Conflict of Interest

Question: Define the notion of a Conflict of Interest. What are the potential ethicaldilemmas that might arise from having a conflict of interest in the workplace,and what strategies might you consider employing to avoid them? Answer: Introduction Conflict of Interest (CoI) can be defined as a situation in which an individual has two competing interests that are at odds with each other (Cremolini, 2013). The interest may be financial or non-financial, and are not encouraged at a work place since they risk corruption of organizational values. One of the most common example of conflict of interest seen at a workplace is employee-manager dating. This influences the decision making capabilities of the manager, sub ordinance of the employee and demotivates other employees due to favoritism making the avoidance of manger-employee dating as one of the most commonly followed HR policies at workplaces (Abreu, 2014). Conflict of interest not only intervenes with the values of the organization, but also demotivates employees and damages the reputation of the organization. Hence, it is one of the main reasons why the organizations try to identify potential conflict of interest and subside them and also take stringent measures to avoid sit uations that may cause them. Political and Ethical Dilemmas caused by conflict of interest Political and ethical dilemmas caused by conflict of interest can be defined through several situations. A few examples are mentioned below Political dilemmas generally rise when there is need of transfer of power (Cipriani, 2012). Say, a senior position opens up in the office and the manager who makes the decision is associated to one of the potential candidate due to financial interest. In case of conflict of interest, even if the rest of the candidates are better qualified, the employee who offered the manager a financial gift would be selected. Conflict of Interest gives rise to the more commonly known office politics, which should ideally not exist. A position open should be filled in by the best candidate suitable for the role and the manager making the decision needs to be unbiased. Imagine a situation where an employee has to fired by a manager due to incompetency, but the employee has a close network with the senior management of the organization. Though the manager has no potential gain, the threat of jeopardizing ones own job is high. This would force the manager to turn a blind eye to the employees incompeten cy leading to loss of integrity within the organization (Amor, 2012). Ethical dilemmas are much close to political dilemmas. Most of the political dilemma situations are ethically challenged. Consider a company that pays the employee based on the number of hours spent by the employee in the 0organization. The employee however, conducts personal business on company time. The situation is a conflict of interest to the employee, as a potential financial gain is in line and also it is ethically incorrect. A situation where a senior employee misuses power to take credit for the work done by a junior employee is also a conflict of interest and ethically incorrect. The same stands for harassing employees for financial or non-financial gains. Strategies to avoid Conflict of Interest The best strategy to avoid conflict of interest is to set up through policies that clear define what an employee should or should not do. The employee has to declare their personal relationships with other employees of the organization (Friedlich, 2012) Employee should avoid favoritism of all kinds and be unbiased when making organizational decisions Employee should not be a part of the recruitment or promotion committee when the potentially candidates are directly related to the employee Employee should not accept or expect any gain either in financial or non-financial terms through conflict of interest In case a CoI situation rises the same has to be informed to the respective management for further action None of the organizational assets can be used for personal gain of the employee An employee should not work for a competitive company during his term at the organization and up to six months post separation (Chesterford, 2014) A committee has to be established to identify potential CoI and deal with them. Conclusion CoI has become a potential issue in at workplaces and hence, establishing rules and policies that can guide the employee on how to avoid and report potential CoIs would benefit the organizations integrity and reputation. A dedicated committee that deals with issues of ethics and CoI should be declared by organizations to make sure that all the CoIs are dealt with little or no impact on the organizational functioning. References Abreu, D., 2014. Conflict of interest. Amor, D.J., Burgess, T., Tan, T.Y. and Pertile, M.D., 2012. CONFLICT OF INTEREST. European Journal of Human Genetics, 20, pp.595-596. Chesterford, L., 2014. Conflict of interest. European Journal of Human Genetics, 1, p.2. Cipriani, V., Matharu, B.K., Khan, J.C., Shahid, H., Hayward, C., Wright, A.F., Armbrecht, A.M., Dhillon, B., Harding, S.P., Bishop, P.N. and Bunce, C., 2012. CONFLICT OF INTEREST. European Journal of Human Genetics, 20, pp.1-2. Cremolini, C., Salvatore, L., Morvillo, M., Antoniotti, C., Marmorino, F., Maru, D., Kopetz, S., Boonsirikamchai, P., Agarwal, A., Chun, Y.S. and Wang, H., 2013. CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Am J Surg Pathol, 34, pp.1287-1294. Friedlich, A.L., 2012. Conflict of interest. Molecular Psychiatry, 17, pp.4-7.