Business ethics examines principles or ethical problems that companies are faced with in their business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is related to the behaviors of the individuals and the entire organization.
The financial guru Wells Fargo was recently faced with a major business ethical issued that impacted many customers and the company's work force as well. Wells Fargo like many other corporations invest heavily in reward and compensation plans for their employees to sale or promote their products. In the case that Wells Fargo bank experienced, there was a lucrative reward program in place that compensated agents financially for cross selling. Cross selling is a practice that is common is most business entities and it is a strategy that encourages agents to offer additional products or services to existing customers. Wells Fargo experienced unethical behavior in using the cross-selling process because employees were rewarded based upon how many upsells they were able to obtain. The incentives that were in place drove this unethical behavior based upon the lack of adequate controls in place to detect false accounts. Upon detection of the unethical practices that were taking place Wells Fargo removed over 5300 employees and lost its CEO as well. This incident was on a massive scale and impacted many employees as well as customers. I am certain that there was a great amount of backlash that came from this incident and many individuals were impacted. However, this unethical business practice has certainly driven Wells Fargo to implement more strict processes to prevent future fraudulent activity.