Human Resource Management - Ethics with an organization

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Ethics within Organizations
I would open the essay with a question as I typically do with most of my academic papers. Is ethical behavior driven from nature or nurture? The question of what drives ethical behavior within organizations is a priority issue in human resources. Does the individual make the organization ethical or unethical, or does the organizational culture make the individual ethical or unethical. For example, ethical scandals that have occurred at companies such as Adelphia, WorldCom, Enron and others have shown society that many businesses need an ethical renewal (Kadlec, 2002; Grant & Nuzum, 2004). The unscrupulous acts of these and other companies has attracted the attention of the public and law makers (Grant & Nuzum, 2004), who have enacted new laws to reinforce ethical business practices. However, this paper will represent the argument that enduring ethical change can only be initiated by individuals themselves, and not by company's or government agencies.
Ethics and Social Responsibility
In recent years, headlines have been filled with reports of individual and corporate ethical violations. Toxic mortgages, bank bailouts, and unscrupulous lending practices have all combined to shatter the illusion of trust between the public and many business organizations. What are ethics? How do they affect companies and their social responsibilities? At this point of the paper I would define ethics. One definition of ethics could best be described as a set of moral values or principles that guide the conduct of individuals and society (Callan & Callan, 2005). With this general definition as a reference point, we can begin to perceive the importance of ethics in personal and professional lives. So, for your definition with a citation: "The aim of ethics is to identify both the rules that should govern people's behavior and the "goods" that are worth seeking (Bateman & Snell, 2007, p. 151).
Use historical examples of ethical business problems. Many of the ethical foundational elements that are in business entities today were incorporated because of societal pressure. For example, child labor laws that were first enacted in the mid-1800s were created because as a society people thought that children should not be subjected to the inhumane conditions that existed in factories at that time ("Child Labor," 2006). As a result, union leaders rallied workers to protest the perceived unethical practice, which ultimately prompted legislators to change labor laws. "In the 1850s, in large northern cities such as New York, parents sent out children as young as 6 years old to contribute to the family income. Many children worked as scavengers, gathering other people's trash to sell" (Child Labor, 2006).
However, not all of the ethical problems are this blatant, most especially in a business environment are dilemmas, which are more difficult to define. Ethics are not merely conceived from personal perspectives, and it is difficult to define how management or employees should behave in every situation, companies do not exist in a vacuum; they are part of the social fabric that holds society ...