CAM Professional Ethics & Standards 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An administrative manager discovers a close friend on her team has been padding expense reports. What is the most ethically appropriate first action?
- Ignore it since the amounts are small
- Quietly ask the friend to repay the money and stop
- Transfer the friend to another department to avoid conflict
- Report the violation through the organization's established procedures (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Report the violation through the organization's established procedures
Professional standards require managers to address violations through official channels regardless of personal relationships.
Question 2: Which situation best illustrates a conflict of interest for an administrative manager?
- Attending an industry conference paid for by her employer
- Approving overtime for an understaffed department
- Awarding an office supply contract to a company owned by her spouse (Correct answer)
- Recommending a longtime vendor with the lowest competitive bid
Correct answer: Awarding an office supply contract to a company owned by her spouse
A conflict of interest arises when personal or family financial interests could improperly influence business decisions.
Question 3: A vendor offers an administrative manager two tickets to a professional sports game during an active bid process. What should the manager do?
- Accept the tickets but give them to an employee
- Accept and disclose it after the contract is awarded
- Accept only if the tickets are worth less than $100
- Decline the gift and document the offer per company policy (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Decline the gift and document the offer per company policy
Gifts from vendors during active procurement create the appearance of impropriety and should be declined and documented.
Question 4: Which practice most strongly promotes an ethical organizational culture?
- Requiring annual signatures on the ethics policy
- Posting the code of conduct in break rooms
- Leaders consistently modeling the behavior expected of employees (Correct answer)
- Increasing penalties for ethics violations
Correct answer: Leaders consistently modeling the behavior expected of employees
Research consistently shows that leadership modeling ('tone at the top') is the strongest driver of ethical culture.
Question 5: An employee reports suspected fraud to her administrative manager. What is the manager's primary obligation?
- Investigate the accused employee personally before telling anyone
- Keep the report confidential and take no action until more proof emerges
- Confront the accused employee immediately in a team meeting
- Escalate the report through proper channels and protect the employee from retaliation (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Escalate the report through proper channels and protect the employee from retaliation
Managers must route fraud allegations to the appropriate function while ensuring the reporter faces no retaliation.
Question 6: What distinguishes an ethical dilemma from a routine management decision?
- It always involves a violation of law
- It can be resolved by consulting the employee handbook
- It only occurs at the executive level
- It involves a choice between competing values or obligations with no clearly right option (Correct answer)
Correct answer: It involves a choice between competing values or obligations with no clearly right option
An ethical dilemma forces a choice between legitimate but conflicting values, unlike decisions with a clear correct answer.
Question 7: An administrative manager learns confidential salary data during a payroll audit. A colleague asks her to share a peer's salary. The manager should:
- Share it only verbally so there is no written record
- Share it since salary transparency benefits everyone
- Refuse, because the information was obtained in a position of trust (Correct answer)
- Ask the peer for permission and then share the exact figure
Correct answer: Refuse, because the information was obtained in a position of trust
Information gained through privileged access must be kept confidential and used only for its authorized purpose.
CAM Professional Ethics & Standards 2
An administrative manager discovers a close friend on her team has been padding expense reports.
What is the most ethically appropriate first action?