Module 6: Ethical Considerations
Internal Auditing
A control in which the company investigates and evaluates employees' compliance with company policies and procedures
Ethical Consumerism
A movement in which consumers make purchasing decisions based on a company's ethical profile
Whistleblower
A person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization
Discrepancies
Accounting errors that occur unintentionally
Stakeholders
All parties who have a stake in the performance and output of the corporation
Grease Payments
A business practice of paying small inducements in order to expedite decisions and transactions
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
A company's obligations to society, including a wide range of stakeholders: people and places affected by company activities
Open Government Information Regulations
Chinese regulation (2008) that establishes limited rules for government information disclosure and public participation
Conflict of Interest (COI)
Ethical challenges in which multiple interests are at conflict with one another
Ethics
Field of philosophy that deals with the morality of what is considered right and wrong
Organizational Ethics
How an organization ethically responds to an internal or external stimulus
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
Law aimed at increasing the level of ethical transparency within corporate America
Irregularities
Misrepresentations of accounting data with the intention to defraud
Power Distance
One of Hofstede's six dimensions of national culture. It describes how formal and authority-focused a society is.
Cultural Norms
Shared, sanctioned, and integrated systems of beliefs and practices that are passed down through generations and characterize a cultural group
Business Ethics
The contemporary standards or sets of values that govern the actions and behavior of individuals in the business organization and the actions of the business itself
Internal Controls
The redundancies that are build into a system to make certain that it accurately maintains material statements