Unethical practices

The issue of privacy and business ethics continues to raise varied questions even as more and more businesses adopt information technologies in their management. Use oftechnologyas discussed above has had different effects especially on the privacy and business ethics in organizations which are already using them. Despite the fact that technology has led to high productivity and efficiency during task performances, it has had negative impacts on the privacy of the workers, customers as well as the businesses which have been as a result of dwindling and degrading business ethics.

Businesses have become more reluctant to enforce ethics especially while employing technology. Some businesses also employ unethical practices while dealing with technology to gain competitive edge over their competitors. Most of the common unethical practices being practiced by businesses using technology include data mining, information tracking regarding a customer that at times is sold out and also monitoring of the competitors marketing strategies and production processes. All this practices hinders the privacy of any business and leads and amounts to unethical behavior.

As such, use of technology has led to higher privacy risks and also an increase in unethical practices by businesses. Technology has made it difficult to track down unethical practices which explain why these practices have been on the rise in the recent past (Jin, Drozdenko & Bassett, 2007). To ensure business ethics and privacy are upheld while dealing with technology in any business, an organization should implement policies to govern and ensure ethics is practiced and applied while dealing with technology. Workers should also be trained on the importance of upholding privacy and ethics while applying technology in the organization.

An organization should also take measure to ensure that all the private data is protected and that no unauthorized person obtains such data. Caution should be exercised while revealing information via the information technologies as this may threaten the privacy of an entity. Maintaining business privacy is vital in that it hedges a business from cut throat competition from its competitors. Usually, competitors are more interested in the competitive strategies of their rivals and as such they are bound to engage in unethical business practices which are enhanced by technology.

However, being unethical may have serious repercussions especially because this may lead to lose of customers’ truth and faith in a company. All unethical practices should be discouraged in an organization despite their benefits (Selwyn & Griffith, 2001). Conclusion Privacy and business ethics have become an issue especially in this technological era especially because of the rising cases of unethical behavior being undertaken by corporations. Technology has led toglobalizationand networking which is highly threatening the privacy of corporations and business entities.

The recent introduction of e-commerce and e-procurement has increased the threat of privacy of the customers as well as the businesses. Also, the dynamism in the technologicalenvironmenthas also contributed largely to the unethical practices being carried out by businesses. Since the popularization of technology in the business world, the privacy of businesses has been at stake posing great risks to their survival in the rising competition. Also, with an aim to remain competitive, most businesses have engaged in unethical practices aided by the technology.

Strict measures should be taken by the government as well as the businesses to ensure this problem is eradicated and ethics exercised and upheld in all entities. Reference: Beauchamp, T. L. & Arnold, D. (2008): Ethical Theory and Business (8th Edition). ISBN 0136126022, Published by Pearson Prentice Hall Cardinali, R. (1995): Reinforcing our moral vision: examining the relationship between unethical behavior and computer crime. Journal of Work Study Vol 44 De George, R. T. (2003): The ethics of information technology and business. ISBN 0631214259, Published by Wiley-Blackwell

Hunkin, J. S. (2002): Ethics in Business and Everyday Life. Magazine article of Canadian Speeches, Vol. 16 Jin, K. G., Drozdenko, R. & Bassett, R. (2007): Information technology professionals’ perceived organizational values and managerial ethics. Journal of business ethics vol 71 Laura P. Hartman (2002): Technology and Ethics: Privacy in the Workplace. Business and Society Review Volume 106 Selwyn, T. & Griffith, D. (2001): The evaluation of IT ethical scenarios using a multidimensional scale. ACM SIGMIS Database archive Volume 32