Student’s name: Tokanova Botakoz

Student’s ID: 20112331

Homework #1 Ethics and Business Communication

1. Why are ethics important in business communications?

Ethics is an important branch of philosophy that differentiates the questions about what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is virtue and what is vice. There is no doubt that because of the following the ethics` rules people can effectively communicate in business with huge success. So in order not to lose the trust of your business partner or major stakeholder public, it can be your customers, employees, investors, creditors, legislators and other important parties affected by the actions of the company, you should follow the ethics. So thus the way business person or a company transfers the message to final users, third parties identifies the professional image or public face of this person or a company.

2. How can we all act ethically when communicating as employees?

As employees we should act ethically in communication by following the ethical code of conduct of the company and the legislation of the country where we work. As employees we should be honest, fair, and transparent in all activities we do, and show respect and politeness to others. It will benefit employees in building strong relationships between each other and gaining respect from customers, which have good output for a company.

3. From page 27, give one likely example of each of the following:

1. Selective misquoting:

Using the dishonest claims in advertising which does not reflect the truth of the product. For example, some companies say that their products offering will immediately show the positive results. For example, one pharmaceutical company used slogan “provide immediate relief of headaches“, which generated them a huge money, but the advertising slogan was not true as it stated, thus they behaved in dishonest manner.

2. Misrepresenting numbers:

For example: statistics show that “the unemployment rate in Almaty decreased by 0,01%”. Now I will show an example of misrepresenting numbers for the above quote: according to statistics “the unemployment rate in Almaty decreased” or “the unemployment rate in Almaty decreased by 4%”. The original quote is the first one, which gives us not so good news, because we see that the unemployment rate decreased only by 0.01% - it is just nothing and readers are disappointed. But, when we read the second quote we feel better, because unemployment rate decreased by 4% and readers are happy with such news. The second quote is not true and it is a kind of unethical communication.

3. Distorting visuals:

A simple example can be the signs in package of products written “if you buy exactly this packaged product you will get a 5% more of product for free“. But actually when you check it up with other packages, you see that there is nothing unordinary. Or another example is KFC advertisements in their menu, they show a big, juicy and nice burgers while indeed it looks less attractive and tasteful.

Student’s name: Tokanova Botakoz

Student’s ID: 20112331