A grey area that I have seen and experienced in the business-world deals with how management executives represent their company to potential shareholders, customers, and other employees. There are conflicting principles that are involved when it comes to giving a "pitch" about the outlook, status, and opportunities of an up-and-coming company. On one hand, management wants to be as optimistic as possible to potential buyers and creditors to show that they are worth doing business with. On the other hand, there is a fine line when it comes to "puffery" and when truth gets blurred into unreasonable opinions and unlikely outlooks.
For example, If a company is standing in front of a venture capital firm and is asked the question about its growth prospects, management wants to let them know that everything will fall into place and they will land all these large contracts. However, in reality, management knows that the likelihood of all these events are very slim and their optimism turns into deception because they are representing something that is not very likely to occur.
This is a very difficult ethichal dilemma that must be faced in balancing optimism with reality. You want to stay positive, but at the same time be reasonable.
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