Manual for Azerbaijan companies Rena Safaralieva



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Anything else?  



 

5.  A computer firm is in an urgent need of a qualified sales manager. Sales volumes have considerably 

decreased for the last six months, because the previous manager failed to do his job well.  The deputy 

director of the firm is looking for a candidate to fill this position. An applicant,  holding a similar position 

in a competing firm, is the best of all candidates. He is ready to take this job for a higher salary, which 

you are ready to pay. However, during the interview he negotiated his salary and offered to bring a CD 

with information on all the customers of his current employee.  

 

a)

 



Would you give the job to him? If yes, is it ethical towards your competitor? If no, is it ethical 

towards your firm, losing revenues?  

b)

 

Can you refer to “all is fair in love and warfare” principles?  



c)

 

What other ethical considerations might be involved?  



 

 

Sanar Mammadov  



 

CHAPTER V. LYING AND DECEPTION IN BUSINESS  

 

Forms of lying 

It is sad to recognize that in the modern world such values as faith, truth, and honesty are being eroded. 

Increasingly often, people encounter deception, fraud and falsification. Newspapers report such stories 

every day. In business and in ordinary life people try to benefit through lying. Why do people lie? Of 

course, we will not study the psychological or philosophical roots of the problem. Our purpose is to 

reveal common forms and examples of lying in business and to study their consequences.  

  

The main goal of lying is to gain an advantage over the other party and to earn profit and influence in 



every day life or in business by withholding truth and falsifying information. People in the business world 

frequently resort to lying when trying to conclude a deal. Lying can be used to: conceal an objective 

reality (hiding the heart of the matter); make a realistic choice unclear (by creating deliberate obstacles to 

freedom of choice); represent a dubious affair as credible; apparently reduce costs; and artificially swell 

profits. Lying can take various forms:

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a)

 

Falsehood (bluffing) – false promises given to the other party in an attempt to present the non-existent 

as genuine.  

b)

 

Falsification – presentation of false information as if were truthful.  

c)

 

Deception – an attempt to force the opposite party to arrive at a wrong conclusion with a set of false 

arguments.  

d)

 

Withholding information – presentation of  only a part of the truth.  

 

A person trying to distort information should fully understand the potential negative consequences of his 



or her actions. In business, lying usually only yields short term benefits.  

 

 You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all 



the people all the time. (Abraham Lincoln).  

 

«Falsehood lacks the courage of its conviction.» (An Azerbaijan proverb).  



 

These expressions depict lying very well.  

 

The business world has very strict rules concerning lying. People who tell lies must understand that they 



could lose credibility in the eyes of those deceived, and that the deceived party might never again apply 

for their service. In addition, in business circles, reputation runs before a person, and a person who is 

known to have lied may find his or her future attempts to do business with other people doomed to 

                                                 

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Gizerman and R.J Lewicki,  Negotiating in Organization, Chapter 4, in  Lying and Deception, p.70, Sage Publishing House,  



1983     

 



failure. Such a person may be rejected not only by business, but by society at large, as no ethical norms 

tolerate lying.  

 

In some cases, lying can be justified. For example in a military scenario, use of false tactics towards an 



enemy, deliberate overestimation of military forces in order to mislead the enemy, and lying to get secret 

information on an enemy’s weak and strong points, can all be justified by ethical norms.  

 

Apart from lying, other examples of unethical behavior include the breaking of promises, cheating, and 



stealing.  

 

 



Breaking promises and defaulting on contractual obligations 

 

A promise is the consent of a person expressing his or her attitude towards a certain matter. In Azerbaijan

historically people took giving and fulfilling promises very seriously. The expression “a man’s word” 

shows how valuable a promise was. A person who broke his promise or took it back was not considered 

“manly”. All business activities at the turn of the twentieth century were based on “a man’s word”. 

Unfortunately, in the period of the so-called transition to a market economy, many people do not keep 

their word and even violate their written contractual obligations.  

 

Stealing  

 

No society tolerates stealing. Stealing involves the taking of somebody else’s property. In democratic 



countries private property is sacred, and stealing and trespassing are especially serious crimes. 

Embezzlement of state or corporate property is also not acceptable. It should be mentioned that, 

unfortunately, some people have become accustomed to stealing and will continue to do so, even if they 

are paid decent salaries. Should circumstances allow, they would steal even a minor thing for which they 

may have no need.  

 

Fraud and cheating 

 

Fraud and cheating, like lying, aim to deceive. However, in contrast to lying, fraud and cheating imply 



certain actions. A person encountering fraud or being cheated risks being deceived. For example, you 

have purchased a car and the odometer indicates 40,000 km. However, in reality, this indication has been 

falsified by the car seller, and the car’s actual mileage is 140,000 km. This is sheer cheating.  

 

Fraud and cheating can take numerous forms. Specific examples are as follows: deliberate 



misrepresentation of taxes payable; falsification of business information (e.g., exaggeration of business 

expenditures); giving a short weight at a bazaar; extension of the expiry date of perishable goods

provision of false evidence to receive an inflated insurance claim; giving false information to obtain a job; 

etc.  


 

Fraud and cheating, like lying and deception, undermine trust in human relations. A swindler will not 

enjoy his or her benefits forever and eventually will get caught. What is worse, he or she will lose 

credibility, which cannot be restored in the future. The realities of Azerbaijan provide us with many cases 

of fraud and cheating. Many swindlers who abused the trust of people, and in some cases took advantage 

of their ignorance, have either been caught or have had to flee the country.  

 

Financial pyramid schemes from the early days of perestroika, such as Vahid Bank with its unbelievable 



rate of interest, or Minaret Group, which planned a fraud with privatization vouchers, have quickly 

disappeared. Another example is the group of swindlers who earned a lot of money on the so-called 

“beads swindle”. Recently,  a  band of swindlers has repeated this swindle and was caught, in Bishkek.

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Company’s intellectual property  

                                                 

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 Beads Swindler is Arrested, Echo, 19 June 2003  




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