Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Test Bank
CHAPTER 1: UNETHICAL BEHAVIORS IN ORGANIZATIONS AND HUMAN NATURE
Multiple Choice
1. How does the text define “well–managed organization”?
a. A community of people on a common mission to be effective, efficient, and ethical.
b. A community of people seeking a common goal in the marketplace.
c. An efficient hierarchy of managers and employees operating under conditions of
discipline and trust.
d. A community of employees and managers working together to provide a net benefit
to society.
2. Hae-Won, a middle manager at a sales company, wrote a dishonest internal report to
make her team seem more productive than it was. Based on general trends, what is the
most likely reason she wrote this report?
a. to avoid being fired
b. to gain new clients
c. for personal gain
d. in response to pressure from a superior
3. What should be the primary ethical goal of managers in an organization?
a. creating a common mission for employees
b. appropriately serving the needs of customers
c. producing a trustworthy product
d. fostering trust, efficiency, and integrity across a range of actions for stakeholders
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4. Which of the following could be classified as a stakeholder of a local clothing retail
business?
a. a person who buys clothes from the business
b. the owners of a restaurant across the street
c. a gift shop down the street
d. a person who works at the coffee shop next door
5. Karen and her friend were in a hurry, so they jumped to the front of the line at the
café in order to get their coffee quicker. Karen’s friend said, “That wasn’t good of us.”
Her friend just ______.
a. misapplied ethical reasoning
b. rejected analytical perspective
c. became a stakeholder
d. performed an ethical analysis
6. Ethics can be defined as the ______.
a. moral code adopted by each person—and the actions taken under that code—with
respect to those it will affect
b. quality of intention a person takes into each decision with respect to those whom the
decision will affect
c. actions a person takes to determine if they improve or lessen the quality of life for the
community
d. set of principles a person uses to determine whether an action is good or bad
7. Conscious ethical dilemmas differ from unconscious ethical dilemmas because in
unconscious ethical dilemmas you ______.
a. are not aware of the moral issue occurring
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b. know the action you are taking is wrong
c. know an action is right, but you are very tempted to do what is wrong
d. are aware a decision is a moral issue, but others are not
8. What is the first component of an action sequence?
a. considering the consequences of the act
b. motivation
c. the act itself
d. opportunity
9. When considering ethics, how does an action differ from the consequences of that
action?
a. Acts carry moral weight, while consequences are neutral to the person taking the
action.
b. Acts are morally neutral, while consequences have ethical weight.
c. Acts carry concrete moral implications, while consequences are subject to
interpretation.
d. An act has moral implications for the actor, while consequences have moral
implications only for those acted upon.
10. What are the two core types of ethical dilemma?
a. motivated and unmotivated
b. action and inaction
c. emotional and analytical
d. conscious and unconscious
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
11. Which of the following was observed by the 2019 Ethics & Compliance Initiative
(ECI) survey of 18,000 employees globally about work-related issues during their
previous year of employment?
a. More than half noted their organization did not value ethical leadership.
b. Only a few respondents observed an incident of ethical misconduct.
c. Most of the misdeeds reported were ongoing behaviors.
d. Senior management was implicated in very few ethical misdeeds, perhaps out of fear
of retribution.
12. The 2019 Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI) survey of 18,000 employees globally
observed that employees who witnessed ethical violations had what response?
a. Most who reported the misconduct said they did so in hopes of hurting the
perpetrator.
b. Most who reported the misconduct experienced some kind of retaliation.
c. Slightly less than half reported the misconduct.
d. Most reported the misconduct.
13. What ethics trend was uncovered in the Institute of Leadership & Management’s
survey of managers in the UK?
a. Most of the time, when managers were pressured to violate ethical standards,
lawbreaking was involved.
b. Nearly half of managers had pressured their own subordinates to commit fraud for
their department’s gain.
c. Around 10 percent were forced out of their jobs for refusing to violate ethical
standards when pressured.
d. Most managers observed taking shortcuts or lying to cover up mistakes.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
14. When asked to rate professions by how much they were trusted, what was the only
profession Gallup Poll respondents rated higher than fifteen percent?
a. doctors
b. nonprofit charity officers
c. police officers
d. nurses
15. What type of ethical misbehavior did UK managers rate highest in incidence among
the most common they witnessed?
a. taking credit for others’ work
b. lying about being sick
c. taking shortcuts
d. defrauding customers
16. Joan works as a personal injury attorney, and her husband, Ali, is a consultant for a
financial services firm. What particular type of ethical misconduct might they both be
tempted to commit that is a common issue in, and somewhat unique to, their
professions?
a. charging for unearned billable hours
b. overusing unpaid internships
c. dishonesty with clients
d. colluding with competitors to guide the market
17. Which of the following statements about sexual harassment in the workplace is
accurate?
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. The legal profession has the highest rate of reports for sexual harassment among
professions.
b. Reporting of incidents by one female employee typically encourages others to come
forward.
c. Roughly half of women subjected to sexual harassment report the incident.
d. In surveys, some 60 percent or more of women report having been sexually
harassed.
18. How are small businesses different from large businesses with respect to ethics
violations?
a. The difficulties of managing morally questionable employees are somewhat smaller
with small businesses.
b. They are less susceptible to bullying issues with large clients.
c. They are likely to have more respectful and less contentious relationships with clients
and customers.
d. They are more likely to experience morally imperfect behavior.
19. Based on self-reporting in one study, from where did middle managers find that
most pressure to write fraudulent internal reports originate?
a. customers and clients
b. their superiors
c. themselves
d. employees seeking more resources
20. Which of the following is perhaps the easiest way to quantify the costs associated
with unethical behaviors?
a. interviewing defrauded clients
b. looking at lawsuits
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c. surveying employees to determine work hours lost
d. comparing revenue of ethical companies to unethical ones
21. Indira’s financial services company knowingly financed high-risk securities during a
time when all their competitors were doing the same, and like others, they were caught
in the process. Over the next decade, what is likely to be the most quantifiable cost to
the company?
a. fired employees and associated severance packages
b. lowered budgets for projects beginning the year the unethical conduct occurred
c. lowered employee morale
d. ongoing legal defenses
22. What conclusion about ethical corporate behavior can be drawn from the lawsuits
and payouts that firms such as R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Philip Morris continue to be
subject to?
a. Specific employee actions are more costly than a culture of unethical behavior.
b. Even if upper management initiates unethical behavior, lower-level employees often
pay the highest costs.
c. Just because an organization’s behavior is legal does not mean there will not be
ethical and financial costs.
d. State and local governments can exact steep costs even from international
corporations.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
23. Angela works as a hiring manager at her firm. She does her best to hire ethical
employees. What cost, which includes the loss of company time, may be directly
incurred by her organization if she hires untrustworthy employees?
a. theft
b. damaged reputation
c. customer disloyalty
d. legal
24. Harold was caught lying about his worked hours on a time sheet, admonished, and
allowed to stay on at the company. What type of company cost related to Harold will rise
now that the incident has already occurred?
a. costs due to loss of company time
b. public reputation
c. monitoring costs
d. lost salary costs
25. There is a high level of mistrust between construction owners and contractors.
When these two groups must work together on a project, this high level of mistrust is
going to raise what cost in particular?
a. reputation costs
b. monitoring costs
c. direct costs related to theft
d. legal costs
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26 According to one study, sixty-three percent of the average corporation’s market
value can be attributed to ______.
a. quality of product
b. reputation
c. share price
d. market share
27. Kamilah runs a medium-sized real estate agency in her hometown. After some
clients reported violations, it became public knowledge—and was printed in the
newspaper—that the company inflated its closure numbers with fake sales. The most
direct reputation cost for Kamilah’s company will be ______.
a. employees leaving the company
b. governmental sanctions
c. an inability to hire quality employees
d. lost business
28. When it comes to the costs of unethical behavior, the Volkswagen (VW) emissions
scandal demonstrates that companies can ______.
a. commit unethical actions while trying to act ethically
b. legal protection can shield upper management from the costs of unethical behavior
c. seriously underestimate the costs of unethical behavior
d. sometimes commit major ethical violations and not suffer a loss of reputation
29. What affects approximately thirteen percent of U.S. workers and costs an estimated
$23.8 billion annually?
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. poor customer–employee relationships
b. pressure to lie
c. employee theft
d. abusive supervision
30. What has research shown about the value Americans place on the ethical nature of
their employer?
a. A minority of Americans consider an ethical culture a very important component in an
employer.
b. The majority of Americans do not consider ethics when looking for an employer.
c. Most Americans would like to work for an ethical company but do not consider it a
priority.
d. A vast majority believe it is highly important to work for an ethical company.
31. What is the relationship between ethical behavior and financial performance?
a. Ethical behavior is seen as an aid to financial performance.
b. Businesses have a choice between financial performance and ethical behavior.
c. Ethical behavior has little impact on organizational performance.
d. Businesses prefer the short-term benefits of unethical action.
32. Which of the following statements about the relationship between corporate social
responsibility and corporate financial performance is accurate?
a. Research has demonstrated a slightly negative causal relationship—greater social
responsibility causes lower (but not low) financial performance.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. No direct relationship can be shown, but social responsibility should be pursued for
its own sake.
c. Companies in developing nations show greater return on financial performance for
corporate social responsibility than companies in developed nations.
d. Research increasingly shows a positive causal relationship between the two.
33. What is the most likely cause for an individual to take a job at an unethical
organization over an ethical one?
a. greater opportunity for personal enrichment through rule breaking
b. belief that workload will be easier/smaller
c. individual ignorance about ethics
d. much higher pay and benefits
34. Natalia is a millennial searching for a new job. If she is in the statistical majority,
what would be the most important factor for her in choosing a company to work for?
a. ethical culture/operation
b. salary
c. company reputation for financial success
d. schedule flexibility and work/life balance
35. Two companies produce different proprietary versions of the same product. The two
versions are very alike in quality and effectiveness, but the product from the company
with a strong reputation for ethical performance costs slightly more. Given statistical
research findings, what will most Americans who want this type of product do assuming
they are familiar with the two companies?
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a. Base their purchase on convenience and disregard ethical reputation.
b. Base their purchase not on ethics or price but solely on user reviews.
c. Pay the higher price for the product from the ethical company.
d. Pay the lower price for the product from the company with no reputation for ethics.
36. What does research show about Wall Street investors’ response to new accounting
laws requiring financial transparency?
a. They seek to invest in companies they believe will be most talented at avoiding the
provisions of such laws.
b. They do not factor it into their calculations because such laws are applied across all
companies.
c. They react poorly because they know companies will be less capable of maximizing
profits.
d. They respond favorably because investors prefer higher ethical behavior in
companies in which they invest.
37. Which can help build a culture of ethical behavior in a business?
a. Tell employees and managers to act ethically.
b. Make a list of reasons why ethical behavior is good for the bottom line.
c. Financially incentivize ethical behavior.
d. Create harsh punishments for those who act unethically in the workplace.
38. Human nature can be best defined as the ______.
a. sum of personality and how a human interacts with others in a community
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b. balance of an individual’s ethical and unethical actions
c. moral, psychological, and social characteristics of human beings
d. degree to which a person seeks individual or collective gain
39. Which of the following is a component of the “born morally neutral” philosophy of
human nature?
a. Prior to birth, the mind exists in a spiritual realm.
b. Kindness is part of the human DNA.
c. Children have an innate “moral sense.”
d. Newborns have moral capacities.
40. In the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, what stops the cycle of reincarnation?
a. the choice to do good
b. achieving an equal balance between immoral and moral behavior
c. birth into a good being
d. achieving a state of enlightenment
41. Janele is three years old. While playing with another child, she takes the juice from
the other child’s hands and drinks it herself. How would Socrates or Plato have
interpreted this action?
a. Janele might have known taking the juice was wrong, but she would have learned
about that wrongness from the culture around her.
b. Janele already knew in her soul that taking the juice was wrong (she was born with
this knowledge) and chose to do it anyway.
c. Janele was born good, so she must have learned this behavior from a corrupt adult.
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
d. Janele was born with inherited sin, which manifested in the theft of the juice.
42. According to the “born good” philosophy of human nature, a person is imbued with
______ from birth.
a. a conscience that represents pure goodness
b. a soul programmed with both goodness and sin
c. inherited sin that must be rejected
d. a “tabula rasa”
43. What do the “born good” and “tabula rasa” approaches to human morality have in
common that the other approaches lack?
a. Humans must relearn after birth what they already knew before birth.
b. Humans have a “conscience” that is basically good.
c. Soul is joined to the body before birth.
d. Unethical or immoral behavior must be learned from others after birth.
44. Other-suffering is a group of emotions related to what concept of human morality?
a. character
b. virtuous habits
c. moral sense
d. ethical imperatives
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
45. How do Hindu and Buddhist beliefs about human moral imperfection differ from
those of Roman Catholics and Protestants?
a. They believe moral imperfections come from God, not from original sin.
b. They believe moral imperfections comes from previous humans, not from original sin.
c. They believe the soul joined to the body is perfect at birth and learns immorality.
d. They believe the soul joined to the body is not imperfect at birth.
46. Duanna steals candy from the grocery store even though she knows it is supposed
to be paid for. If she was an adherent of Locke’s ethical philosophy, she would likely
explain her actions as the result of ______.
a. God
b. culture
c. inherent conscience
d. her soul prior to birth
47. What common characteristic of moral development is found among children and
adults?
a. a desire to avoid pain
b. a desire to make others happy
c. a need to be taught a sense of justice
d. an inherent good or bad nature