S. economy as well as the international economy. Others include the customers that owned shares because they had trusted their money with the company. The breach even affected the citizens in the United States. Due to the negative impacts made on the stock market, the entire economy was negatively impacted which implies that the common nationals were greatly affected. This leads to an important downward spiral of the nation’s economy, wealth and the level of standard of everyone altogether. The incident also hurt anyone who had put trust in Goldman with their future more so the individual who had direct transactions with the untrustworthy personnel who put everything at risk.
The Outcome of the Action
According to the provisions of the utilitarianism theory, the ethical direction is that a business is supposed to always act in a manner that maximizes comfort for all the people affected by the business both directly and indirectly in a long-term perspective. In this regard, the employee decided to make the customers and him a short-lived happiness without considering the long-term repercussions. The costs of this decision automatically outweigh the benefits that would be accrued; thus he violated the stipulation of the theory. The moment he obtained the confidential documents and utilized them for personal gain he was not profiting the stakeholders (Beekun et al. 318). This act caused the stakeholders and customers to think of looking for another company they would trust. The employees, on the other hand, were hurt by the wrong action of one of their colleagues. Goldman as a company was forced to rebuild its image which has been destroyed; it has lost its loyalty to the stakeholders because they can no longer trust its services.
Universalism utilizes the principle of rational decision in making ethical decisions that may affect other people. The decision made by Bansal to illegally access the document was a lie and manipulation to the company and all its stakeholders. By taking the documents for personal gain was a move against the goodwill of the people. Besides, he lied to the state regulations by attempting to trade before the client mergers were publicized. Using the information to get ahead hurt the economy by depriving free market competition which had an eventual effect on the clients because they were deprived the opportunity to invest (Crossan, Mazutis, and Seijts 577). A good decision would involve backing of the moral motives. He revealed that he had no good intentions with humanity. It would be a better decision for him to consult or make a decision aimed at benefiting all the people operating in the economy.
Ethical Principles Adhered by Bansal
Bansal was adhering to the principle of promise-keeping because he was taking the confidential information to a team that would eventually benefit him. He was held accountable of supplying the team from Jason Gross with the information. However, his adherence to the trustworthiness to the team was against the business ethic expected from him by Goldman Sach where he was an employee. Therefore, instead of adhering to the business ethics of being loyal, law-abiding and honesty to the company among other principles, he opted to accede to the same principles from the team in Jason Gross point of view. Behaving ethically can aid in the creation of a positive business outcome. Any business that upholds strong values and adheres to the business principles has the potential of being more productive and delivering quality services to the clients.
Bias in Decision-Making
The bias that caused Bansal to make a wrong decision is anchoring, which means that he made decisions using inadequate information. The individual formed an initial picture of the gain he would reap from using the confidential information. Besides, he had overconfidence bias because he believed in his knowledge that his tactics would work successfully