Assessment Information: Student Id: Student Name
Assessment Information: Student Id: Student Name
Assessment Information
This Take-Home Exam Paper has two (2) sections, section A and B.
Student is required to answer 2 questions:
o Section A: Compulsory 1 question.
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10012002 MGT3044 Final Examination)
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STUDENT ID: 1 8 0 2 3 9 8 6
Instructions to Student
This Take-Home Exam Paper has two (2) sections, Section A and B.
Student is required to answer 2 questions
o Section A: Compulsory 1 question.
o Section B: Answer 1 out of 3 questions.
This Take-Home Exam has no “Late Submission”. Either you submit or you did
not submit.
Do Not Wait Until the Last Minute to Submit to eLearn.
Student who cannot submit due to medical reasons must submit Medical
Certificate affecting the exam period to your lecturer.
Duration: 6th July to 10th July, 12noon.
Students cannot consult each other and cannot consult with tutors during this
exam period.
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Toh, [email protected]
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Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
Section A
Bribery is prevalent in both developed and undeveloped countries across the globe. It is a
payment promised by the briber to ask for a party to act on the briber’s interests (Frederick,
2013). Generally, such payments are made to an official to utilise his authority to violate
official responsibility (Philips, 1984). Lately, bribes may involve in inexpensive home
appliances, jewelries, branded accessories, stocks, houses and even adultery (Tian, 2007).
For instance, a San Diego-based corporation, Titan had bribed government officials with
approximately $2million of cash and expensive earrings to the President’s wife to pursue a
telecoms venture and charge higher management fees to the public (Tian, 2007). Bribery is
deemed as an illegal action in most of the countries, however, there is dual standard
regarding the bribery payment in certain countries. For instance, Germany treats bribes as
tax deductible business expenses, reflecting that bribery to be a norm in business world
(Spiers & Kovaly, 1975).
Bribery is Ethical
Based on Ethical Relativism, bribery is ethical if it is a norm or culture in the society.
It is supported by Graham (1983) that bribery is crucial for successful financial performance
in certain countries despite being forbidden in most of the countries. Therefore, he supports
the view of ‘when in Rome do as the Romas do’ which implies that bribers are ethical if
bribery is the norm in their society (Tsalikis & Nwachukwu, 1991). For example, it is ethical
to offer bribes in countries like Cambodia, Yemen and Indonesia where bribery is
omnipresent across these nations (Kuncoro, 2004). Furthermore, Forsyth (1980) had
asserted that relativists have stronger reliance on circumstances more than ethical
principles to determine the right-or-wrong of decisions. Therefore, provided that the society
accepts the culture of bribery, bribers are considered ethical under such circumstance
(Tian, 2007). Many may argue that bribery will lead to disastrous societal effects. However,
ethical relativism allows corporations to disregard the immoral decisions as other
corporations in the region are practicing the immoral decisions. Therefore, based on ethical
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
Bribery is unethical
Based on prima facie duty, it rejects the individualism and asserts that one must
emphasize on one’s most important obligation. As an ordinary citizen, he may treat earning
money as his prima facie duty as he priotises his obligation to financially support his family
members. However, any member of companies has implicitly agreed upon prioritizing
fiduciary duties whereby all members must act in the best interest of the company (Carson,
1987). Hence, bribe takers will fail their fiduciary duties when they receive bribery to leak
information or betray his company. Fiduciary duties will undoubtedly overweigh personal
interests when the person has the role as the company’s member because it will break the
implicit promise made when he first being employed (Philips, 1984). For example, it is
unjust to the public which is the shareholder of the Malaysian government, as officials have
been receiving bribes to leak government incentives to companies, thus failing their prima
facie duty towards the citizens who they are supposed to serve at citizens’ best interest
instead of using the information to gain personal interests (Wu, 2008). Therefore, bribery is
unethical as it fails the fiduciary duties and damages companies’ profitability and reputation.
Based on libertarianism, all humans have the freedom to do whatever they want. It
simply means that they do not have the rights to coerce others to do something that they
refuse to do (Sham & Barry, 2016). Bribery may seem to be liberal as it is a mutual consent
on both bribe takers and bribe givers which no one is forced to do so. However,
libertarianism claims that one should not interfere others’ rights which will otherwise be self-
conflicting as it allows all humans to hold freedom in doing whatever they want (Sham &
Barry, 2016). Hence, bribery is unethical as others will be victimized which will interfere
them. For instance, Siemens, a German company has been paying bribes to the
government officials and civil servants to maximise profits through overpriced construction
services. It is unjust for the taxpayers are paying additional money for the overpriced
construction of roads and powerplants as the result of bribery received by the Germany
officials (Biegelman & Biegelman, 2010). Hence, bribery is unethical as it will victimize
others and hinder them from enjoying the satisfactions that they are supposed to enjoy.
According to the social contract theory, individuals and corporations have the implicit
societal obligations and duties to maximise the society welfare. In the context of bribery,
society welfare tends to be sacrificed to achieve competitive advantages in corporations.
For instance, bribery offered by Siemens to the German government officials and civil
servants to maximise its profits through overpriced construction services will lead to higher
costs to the government to build roads and powerplants (Biegelman & Biegelman, 2010).
Consequently, it suffers the taxpayers as additional costs of building roads and powerplants
could have been well utilized on other projects to build more infrastructures and even to
help citizens in need. Therefore, bribery has breached its social contracts bind with the
society as companies prioritise their own interests at the expense of potential social
welfare. For instance, Siemens, a German company has been paying bribes to the government
officials and civil servants to maximise profits through overpriced construction services. It is unjust
for the taxpayers are paying additional money for the overpriced construction of roads and
powerplants as the result of bribery received by the Germany officials (Biegelman & Biegelman,
2010).
mere predictions which are uncertain (Shaw & Barry, 2016). For example, briberies
received by the Malaysian government officials may cost the Malaysia economy and society
higher than the benefits enjoyed by the society as monopolisation of the market by a
corporation will lead to inefficient market. In this case, bribery will fail to maximise total
happiness as the negative impacts of bribery overweigh the positive impacts of bribery. The
unpredictability of consequences of bribery cannot prove it to be ethical when applying
utilitarianism. Even if the benefits of bribery outweigh its costs, utilitarianism allows the
greatest amount of happiness to be achieved at the expense of people’s happiness, leading
to an unfair to the parties that either willingly or unwillingly sacrifice their happiness (Shaw &
Barry, 2016). For instance, according to Zhou and Peng (2011), bribery has caused decline
of business performance by 29% in large companies across the globe. This shows that pro-
utilitarianism has ignored the 29% loss suffered by shareholders as the result of bribery. In
short, CSR is unethical when applying utilitarianism.
(2087 words)
Reference
Biegelman, M. T., & Biegelman, D. R. (2010). Foreign corrupt practices act compliance
guidebook: Protecting your organization from bribery and corruption. Hoboken, N.J:
John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.my/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=c_EB1ZOyBlUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA19&dq=Siemens+bribery&ots=jW3b6q
lLOd&sig=2Of601PUxJVab8KebxfKWNRAQ2o&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Siemen
s%20bribery&f=false.
Graham, John L.: 1983, 'Foreign Corrupt Practices: A Manager's Guide,' Columbia Journal
of World Business, (Fall), 89-94.
John, L. K., Kim, T., & Barasz, K. (2018). Ads don't overstep. HARVARD BUSINESS
REVIEW JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2018. https://hbr.org/2018/01/ads-that-dont-
overstep.
Jung, T., Graeff, R., & Shim, W. (2011). Good for Samsung is Good for Korea: Image
Restoration Strategies Used by Samsung After a Whistle-Blowing Corruption
Scandal. The Open Communication Journal, 5, 23-28. Retrieved from
https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCOMMJ/TOCOMMJ-5-23.pdf
Kant, I., & Schneewind, J. B. (2002). Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. Yale
University Press.
Singhal, A. (2010). The Mahatma’s Message: Gandhi’s Contributions to the Art and Science
of Communication. China Media Research. Retrieved from
http://utminers.utep.edu/asinghal/Articles%20and%20Chapters/Singhal-Gandhi-
ChinaMediaResearch-2010.pdf.
Spiers, Joseph N. and Kjenneth A. Kovaly: 1975, 'An International Perspective on Business
Ethics,' Industry Week, (October 27), 30-4
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
Wu, X. (2008). Determinants of Bribery in Asian Firms: Evidence from the World Business
Environment Survey. Journal of Business Ethics, 87(1), 75–88.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9871-4.
Zhou, J. Q., & Peng, M. W. (2011). Does bribery help or hurt firm growth around the world?
Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 29(4), 907–921.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-011-9274-4.
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
Section B- Question 4
Introduction
According to Ludwig and Longenecker (1993), a young boy, David who was
courageous enough to protect his sheep from predators and defeated a giant Goliath when
he reached teenage. Thereafter, David became the King of Israel who was loved by
everyone, thus being the mightiest king ever in Israel. He is a principled leader who has a
strong sense of moral judgement and acting in a humble way. However, his capabilities and
power that enabled him to become successful had led him to his ethical failures. There are
a few reasons that have led to King David’s failure despite the power and wealth he had.
Firstly, David became overconfident and started to be absent in wars and asked his army to
fight for him. Additionally, he shifted his focus from the nation’s wars to Bathsheba, a
woman he felt in love with ever since he saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop from his
high palace. Instead of concerning the wars, he focused on inquiring Bathsheba’s
information. Then, David remain indifferent on the fact that Bathsheba had married with one
of his warriers under David’s amry, he insisted to force Bathsheba to conduct adultery with
him. Consequently, Bathsheba was pregnant with David’s child. Furthermore, David
ordered Bathsheba’s husband to fight in the battlefront to make him killed in the battle.
Although Bathsheba ended up marrying David, David’s unfortunate life began with his child
death and several tragedies happened, resulting in regrets of his own decisions made in the
past.
Factors
Firstly, one of the prime factors resulting in ethical violations by leaders in the
workplace is the loss of strategic focus when dealing with the by-product of success
(Stallard & Sanger, 2014). Successful leaders tend not to do what they are supposed to do.
For instance, the success in the past battles won by David left him complacent whereby he
had taken his victories for granted and be overconfident in his strategies. Therefore, such
complacency had led to his absenteeism in the upcoming battles as David assumed that his
right-hand man, Joab will lead the army well to win all battles with the existing strategies
(Ludwig & Longenecker, 1993). It may be wise that David delegated his duties to Joab with
the intention of cultivating leadership skills in Joab, however, David should oversee his
army to ensure strategies conducted are flawless. Instead of overseeing his army, he
shifted his majority focus on Bathsheba who was bathing from the focus on battlefield which
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
he was supposed to do. It shows the delegation of duties was out of the sense of self-
satisfactions instead of the sense of necessity. Therefore, by-products of success which are
the ignorance of what was happening and not being where he is supposed to be will
eventually result in ethical failures especially in successful companies. For example,
complacency found in Nokia once brought disastrous impact in its performance. Nokia was
the leading company in the mobile phone industry, defeating Apple and Samsung.
However, its past outstanding performances in sales have formed strong complacency
within the company. It eventually causes Nokia’s leaders to remain indifferent to improve its
mobile phones to follow the pace of the changing technology like touch-screen technology
with the assumptions of ‘Nokia’s current functions being the best in the market (Denning,
2005). Consequently, its sales fell tremendously within a few years due to consumers’
preferences on technological-advanced mobile phones. In contrast, Apple and Samsung
that have been improving their mobile phones with latest technologies have become the
most profitable companies in the world. Based on utilitarianism, their actions of are ethical
as they are maximizing happiness in the society by providing the best mobile phones to the
public (Shaw & Barry, 2016). These companies will continue to grow as long as they do not
lose their strategic focus in improving their mobile phones from time to time.
Next, successful leaders tend to have the access to privileged information, people
and objectives (Stallard & Sanger, 2014). The view from top of the roof in the palace which
allowed David to see Bathsheba bathing implies that David with a higher status and
authority in the society can enjoy the privilege of breaching privacy of people of lower
status. However, David has forgotten that the view from the rooftop is not meant for breach
of privacy but for him to have the entire view of the city to lead his people (Forsyth, 2011).
Based on ethical egoism, it is ethical to satisfy David’s own interests despite the breach of
Bathsheba’s privacy. However, based on prima facie duty, David’s action is unethical as he
should not prioritise his self interest in breaching Bathsheba’s privacy over the obligations
to lead his people. Therefore, leaders treat their privileged position as a mean to obtain self-
indulgence instead of a tool to practise effective and efficient leadership will eventually lead
to ethical failures in the workplace. For instance, the implementation of sophisticated
surveillance and monitoring systems have been used by the employers to observe and
oversee their employees (Alge, 2001). According to a survey done by the American
Management Association (2001), more than 78% of employers are electronically monitoring
their employees Emails, contents browsed and computer activities with the excuse of
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
overseeing their working performance. It shows that both past and current leaders are used
to invade privacy of people of lower status using their influence and power in the
community. Based on ethical egoism, computer surveillances are ethical to maximise
companies’ self-interest to ensure quality and efficiency of work done by employees.
Furthermore, since companies’ privacy invasion has intruded privacy of over 40million US
employees, the privacy concerns by the employees may outweigh the benefits gained
through computer surveillances to the companies (Botan, 1996). Hence, such privacy
invasion conducted by leaders in the workplace is unethical based on utilitarianism view.
Moreover, based on libertarianism, both David and current leaders who breached others
privacy have interfered their property rights from having their own privacy, hence
considering privacy invasion as an unethical action.
Solutions
Ethical failures have caused disastrous effects in companies. To solve these ethical
failures, there are a few ways to mitigate these issues in companies. One of the most
effective ways to cope with the by-product of success is that all leaders of the companies
are encouraged to live a balanced life to reduce the likelihood of the negative thoughts of
success (Muna & Mansour, 2009). By adopting a balanced lifestyle, leaders will realise that
there are things more valuable than being successful in their careers. For instance, leaders
should pay more attention on their family members, pick up hobbies and have adequate
rest to be mentally and physically healthy so that they will realise the meanings of achieving
other objectives in their life instead of merely striving for their career achievements.
Eventually, leaders will increase their working performance as they are not overly stressed
during work (Galinsky, Kim & Bond, 2001). Hence, leaders with less stressed during work
will create a less tensed working environment which will improve working performance of all
members due to higher efficiency and effectiveness of communications within the group.
With better working environment, all members will increase loyalty towards the company,
thus mitigating the risks of members accepting bribes to leak company’s information to
competitors (Muna & Mansour, 2009). Thus, leaders are less susceptible to take immoral
initiatives to achieve their goals. Furthermore, leaders will require supports from friends,
family and colleagues to avoid thinking negatively which will lead to ethical failures.
Next, the issues of ethical violations can be alleviated through whistleblowing
intentions and behaviours cultivated in employees in the workplace. Whistleblowing is the
disclosure made by members of the organisations of any illegal or immoral practices
conducted and controlled by their superiors which will negatively affect any internal or
external stakeholders (Near & Miceli, 1985). Employees may opt either internal
whistleblowing within their companies through reports to top management and independent
internal control team or external whistleblowing to the public through legal authorities and
mass media (Miceli & Near, 1992). Between these internal and external whistleblowing,
internal whistleblowing may be relatively ineffective as wrongdoings conducted by leaders
are frequently being ignored and buried to perform their fiduciary duties by protecting
companies’ reputation which is ethical under prima facie duty (Miceli & Near, 1992).
Therefore, employees are more susceptible to report externally to the legal authorities and
mass media which will trigger public scrutiny and legal intervention. For instance, in the
infamous WorldCom whistleblowing case, a member of WorldCom, Cynthia Cooper had
shown bravery and justice to reveal her superiors who had been threatening her to not to
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
reveal the accounting frauds conducted by them (Anand, Ashforth & Joshi, 2004).
Therefore, it shows the rights and capabilities of employees to fight back against leaders
who has higher authority and conducted ethical violations. Therefore, leaders will hesitate
and improve self-control in executing any ethical violations.
(1982 words)
Reference
Alge, B. J. (2001). Effects of computer surveillance on perceptions of privacy and
procedural justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(4), 797–
804. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.4.797
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
American Management Association. (2001). Workplace monitoring and surveillance. New York:
Author.
Anand, V., Ashforth, B. E. & Joshi, M. (2004). Business as Usual: The Acceptance and Perpetuation
of Corruption in Organizations, Academy of Management Executive 18(2), 39–53.
https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/alumni/reunion/upload/04anand_et_al-_ame_2004.pdf
Botan, C. (1996). Communication work and electronic surveillance: A model for predicting panoptic
effects. Communication Monographs, 6, 293-313.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759609376396.
Forsyth, D. R. (2011). The Bathsheba Syndrome: When a Leader Fails. Jepson School of Leadership
Studies. Retrieved from https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1171&context=jepson-faculty-publications.
Galinsky, E., Kim, S. & Bond, J. (2001). Feeling Overworked: When Work Becomes Too Much,
Families and Work Institute, New York, NY, available at:
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Ludwig, D.C. & Longenecker, C.O. (1993). The Bathsheba Syndrome: The ethical failure of
successful leaders. J Bus Ethics 12, 265–273. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01666530.
Miceli, M. P, & Near, J. P. (1992). Blowing the whistle : the organizational and legal
implications for companies and employees. New York (N.Y.): Lexington books.
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Muna, F. A., & Mansour, N. (2009). Balancing work and personal life: the leader as acrobat. Journal
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Ethics 4, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382668.
Take-Home Examination Cover Sheet (March 2020 Semester) MGT3044
Shaw, W. H., & Barry, V. E. (2016). Moral issues in business. South Melbourne, Victoria. Cengage
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Stallard, D., & Sanger, M. K. (2014). The Nathan Solution to the Bathsheba Syndrome. Marine
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br5OxMsa~Er6p5iib-Gb5ij5qNZ-
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yieYuVNqcaQlkoTnvZJmFpVZiQcSZYNk~HUylxQBrZnFTsb9ykicH4pKgxYYdqCWgXeP
Bhm1qlS5HXGssyAHuItZBz0D1IPtYP3mlmHmfEX9vgVnwhMkmuHxzYOQJccTUw__&K
ey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA.
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