Ethics in the Underage Beauty Pageant Industry
Let’s be honest here: can you think of any industry less associated with ethics than one in which little girls are forced to work long hours every day only to be tarted up and treated as sexual objects for review by a panel of judges? Beauty pageants not only subject children to treatment that many people consider cruel and unusual; they encourage parents to treat their daughters like objects for the amusement of onlookers. And between dying their hair, slathering them with makeup, having their faces and bodies waxed, and shellacking them with makeup, it seems that the mothers who put their young girls up to this never stop to think about the potential harm they could be doing or the fact that they might be going too far. Honestly, what’s next? Botox injections and tummy tucks? When is it too much? Read more
The Debate over Employee Benefits
Forget for a moment the legal, ethical, and practical concerns associated with whether or not you decide to offer employee benefits. While you will certainly have to weigh these issues before you choose, as a business owner you really only need to ask one question: how can I keep my employees happy? Unfortunately, this is not a query that very many businesses make these days, probably to their own detriment. One of the easiest (and in many cases, least expensive) methods of ensuring job satisfaction for employees is to offer a comprehensive benefits package. Read more
Are Colleges Really Preparing Students for the Working World?
These days, attending college is a big deal. With the ongoing recession creating long unemployment lines, the future is uncertain enough, but colleges are also pretty costly and they’re harder than ever to get into, what with more applicants, shrinking budgets, and stricter qualifications for admittance. So students entering into these institutions of higher learning have the right to demand that they not only emerge from four (or more) years of schooling with a degree, but also armed with the skills and knowledge they’ll need to secure a job and succeed at it. For this reason, it is important that prospective students do the research necessary to ensure that they have chosen the right school. But how can you tell? Read more
Eco Home Building 101
Building contractors bear a heavy weight of responsibility. They are, after all, creating the structures in which people live their lives, which means they must concern themselves with matters such as functionality, safety, cost, and more. And for those contractors who take on the additional burden of building in a manner that complies with eco-friendly sensibilities, there is an onus to deliver a product that is not only suitable for a family to live in, but also does less harm to the environment. For this reason, it is imperative for green building companies to take several things into consideration. Here are just a few of the basics. Read more
The Future of Accounting
There’s no denying that people have become a little wary of using accountants. Although anyone with some money to their name wants to make it work for them (and those with quite a bit of savings certainly want to protect it), it can be difficult for people to trust a stranger with their hard-earned money. And unfortunately, accountants often get lumped in with the types of money-managers that have been making headlines for stealing the assets they are supposed to be sheltering (can anybody forget the Madoff scandal?). Even though the majority of accountants are completely above-board, operating their businesses in an ethical fashion in order to do everything they can to help their clients, still there is a general mistrust of anyone who makes money-handling their profession. But what can honest accountants do to combat this image and regain the confidence of the public? Read more
Proper Etiquette in Business Promotion
As an employee, it is your duty to present your company in the best light possible in any and all business dealings. If you want to complain about business practices in the privacy of your own home, with unassociated friends and family, then you do so at your own risk, but to voice these kinds of opinions in the presence of colleagues, clients, and so on will almost certainly result in your expulsion from the company at some point. So it doesn’t really matter how you feel about the company you work for; as an ambassador in business dealings, it is your duty to represent your employer in a positive light (as long as you keep cashing those paychecks). This is simply proper business etiquette. Here are just a few ways in which you can appropriately promote your business. Read more
Protecting Your Company from Clients
You often hear about corporate greed and the many ways in which companies scheme to bilk their customers out of hard-earned dollars. But there are two sides to every story. There are also plenty of businesses out there that have lost revenue due to both scamming customers and clients that simply fail to follow through, causing companies to expend resources without any payoff. So if you find yourself in a position by which clients are actually causing you to lose money (beyond the average losses expected for advertising, PR, and so on), then you need to take steps to ensure that your business continues to run smoothly, even if it means finding new clients. Read more
Legal Malpractice: Making Your Case
Whether you’ve decided to hire an accident attorney, a divorce attorney, a criminal attorney, or any other type of legal representation, you no doubt expect that along with the exorbitant cost for their legal expertise will come a certain amount of ethical behavior on the part of your lawyers. If, for example, your legal counsel is somehow negligent in the performance of his duties, you have the right to sue for legal malpractice in order to recover your costs (and possibly more). However, malpractice is not an easy thing to prove, so you’re going to need to understand both what constitutes legal malpractice and the steps you need to take in order to make your case. Read more