Case Study: John Smith At Horizon Trading Company

John Smith, a new employer from the states, moved oversees to Russia to start his employment with Horizon Trading Company. Throughout his training, John was instructed to do unethical practices as Regional Supervisor so the company can make money. One unethical practice he was instructed to do was giving or accepting bribes for contracts. Another unethical practice that John was instructed to do was tax evasion, to prevent Horizon Trading Company pay a lot of taxes to the federal and local governments. John also gets troubled at Horizon’s retail location where he is instructed to turnoff the sales register to prevent showing a high amount of sales.

The important decision maker in this situation is obviously John Smith. He needs to decide whether to perform these unethical practices or leave the company and work for an employer who does not request their employees to perform unethical practices. The stakeholders involved are the employees, the investors, the government, and the country of Russia. Practicing tax evasion can lead to someone’s imprisonment, falsifying the accounting books, and lack of money to the country and its economy.

This is absolutely an ethical decision because not only are these practices not the right thing to do but they are also illegal. On top of ethical decisions John has to make, at the Horizon’s retail location, a Russian Tax Inspector walks in on John while the sales registers are turned off. Now John needs to decide what he is going to tell the tax inspector and he must face the consequences for that action.

The community stakeholders can really be affected be these unethical practices. The government can lose funds from the corporations that are operating in their country and liable to pay certain amount of taxes. A county like Russia does not have laws that protect people and their welfare, so going to prison for tax evasion can really be physically and mentally hurtful