Jennifer Ertel
Professor Betsy Rosenblum
MGT 200
March 30, 2016
Integrity – What does it mean to me?
Integrity and ethics go hand in hand. When someone consistently behaves in an ethical
way that is integrity. My ethics are what keeps me from doing the wrong thing on a daily basis. I
determine in my head what is right and what is wrong in every situation I am in. When I see
someone being treated unfairly it is my integrity that tells me it is unfair. We are all raised to tell
the difference between right and wrong, now we just have to make sure we know how to do this.
When a situation arises there are certain questions we ask ourselves to see whether it is
ethical or not. The first one would be is the situation legal? This can range from stealing a pen to
company embezzlement. Even the smallest thing can be illegal. Knowing that an employee is
stealing a large amount of money is obviously unethical and illegal. This is when your integrity
must kick in. I know it is illegal, but should I do anything about it? Many things may run through
your mind such as: Can I get fired for telling? Can I report this anonymously? What will people
think of me? Ultimately it is illegal and you should report it, but do you? I myself would feel
responsible to report it. I am here to protect my company and anyone that does anything to hurt it
must be reported. I know that stealing is illegal, but I also know it is wrong. Every little thing
you steal comes from company money. What if every employee decides to steal office supplies?
Then your one pen looks like a lot more when you have 100 people doing the same thing. It is
my ethics that tell me this is wrong and to do the right thing and report it.
Stealing is not always easy to detect. There are other ways to steal other than material
objects. Remember when you are on the clock you are on company time. If you decided to take
an extra 5-10 minutes on your break and that time away is not accounted for that is stealing. That
is time the company is paying you to do a job. If you decided to use your company computer to
browse the internet for non-work related things this is also stealing of company time. Personal
