Business Ethics Exam 1

Their conscience

A person who reasons at the postconventional level is most influenced in their decisions by ______.

The law is the law, and it should be obeyed to maintain societal order.

Chudra's cognitive moral development has reached the postconventional level. With which of the following statements is she most likely to agree?

concern for self in relation to others

How did Adam Smith define self-interest?

change to adopt international standards for business

A business in a developing nation that has operated locally for many years has recently grown to a level that it is now making international deals. What is to be expected of that business?

Ask the candidate if he or she is able to perform all job functions and meet the job's attendance requirements.

A manager is hiring for a new and highly sensitive position in the human resources department. An internal candidate has been referred to the manager for the interview process, but the manager is worried, based on some informal information, that the candidate has a serious mental health condition. How should the manager bring up the issue?

curiosity

According to Jean Piaget, what does a child possess at 18 months that he or she does not at 14 months?

It is based more on societal order.

According to Lawrence Kohlberg, how does right behavior at the conventional level of reasoning differ from right behavior at the preconventional level?

age

According to Lawrence Kohlberg, which of the following is a factor that influences passage through the stages of moral development?

a conscience that represents pure goodness

According to the "born good" philosophy of human nature, which of the following is a person imbued with since birth?

reputation

According to the text, 63 percent of the average corporation's market value can be attributed to ______.

Tax avoidance is legal; tax evasion is illegal.

According to the text, how does tax avoidance differ from tax evasion?

moving earned income into a tax-free foreign territory such as the Cayman Islands

According to the text, which of the following company actions would be legal, satisfy Friedman's advice, and also be unethical?

Code of conduct

After many years of successful operation, a financial services firm uncovers a specific fraud in which employees were accepting personal gifts from clients for preferred treatment. Which of the following is most likely going to need revision as a result?

His mother smiles at him, and he smiles back.

Ali is old enough to have developed the capacity for mental scripts. Which of the following scenarios demonstrates enactment of a mental script?

a negligent hiring lawsuit

An employer is hiring for a new position in their company. She has a candidate she likes and offers the candidate the position, then has the candidate undergo a drug screening process. What very specific potential problem is she protecting herself against by taking this step?

It damaged its reputation and resulted in a fall in share price.

As described in the text, Valeant Pharmaceuticals made a legal move to buy a wide range of heart medications and raise prices on all of them. How did this primarily damage the company?

almost any they liked

As late as the 1950s, what criteria could many employers use to screen job applicants?

annually

As recommended by the text, when should the last step in the code development process--code revision--occur?

their superiors

Based on self-reporting in one study, from where did middle managers find that most pressure to write fraudulent internal reports originate?

apply to his work and nonwork lives

For an employee with strong moral convictions, a code of ethics would ______.

pressure from a superior

Hae-Won, a middle manager at a sales company, wrote a dishonest internal report to make her team seem more productive than it was. Based on general trends, what is the most likely reason she wrote this report?

monitoring costs

Harold was caught lying about his worked hours on a time sheet, admonished, and allowed to stay on at the company. What type of company cost related to Harold will rise now that the incident has already occurred?

Not difficult at all; the information is easily accessible on the Internet.

How difficult is it for a company to find out if an applicant has a criminal record?

It describes aspirations for employee behavior, not future organizational aspiration.

How does a code of ethics differ from an organization's vision statement?

It protects against discrimination based on age.

How does the current version of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 differ from the legislation as it was originally passed?

Members of a protected class rarely make it through all the job-screening filters of an organization.

How does the text define the concept of disparate impact?

total right to monitor

How should a code of conduct characterize a company's right to monitor employee emails sent on company computers?

They would be somewhat less focused on maximizing shareholder wealth and more on ethical concerns.

How would the goals and decision making of managers in a B Corporation differ, at least theoretically, from those in a C Corporation?

criminal record

If a manager is implementing a hiring process and distributing applications in a state that has passed "Ban the Box" legislation, the manager likely cannot ask about what until after the interview process?

a greater need for task delegation

In what way do small businesses differ from large ones who make ethics an even more important part of the job-screening process?

A new moving company, which is run and staffed by three college grads, hires a fourth person to help them out part time.

In which of the following situations might an employer be able to discriminate against a protected class but remain exempt from prosecution by the EEOC?

They can illicit intentionally false but socially desirable answers.

In which of the following ways are personality and integrity tests similar?

It deals with specific situations.

In which of the following ways does a code of conduct differ from a code of ethics?

Smith warned managers not to negotiate wages below subsistence levels, so he would likely have supported some version of a living wage.

In which of the following ways would Adam Smith have most likely thought about the concept of a living wage?

ongoing legal defenses

Indira's financial services company knowingly financed high-risk securities during a time when all their competitors were doing the same, and like others, they were caught in the process. Over the next decade, what is likely to be the most quantifiable cost to the company?

brought from England as an indentured servant

Jamestown was the first chartered colony established by the Virginia Company of London. If you were young and found yourself working there, either searching for precious metals or toiling in the fields, what is the most likely reason you ended up there?

lost business

Kamilah runs a medium-sized real estate agency in her hometown. After some clients reported violations, it became public knowledge--and was printed in the newspaper--that the company inflated its closure numbers with fake sales. The most direct reputation cost for Kamilah's company will be ______.

Being an attorney is a calling that requires moral action in its duties.

Musa has just finished taking and passing the bar exam. As part of the process of graduating and getting her degree, she takes an oath that all U.S. attorneys take. What should taking this oath suggest to her about the related profession?

everyone

Raleigh is in the process of developing a code-writing team for his accounting firm of 15 employees. Who in the company should be a part of this team?

4,000,000

Roughly how many slaves were there in the United States on the eve of the Civil War?

Sharod knows most of his coworkers disapprove of this kind of violation.

Sharod witnesses a coworker accepting a particularly lavish lunch at the expense of a client, which is a code of conduct violation. Which of the following conditions would make Sharod the most likely to report the violation to superiors?

lobbying for government deregulation that would allow the company to dispose of its waste more cheaply, even if it hurt the environment

The CEO of a company is a very strong adherent of Milton Friedman's philosophy. Which of the following actions is she most likely to pursue or support?

fewer applicants with low moral standards

What can an employer expect by mentioning use of an ethics screen in a job announcement?

freedom to pursue high demand or low supply

What did Adam Smith's capitalism have that was lacking in the old mercantilist way of organizing the economy?

Skill sets

What do job applicants lie about most often on resumes?

Take an oath of integrity.

What does the government of the Netherlands require of all financial institution employees?

increasing life expectancy

What morally admirable accomplishment does the text credit to the U.S. during its development between the 1700s and 1900?

Having a code of conduct is meaningless unless it is matched by action.

What point is the text making when it mentions Enron's 60-page Code of Conduct?

New societal or environmental conditions may require changes to a code of conduct.

What point is the text trying to make by illustrating the legal ruling in Florida that stated judges and lawyers cannot be "friends" on Facebook?

fostering trust, efficiency, integrity, and effectiveness across a range of actions for employees and customers

What should be the primary ethical goal of managers in an organization?

performing low-quality work

What type of ethical misbehavior did UK managers rate highest in incidence among the most common they witnessed?

unfair taxation

What was the primary grievance that amplified anti-English sentiment in the American colonies and ultimately sparked the first violent rebellions?

The company would earn a $4000 tax credit.

What would having B Corporation status in the city of Philadelphia do for a company?

common "cause" for employees

When all the elements of a strategic plan are integrated, it should produce a(n) ______.

as soon as they are capable of speech

When do children show the first evidence of lying?

times when the employee behaved ethically or witnessed ethical behavior

When gathering a list of ethical behaviors from employees, the prompts should focus on ______.

regulatory interests

Where does overlapping typically occur in all four subsystems of the Interpenetrating Systems Model?

fair dealing

Which of the following NYSE code of conduct recommendations specifically deals with customer relations?

Regulatory pressure is less and less a primary motivation for adopting a code of ethics.

Which of the following accurately describes a trend related to codes of ethics in business?

realistic description and mention of expectation of ethical behavior

Which of the following components are necessary when designing a job description to achieve a "good fit"?

The polygraph detected anxieties, not lies.

Which of the following discoveries had a major influence on the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Frye (1923)?

the description of a specific law and what it means for an employee

Which of the following does a code of conduct likely contain that a code of ethics would not?

The cost is relatively low for the employer.

Which of the following is TRUE of administering drug tests to job candidates?

emotional stability

Which of the following is a Big Five personality factor that also corresponds to integrity test scores?

a market crash that sends the company into a rough patch

Which of the following is a situation or condition that would make codes of ethics and conduct particularly important?

upholding justice

Which of the following is held in common among the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions according to the 1994 interfaith declaration?

a store manager using a waste disposal service that secretly pollutes

Which of the following qualifies as an unintended unethical behavior?

He sought a nationwide boycott of a major company.

Which of the following statements about Cesar Chavez and the unions he helped is accurate?

Innate bullying tendencies are often linked to sexist beliefs.

Which of the following statements about bullying in the workplace is accurate?

Empathy usually appears by age three.

Which of the following statements about the cognitive development of children is accurate as articulated by Jean Piaget?

The average company has more than an 11 percent chance of being sued for hiring discrimination.

Which of the following statements about the current nature of discrimination by companies is accurate (dated to 2015 research)?

The Industrial Revolution brought about an economic boom in the United States.

Which of the following statements about the development of the U.S. economy is accurate?

States can establish their own minimum wages, but only if they are higher than the federal minimum wage.

Which of the following statements about the minimum wage is accurate?

Research increasingly shows a positive causal relationship between the two.

Which of the following statements about the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance is accurate?

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection A

Which of the following was a major legislative act of regulation or deregulation under the Obama administration?

Managers were responsible for most of the reported ethical misdeeds.

Which of the following was observed by the 2013 Ethics Resource Center (ERC) survey of 6,420 for-profit employees about work-related issues during their previous year of employment?

developing a manufacturing assembly line that divided human labor into tiny, repetitive tasks

Which of the following would Adam Smith have opposed, should he have witnessed it occurring?

The government should not try to regulate the way businesses choose employees.

Which of the following would likely be a common argument held by both Milton Friedman and Adam Smith?

marital status

Which of the following would not be an acceptable subject of a question asked of a candidate in an interview?

"I'm wondering why you said..."

While giving an interview, Ari has noticed that some of the candidate's responses don't sync up with information given in her resume. What is the best way for Ari to phrase a question asking about this issue?