Introduction
Business ethics involves a set of ethical and moral beliefs that enlightens the conduct and undertakings of an organization and its workforce. Ethical standards and principles help to define a company’s goals and values that guide the day-to-day business activities. Organizations need to observe ethical conduct in business communication with all stakeholders (Davy, 2019). The communication may be internal, which involves employees, or external, which involves suppliers, the government, and customers. Ethics in communication involves conveying a message while observing prescribed ethical standards and principles. Therefore, an entity must design its communication systems in a way that the message outlines the rationale for intended actions in consideration of the expectations. Common ethical standards include accountability, transparency, respect, integrity, and fairness.
Summary of News
Comcast Corporation is a leading cable firm in the United States and is the parent company for other firms, including NBC Pictures. In 2016, the company came under the spotlight after being charged $2.3 million by federal regulators. The company was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pay the fine following investigations that revealed it had erroneously surcharged the customers for equipment and services they had not requested (Evans, 2016). The company had run a promotion for customers to buy set-top boxes and some services covering its premium channels packages. The FCC established that customers who had rejected the offers from Comcast representatives were still charged against their expectations, a practice referred to as negative option billing.
Impact of Ethics on Communication
Ethical communication is founded on definite business values, including honesty, conciseness, responsibility for words, and truthfulness. Regardless of the size of a company, an optimal person-to-person exchange is required to facilitate the successful completion of projects. Ethics helps to ensure that the employees along with the management understand each other (Rossouw & Leon, 2017). It facilitates cohesion that is needed to improve the flow of business. It is through communication that people can speak out their preferences on what needs to be accomplished and ways of attainment. Businesses require that employees and managers express themselves effectively in a reciprocal set of actions (De Spinoza & Elwes, 2018). Therefore, a company has to define a set of clear-cut principles to be followed in effective and ethical communication at the workplace. In the end, the company manages to create a relaxed and valuable setting where everybody is aligned with the values and principles of the business. If the ethical statutes are violated, the enterprise is exposed to poor performance as employees and management face different ethical dilemmas.
Relevance of the Content Toward Ethics and Communication
The practice was driven by Comcast’s management whose sole goal is to make a profit with no regard for customer concerns or satisfaction. The acts were committed despite the corporation having a code of conduct, which signifies its desire to obey the law in all its operations. In addition, the company indicates its commitment to acting with integrity in all business operations. The code is applied to all employees and the management. It reflects Comcast’s urge to realize corporate objectives and succeed correctly by defining business principles of conduct. The company’s commitment to integrity is manifest in the time and resources dedicated to training the staff in ethical conduct. The infringement caused by employees on customers shows an inclination by Comcast to sideline ethics in communication. The customer’s objection to the company’s offers turned out to be a money-making channel using unorthodox means. However, failure in ethical communication results in challenges for the company resulting in a bad public image and a fine by the authorities.
Importance of Ethics in Business
Today, companies have recognized the benefits of ethics in gaining trust from the main stakeholders, such as consumers, and investors, and promoting integrity among the staff. Ethics play a role in enabling acceptance of business operations in society apart from the sole goal of generating profits. Ethics promotes sustainability and improves the branding of a company. That’s why every company has a code of ethics that makes it easy to observe and disclose ethical mistakes. Furthermore, organizational ethics helps to entice the employees to act morally. Organizational commitment in terms of training and ethical programs underlines the value of ethics for the company. This creates a robust ethical culture that can inspire the staff to perform their roles responsibly (Shaw, 2017). There is a high propensity for company ethics to drive profitability. It attracts customers who value ethical conduct. Today people are conscious of sustainability, which is closely tied to ethics. Many customers become loyal to brands where the staff perform their roles with integrity because it creates trust, which leads to increased sales.
Discussion
Ethics is an essential element in the contemporary business environment. It is based on a value system. Every company has to train its employees and have a program to guide its ethical principles. Comcast Corporation failed to instill the appropriate ethical values in its employees despite having an ethical document for guidance. The act by employees to wrongfully charge customers for products and services not requested is an indication of the company’s appetite over and above customer demands.
Implication
The failure of employees to observe ethical conduct exposes the company’s management to bad practices that led to the intervention of the regulator. In the end, Comcast was fined an amount of money that could have been saved. The action created a poor public image in the population regarding Comcast which destroyed its brand standing in the country. It is expected that since Comcast was inaugurated over three decades ago, concerns involving bad ethical communication would have been avoided by having proper systems.
Conclusion
Companies must introduce ethics in communication within business and society. This will create a friendly environment as people negotiate different business propositions. The company should have trained the employees adequately on ethics and developed a scale to evaluate their position on ethics in communication. Further measures involve training to impact ethics knowledge to the employees. Appropriate assessment after a period would make easy the process of reviews through regular checkups and promotions.
References
De Spinoza, B. & Elwes, R.H.M. (2018). The ethics. Dover Publications, Inc.
Davy, D. (2019). Professional Communication and Network Interaction: A Rhetorical and Ethical Approach. Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(4), 432–434.
Evans, D. S. (2016). Economic Analysis of the Impact of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable Transaction on Internet Access to Online Video Distributors. SSRN Electronic Journal, 65(6), 233–366.
Rossouw, D., & Leon V.V. (2017). Business ethics (6th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Shaw, W. H. (2017). Business Ethics (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.