Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Test Bank
CHAPTER 7: ETHICS TRAINING
Multiple Choice
1. What is the first step in enhancing the moral consciousness of employees, which is
itself an initial part of the ethical decision-making process?
a. raising understanding of mindfulness
b. teaching the spectrum of emotional responses
c. engaging in role-playing exercises
d. raising moral awareness and sensitivities
2. Which of the following is TRUE of the effort to raise moral awareness and ethics
reinforcement in the workplace?
a. Improving employee decision-making is a top reason for conducting ethics training.
b. Ethics training and reinforcement should be revisited at least once every five years to
be effective.
c. Publicly traded companies must disclose their code of conduct to shareholders
annually.
d. Federal sentencing guidelines require proof of ethics reinforcement in the workplace
to qualify for decreasing penalties.
3. A new business fails to prioritize ethics training for its employees. As a result, a low-
trust environment develops among the different departments of the business. Based on
management theorist W. Edwards Deming’s quoted thoughts about the importance of
trust, what might one predict will happen?
a. A culture of intense corruption will form, with most employees acting unethically with
respect to the customer.
b. Each department will pursue its own self-interest instead of the interests of the entire
business, and the business will suffer.
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c. The business’s profits and public image may rise to new heights, but internal
dynamics and employees’ happiness with their work will suffer.
d. The loss of trust will lead to a rapid confrontation with governmental ethics authorities
and a likely demise of the business.
4. How does the text define organizational trust?
a. Having a positive attitude that another member of the organization will be fair and not
take advantage of one’s vulnerability in a risky situation.
b. Being aware of, and approving of, coworker’s actions, beliefs, and attitudes with
respect to the organizational mission.
c. Free, fair, and regular communication by employers and managers in an organization
about their goals and practices to employees.
d. Accepting that other members of the organization will act in the best interest of the
organization as a whole and not out of self-interest.
5. An employee of a nonprofit organization has a trusting relationship with fellow
department members. A big component of this trusting relationship is remembering the
many positive working experiences with coworkers over that time. What dimension of
trust does this reference?
a. active
b. organizational
c. cognitive
d. emotional
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
6. Karl and Kit have worked together on the night shift at a manufacturing plant for 12
years. Karl is notified that quality control has concerns about the quality of Kit’s work
lately and has asked Karl to “keep an eye on” Kit. Because of the trusting relationship
that is shared by Karl and Kit, which action will Karl most likely take?
a. document the conversation with quality control in Kit’s personnel file and revisit it at
Kit’s annual review
b. move Kit to a different part of production so Kit won’t be reprimanded or fired
c. keep an eye on Kit’s work and report back to quality control
d. share the concerns raised by quality control with Kit
7. One can expect an increase in integrity in the workplace to result in ______.
a. greater variability in customers and suppliers
b. lower policy compliance
c. reduced organizational risks
d. higher level and functioning of office politics
8. Which of the following is a characteristic of superior ethics training?
a. flattening of the power relationship between management and nonmanagement
b. accountability for both management and nonmanagement employees
c. referral of misunderstandings to neutral third parties
d. reduced management credibility
9. Which of the following is TRUE of the current state of ethics training in the United
States?
a. Ethics training is now provided for over 85% of full time workers.
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b. All licensed professions require members to provide proof of ethics training to renew
their professional licenses.
c. All U.S. House of Representative members receive ethics training biannually.
d. Ethics training is common in many large organizations.
10. What type of employee receives ethics training most often across all professions?
a. managers
b. new hires
c. human resources department employees
d. chief executive officers
11. Why is ethics training of particular importance for the middle manager as opposed to
upper-level managers?
a. Middle managers, rather than upper-level managers are most often implicated in
ethics violations.
b. Middle managers are often inexperienced, and thus, they are in greater need of
instruction.
c. Middle managers are not involved in the overall ethics tone of an organization.
d. Middle managers are susceptible to ethics violations in an effort to meet upper level
management goals.
12. Why is ethics training just as important for long-term employees as it is for new
employees?
a. Long-term employees have more concrete views about proper behavior.
b. Long-term employees are less likely to try to set an ethical example for superiors.
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c. Long-term employees are in a better position to take advantage of ethical loopholes.
d. Long-term employees significantly shape the organization’s ethical tone.
13. Which of the following do ethics officers report as being the biggest barrier to
effective ethics training?
a. lack of interest by employees
b. lack of resources
c. unethical behavior by upper management
d. failure to train HR personnel
14. Camilla is the chief human resource officer and is in charge of ethics training for all
employees. The HR department lacks the funding for extensive seminars and trainers,
and most middle managers are not receptive to giving up their employees’ time for
ethics training. What is the best possible strategy in administering proper ethics
training?
a. Reduce the amount of ethics training–and reviews–to once every six months.
b. Invest in web-based ethics training for the company.
c. Provide a printed packet of ethics guidelines and best practices to each employee.
d. Delegate ethics training to the managers of various departments to be implemented
at their discretion.
15. Which of the following is a core weakness of most web-based ethics training
systems?
a. lack of nuance or creative thinking
b. lack of flexibility to meet employee needs
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c. not broad enough in range of issues covered
d. lack of timely feedback
16. What can supplementation with a web-based ethics program provide that a purely
facilitator-guided ethics program may not be able to?
a. helping unengaged employees to become more involved in their training
b. allowing employees to get out of their “ethics comfort zone”
c. more employee flexibility to research specific ethical issues
d. the ability to highlight contradictions or inconsistencies with certain ethics training
scenarios
17. Why might a company choose to hire an external consultant to facilitate ethics
training over an internal human resources employee?
a. too many competing roles assigned to the human resources employee
b. unwillingness of employees to speak honestly with a human resources employee
c. greater capacity for impartial judgment on part of the informal leader or outside
consultant
d. lack of training time available for human resources employee
18. Which of the following is the best way to begin a new ethics training discussion with
the goal of diffusing tension?
a. Engage in discussion of a non-ethics related subject to have employees better
understand each other.
b. Have attending employees talk about their own struggles with ethics in the workplace.
c. Review discussion guidelines and use the code of ethics, if one exists.
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d. Break attendees into smaller groups or pairs and have them engage in personal
introductions.
19. Which of following is typical of good guidelines for ethics discussion?
a. Keep dissent to a minimum.
b. Focus on the person making the statement.
c. Only one person speaks at a time.
d. Allow accusatory statements.
20. What should a confidentiality agreement signed by ethics training participants
stipulate?
a. The content raised during the training can be discussed among participants of the
training after training is completed.
b. Confidentiality of training discussion is recommended.
c. Violation of confidentiality will result in employment termination.
d. Violation of confidentiality can negatively impact performance evaluations.
21. What term does the text suggest an organization use for ethics training if using the
word “ethics” worries company leadership?
a. sensitivity training
b. team building
c. morality training
d. best practices
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22. In describing general guidelines for ethics training, what does the text recommend in
terms of characteristics or conditions?
a. Offer at least one mandatory ethics training annually.
b. Make ethics training sessions voluntary.
c. Offer at least one mandatory ethics training every six months.
d. Make ethics training sessions last between a half-day and a full day of work.
23. Ignacio has prepared a general outline for the upcoming ethics workshop for the
employees of a small company, but would still like to fine-tune the plans by determining
what would be most relevant for the audience. What should the first step during the
seminar be?
a. Give attendees a short quiz about a complex or nuanced ethics issue to serve as a
benchmark for measuring workshop learning objectives.
b. Give attendees a short quiz about a simple, straightforward ethics topic to establish
where they stand.
c. Ask attendees to privately describe the worst or most challenging ethics problems
they have encountered.
d. Hold an open discussion in which recommendations are solicited from attendees
about which topics they find most compelling.
24. Which of the following characteristics should most apply to the process of raising
moral awareness in a company?
a. never-ending
b. dependent on workflow
c. scheduled, preferably yearly
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d. brief
25. As described in the text, the web-based training system WeComply offers users a
scenario in which an employee witnesses an ethics offense, to which the system
suggests the answer is “Immediately report the incident to the co-worker’s supervisor.”
Which of the following best characterizes the text’s problem with this suggestion?
a. It puts the employee in the role of a supervisor.
b. It does not align with the circle of trust philosophy.
c. It offers no timeline for how quickly the incident should be reported.
d. The text suggests that the incident should not be reported at all.
26. Which of the following is one of the best methods for raising employee awareness
and encouraging a high-integrity work culture with ethics training?
a. Instruct employees in ethical issues common to other types of professions so they
gain a global understanding of what a high-integrity workplace might look like.
b. Instruct employees in the widest variety of ethical issues that they could potentially
encounter.
c. Instruct employees in the most common ethical issues they are likely to face.
d. Allow employees to guide their own training by instructing them only about ethical
issues they believe they are likely to face.
27. Which of the following is among the three most common complaints against small or
mid-sized CPA firms, according to the Journal of Accountancy?
a. failure to exercise due professional care
b. misappropriation of funds
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c. collusion with client for the purposes of tax fraud
d. general sloppiness of work for client
28. How does the “Ethical Culture” survey method of assessing an organization’s ethical
performance differ from the assessment method using a code of ethics?
a. It has employees share results of their assessments in small groups.
b. It has employees use a Likert scale.
c. It has employees suggest changes that would benefit organizational culture.
d. It is only used for organizations that lack a code of ethics.
29. How does the “Ethical Climate” survey differ from the other two most popular ethical
culture surveys/measures?
a. It focuses on the behavior of lower and middle managers instead of upper
management.
b. It does not primarily focus on the behavior of managers.
c. It is the shortest of the three measures.
d. It does not measure awareness of the organization’s ethics code.
30. Karen wants to complete an annual assessment of the organization’s ethics
performance over the last year and to establish a benchmark in order to design an
ethics training seminar for the first of the year. Karen wants to know mostly about the
behaviors of upper management in the company. Which of the following would be the
best choice?
a. Administer an “Ethical Climate” survey to employees in the company.
b. Administer a “Corporate Ethical Values” survey to employees in the company.
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c. Administer an “Ethical Culture” survey to employees in the company.
d. Administer a “Code of Ethics” quiz to evaluate company performance.
31. The ethics survey instrument called the “Self-Assessment and Improvement
Process” (SAIP) was largely influenced by which source?
a. the Institute for Local Government ethical standards
b. a broad-based survey of upper management at Fortune 500 companies
c. governmental/municipal codes of ethical conduct
d. the Caux Round Table Principles for Business
32. Who developed an organization-wide ethical assessment survey instrument
modeled after the Baldrige National Quality Program?
a. The International City/County Management Association
b. The Veritas Institute
c. The American Institute of CPAs
d. The National Association of Realtors
33. Which of the following is TRUE of Codes of Conduct?
a. Workshops should touch briefly on Codes of Conduct but not focus on them.
b. New hires are typically the most familiar with the code of conduct because it is part of
their new hire package.
c. A code of conduct is typically longer than a code of ethics.
d. A code of conduct usually offers just ten or so broad guidelines for proper behavior in
the place of work.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
34. Which of the following games does the text suggest as a fun model/process for
teaching the code of conduct in workshops?
a. Clue
b. Wheel of Fortune
c. Monopoly
d. Jeopardy
35. In the ethics training game developed by Lubrizol, what is a good first question for
the competing team?
a. Who is the organization’s ethics contact person?
b. What is the first step in the process for reporting an employee for a code of conduct
violation?
c. How often should a manager check in with an employee to discuss ethics issues?
d. Which of the following might qualify as a fireable ethics violation?
36. Which of the following examples constitutes embezzlement?
a. A cashier overcharges employees for their purchases and pockets the extra money.
b. A bank teller pockets a few dollars from the drawer during each shift worked.
c. A real estate agent omits underreports commissions on tax returns to owe less in
taxes.
d. A company donates large amounts of cash to various charities to reduce tax
obligation.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
37. What information in the U.S. Department of Defense ethics training programs
materials can be accessed by employees and is particularly important for teaching
about a code of conduct?
a. specific punishments leveled for specific violations occurring in the past
b. hypothetical scenarios that may incur punishments
c. interviews with managers about how they handle violations
d. accounts by employees who were disciplined after an ethics violation
38. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), what kind of
damage does fraud do each year?
a. Companies, on average, lose five percent of their annual revenue.
b. Companies, on average, have to fire or discipline 10 percent of their workforce
annually.
c. Customers are defrauded out of 10–15 percent of their investments or purchased
services annually.
d. Customers and clients lose roughly $200 billion annually.
39. How is embezzlement related to theft and fraud?
a. Embezzlement requires the cooperation of the company at large, whereas theft and
fraud are individual actions.
b. Embezzlement relates specifically to monetary gain, whereas theft and fraud are
more broadly about misconduct.
c. Embezzlement is a more specific type of fraud in which a person uses the privileges
of their employment to mislead or steal from a customer.
d. Embezzlement is a subset of theft and fraud that occurs specifically between an
employee and employer.
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
40. Which of the following is among the three most common types of embezzlement?
a. processing fraudulent invoices
b. defrauding the government out of tax revenue
c. cashing client checks into personal accounts
d. directing business toward clients with whom a personal relationship exists
41. Which of the following statements about fraud detection is accurate?
a. Customers and clients are by far the most common source of voluntary fraud
detection.
b. The average fraud lasts about six months before being detected.
c. Tips are the most common form of fraud detection.
d. Internal audits are a particularly inefficient means of detecting fraud and are
responsible for as little as five percent of detections.
42. In Steve Albrecht’s “Fraud Triangle,” how does “opportunity” differ from the other
two components?
a. It occurs less often.
b. It is more in management’s control.
c. It is more closely related to the specifics of embezzlement.
d. It depends more on the actions of the customer than of the employee.
43. Other than opportunity, what are the other two legs of Steve Albrecht’s “Fraud
Triangle?”
a. rationalization and ignorance of ethics code
b. motive and rationalization
c. ignorance of ethics code and lack of ethics enforcement
d. motive and pressure
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
44. The U.S. Department of Defense maintains an ongoing list of ethical violations and
corresponding punishments for use in ethics training. What is the purpose for showing
training participants the list?
a. to demonstrate that individuals are caught and reprimanded for code violations
b. to comply with transparency requirements of government
c. to reinforce the Department of Defense code compliance
d. to explain how changes in training affects ethical behavior
45. Shamar, a reliable and long-time employee, called off work due to illness. The shift
supervisor, a close friend of Shamar, does not record the absence as a sick day. What
violation has the shift supervisor committed?
a. maleficence
b. theft
c. embezzlement
d. fraud
46. Outside of, or before, the process of receiving ethical training, what would most
employees use to make decisions when an ethical challenge arises?
a. their manager’s advice or instructions
b. a printed code of conduct
c. their personal moral intuitions
d. advice from family or friends
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SAGE Publishing, 2021
47. An HR manager is conducting an ethical decision-making workshop for new
employees. After reviewing the critical thinking decision-making process, a fictional
ethical dilemma is introduced, possible solutions offered, and the group is asked which
answer is correct. One attendee offers a fourth possible answer. What should the HR
manager do?
a. Explain that proposed solutions which are not a part of the training are not helpful.
b. Ask other attendees what they think of the proposed solution and discuss.
c. Explain, briefly, why the suggested solution is not an option in order to save time and
keep the conversation focused.
d. Suggest that the solution might be viable and that employees must use their best
judgment in such situations.
48. In an ethical decision-making workshop, what activity should a facilitator introduce
after introducing the hypothetical ethical dilemma?
a. Have participants vote by secret ballot on the best solution, then tally the votes and
share the results with the workshop.
b. Have participants break out into small groups and discuss possible solutions.
c. Have participants write down a single sentence describing what they think to be the
best possible course of action.
d. Have participants write answers to the seven systematic rational ethical decision–
making process questions.
49. What is the value in quickly tallying the votes on possible solutions in an ethical
decision-making workshop?
a. It helps attendees understand the complexity of the issues by showing that not
everyone will agree on solutions.
b. It helps force those who make the wrong ethical decisions to take accountability for
bad choices.
c. It shows attendees that there can be many right answers to an ethical dilemma.
d. It allows for quick, multiple revotes to demonstrate how consensus can be achieved
with subsequent ethical training.