Aida Seyed Hashemi@4822
Com204
Synthesis: Final Draft
Prof: Tyson
Tuesday, 19 April 2003
Business Ethics and Conflict of Interest
You have seen the headlines, “Politician caught in conflict of interest.” You may have wondered what exactly a conflict of interest is, how we can solve it, and what we can do to avoid being in one. A conflict of interest can be defined as “a situation in which a person, such as a public official, an employee, or a professional has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her official duties” (McDonald, 2002). The first problem is caused when this private interest comes into conflict with the second feature of the definition, “official duty,” that is the duty you have because you hold an office. ... These obligations are supposed to overcome private or personal interest. Now the question is how do people determine when they are in a conflict of interest, whether actual or potential? ... Conflict between private and public interests are a crucial issue for different cultures also.
One of the problems in conflict of interest is employees’ psychological process known as rationalization. ... It takes an external influence to ensure that we assist our individualistic interest. ... They may have a revelation and disclosure of financial holdings which you stole from the company and interest in competitors; e. ... If the disclosure already exists, why do we still have the current problem with conflict of interest? It is obvious that self-interest is in the nature of human beings. They surely forget about laws because it is in their self-interest to do it. ...
When employees face conflict of interest, they can think about it in two ways. First, they can just think about their personal interest and profit, or they can think about the morality as was as the revenue of the company. People do try to resolve problems, but usually resolving conflict is more important for people than getting it right. ... But it is also right to use corporate asset for personal interest and compensate in the future. ... As you can see, both of these sides are legal, but when we talk about ethics we call these two sides “conflict of interest.”
There is another kind of conflict of interest known as “self-dealing” (McDonald, 2002). Self-dealing activities always involve conflict of interest, but not all conflict of interest involve self-dealing.
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