The Editor of The World & I (1996) writes, "The Supreme Court has held that advertising, at least much of it, is protected by the First Amendment's freedom of speech provisions. Thus, advertising is an important and protected form of speech, similar to journalism or statements of political opinion. So, rather than reject advertising outright, we need to learn how to discern the acceptable and useful from the unacceptable and worthless. Besides, everyone actually does accept and use advertising--namely that which promotes products or services or causes that one favors."

Both the aforementioned cases reflect the loopholes and the weakening moral and ethical values in the corporate world. Nonetheless, the former case pertaining to the unethical practices of the Pepsi-cola franchise reveals that there are various firms that though realizing, knowingly commit crimes and conform to illegal and unethical practices. However, in the latter case, the management as well as the executives performed an unethical act, which they were ignorant of due to vague laws.

Consequently, the above discussion reveals that one of the major motivations behind performing illegal acts is the reward that is offered by the executives or the employers themselves to induce unethical behavior for personal gains in terms of huge profits by illegal means. It has been observed that executives who offer bribes to other parties involved in business dealings are rewarded for transgressing code of ethics and many a times righteous individuals are scared to let the cat out of the bag, fearing the dire consequences that might place their jobs in danger. Therefore, another apparent reason of unethical behavior in the workplaces that promotes illegal practices is the fact that employees at all levels are either directly or indirectly rewarded for unethical acts or harshly abandoned by the materialistic world for going against the norm of practicing evils.

"The firm and its employees were not guilty of criminal conduct; top managers pleaded no contest because the costs associated with litigation would have been greater than the fines, and litigation would have diverted management attention from firm operations" (Ronald: 507).

Another such case that underscores the need for better practices and more ethically sound business code concerned Harris Corporations. This firm had incurred huge losses, amounting to more than $500,000 when they were heavily fined for their fraudulent practices. But instead of pleading not guilty or contesting, the firm quickly and calmly "pleaded no contest to charges that it participated in a kickback scheme involving a defense department loan to the Philippines" (Ronald: 506). This was an irresponsible strategy to cover up unethical practices of the firm and the CEO explained it later in these terms:

S No. 2 long distance Company fraudulently overstated profits by nearly 7 billion dollars in last few years. Analysts, brokers and accountants moved like herds to promote their stock" (Royal Bank of Scotland). Enron was another major setback to the industry and economy when its u

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