Ethical Opportunity Cost

Individuals are told to behave ethically and "do the right thing." However, there aren't usually enough discussions about the personal costs that might be experienced if someone chooses to act and/or behave ethically.

The negative impacts of addressing unethical activities can lead to individuals being chastised, isolated, retaliated against, and more. These potential consequences are powerful motivations that prevent impacted individuals and others from addressing or resolving questionable/unethical issues.

Individuals, teams, organizations, companies, and societies have a collective responsibility to encourage, educate about, and enforce ethical actions/behaviors. Moreover, there must be protections to ensure that anyone who reviews, reports, and/or resolves ethical situations doesn't encounter any unwanted, unwelcomed, and unnecessary attacks.

This book details the components of ethics, the types of ethical issues, case studies based on actual events, questions to stimulate critical thinking, and recommendations to address questionable/unethical issues, including guidance to promote ethical compliance.

The expectations for ethical actions/behaviors are normally clear. The real issue is often related to individual interpretation and the degree of ethical enforcement against those who chose to not comply with behavioral expectations.

Therefore, while confronted with an ethical dilemma... what will you choose to do?!