Ethics Journal in Goldman, Wall Street, and Essay

Ethics Journal

In Goldman, Wall Street, and a culture crack up, Ken Makovsky describes an ethical issue in which a mid-level banker at Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith, alleged that the firm relegated client needs to its search for quick profits. What he describes is more behavior that reaffirms the idea of a culture of greed permeating Goldman Sachs prior to the financial meltdown. While Goldman had been the subject of a significant amount of outside criticism, criticism from inside the company had been rare. Goldman does not appear to have retaliated against the employee, but they have responded in an inconsistent manner to his claims, which have led to speculation that those claims have credence. The article gives good examples of how the firm should respond to the allegations.

So far, Goldman has not done a good job handling Smith's allegations; it released an internal memo that seemed to give conflicting information about Smith and his importance in the firm. In the article, the author actually gave some great tips for how Goldman could successfully handle the ethical issue. He suggested that they should invite the former employee in to speak with management, create internal structural barriers to the internal conflicts that face trading houses, and take an activist role in managing its reputation.

The ethical and moral issue facing the company was how much credence to give to employee complaints about internal ethical issues. This scenario highlights the potential conflict between firm reputation and investigating ethical allegations in a firm; taking ethical issues seriously is critical, but appearing to take them too seriously can weaken public confidence in the firm, which could lead to further damage to the firm's clients. It makes one wonder whether it is always more important to be ethical than it is to appear to be ethical, if a failure of customer confidence can lead to a negative impact on the customers.

In NASA intelligent design case raises business ethics question, David Mielach discusses an ethical issue at NASA. NASA is an organization based on science. The most commonly held scientific belief is in evolution, and scientists who do not believe in evolution are frequently not considered credible in their fields. David Coppedge, a 15-year NASA veteran, was a team leader who claimed that he faced discrimination in the workplace because he vocalized a belief in intelligent design. His handed out DVDs espousing intelligent design, and received a written warning after his coworkers complained about it. He was laid off in part of a larger lay off that was due to budget cuts. Coppedge filed suit, alleging that his outspoken…