Table of contentsFacts of the caseEthical questions Was Wells Fargo wrong or not? What is the root cause or source? How could this have been avoided? Works Cited In today's society, scandals affecting large corporations are discovered and discussed quickly through the use of the media. How a company responds and resolves the problem can harm its financial results and growth. In the following essay, we will discuss the ethical issues at Wells Fargo and how the scandal could have been avoided. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Facts of the Case In 2008/2009, Wells Fargo imposed a company-wide quota on the opening, or cross-selling of services, on new customer accounts by employees. However, it was discovered that to meet the quota, employees had started creating fake accounts for their customers. These “free” accounts promised by employees to customers were actually premium accounts, Wells Fargo premium accounts come with high fees. These large fees lead to excess accounts and those excess accounts lead to bigger problems, such as ruining a customer's credit lines. Ethical Issues The most obvious ethical issue with the Wells Fargo scandal of 2008/2009 was the loss or abuse of trust, which resulted in the loss of integrity of Wells Fargo employees. The loss of honesty due to personal incentive had an effect on the company as a whole. Incorrect decision-making issues chosen and followed by employees and not consumers lead to a decline in Wells Fargo's reputation and morals. Was Wells Fargo wrong or not? Wells Fargo employees were wrong to lie, create and open false accounts, and hide the fact. that they were doing it to receive an incentive. Piazza & Jourdan (2018) recognized that without publicity, an organization's misconduct may or may not change membership in the organization, meaning that if undetected, employees will stay to reap the benefits of their salary. Carberry, E.J., Engelen, P., and Van Essen, M. (2018) found that the costs of corporate misconduct start with the cost of replacing employees and can result in reputational penalties, which may be linked to decline of a business. stock prices and loss of stakeholders. The entire Wells Fargo account opening scandal was systemic in the sense that it affected the entire company and was not caused by a single individual. What is the root cause or source? The knowledge and distribution of incentives to employees for cross-selling services and accounts began the biggest problem in the Wells Fargo scandal. The choices made were made company-wide so that all participants could benefit. How could this have been avoided? First, by not offering an incentive for quota purposes. When you create a reward, but do not monitor how it was obtained or earned, then you begin to enable employees to engage in unethical business practices. Even more so, when Wells Fargo executives discovered there was a problem with fake accounts, they had to shut down the program, announce the problem, and fix it before it got worse. Companies faced with findings of misconduct attempt to limit disclosure of problems to limit external damage. For..