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Whistle blowing competition
Recently students around the UK have been exposing whistle blowing, bribery and
misrepresentation and suggesting ways to combat such malpractice in the future
as part of JABE’s ‘Money & Morals’ Competition – the first Business Ethics
competition in the UK sponsored by Canary Wharf Group Plc.
This competition is most timely especially in the light of
a report released last week that a middle class crimewave is sweeping Britain,
with undetected and often unreported forgery and fraud costing up to £14bn a
year - nearly five times that of burglary.
Recent research
More than 60% of people in England and Wales admitted in a Keele University
survey that they had padded an insurance claim, paid cash to avoid taxation or
kept the money when given too much change. "We think that these illegal, unfair
and shady practices that are committed by consumers and business alike are very
important for our understanding of the morality of our society," said Susanne
Karstedt, a criminologist at Keele University.
The "crimes" were committed at the kitchen table, from the home computer,
from call centres and office desks, in supermarkets and restaurants. The lesson
was that a market society was not inevitably an honest one.
"We think that these illegal, unfair and shady practices that are committed
by consumers and business alike are very important for our understanding of the
morality of our society," said Susanne Karstedt, a criminologist at Keele.
"How citizens and consumers and business - small and large scale - act in the
marketplace and when they deal with government services or pay their taxes is
the bedrock of attitudes which resulted in the Enron scandal and a number of
other high level cases."
Money
and Morals competition
15 – 18 year old students of all faiths and cultures around
the UK have entered the ‘Money & Morals’ Competition which is ideal as part of
the government’s push for more ethical decision making and citizenship education
in schools. The competition challenges students to examine moral issues
experienced during their work experience, part-time work or Young Enterprise
Company. The students will also suggest ethical principles that might benefit
the company in the future.
Crimes such as taking something from the office or asking a
friend to bend the rules might involve only minor damage, but set up a vicious
cycle. For more than a decade insurers and the health services have complained
of increasing fraud, small tradesmen reported that customers fraudulently tried
to make them responsible for damage; retailers have seen themselves as victims
of customers who took unfair advantage of generous offers and terms but most
surprisingly 40% of retail crime is committed by retail employees. Conversely,
consumers claimed they were victimised by their insurance companies, were sold
useless insurance, were defrauded by small print clauses and were charged for
bogus repairs and used parts sold as new.
Professionals of tomorrow
Such a competition enables the
businessmen and women and professionals of tomorrow to examine their current
attitudes to unethical business practices. If such attitudes are not challenged
early on in schools then the results of the survey mentioned above will become
increasingly more worrying in the years ahead.
The
winning students and their schools will receive a cash prize and a certificate
at an awards ceremony at a high profile business premises.
Top 10 'white collar'
crimes
in
England & Wales
Paid cash to evade tax
34%
Kept money when
overcharged 32%
Taken something from work
18%
Avoided paying TV licence
11%
Wrongly used identity
cards 11%
Padded an insurance claim
7%
Asked official to break
the rules 6%
Claimed wrongly for
refunds 5%
Not disclosed faulty
goods 8%
Deliberately misclaimed
benefits 3%
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