Making business decisions should be simple, right. However, relationships with stakeholders can make business decision complicated. Stakeholder relationships are a key factor to running a sustainable organization. In business as well as life there are always those grey areas in decision making. This is where ones Morals and ethics come into play when making decisions. Is there a moral or ethical dilemma that can arise when exposing stakeholders to whom you have close personal or professional ties to? How do you overcome these dilemmas? Business leaders must assess the risk and tradeoffs when tackling the ethical dilemma of whether or not to expose a stakeholder.
In order to understand the problem of wheatear or not to expose a stakeholder there are key things one needs to know and understand. The first is a stakeholder; who is anyone “with an interest, claim, or stake in the company” (Hill, Jones, & Schilling, 2015). Stake holders can include but are not limited to: customers, employees, owners/investors, suppliers, competitors, creditors, communities and government agencies and regulators. Relationships with these stakeholders should be looked at as intangible assets. “By effectively managing relationships with increasing the opportunities and lowering the risk for each relationship, a company can enhance the quality of its intangible assets and therefore increase the overall valuation of the business” (Friedman, 2014). In addition, we need to understand ethics;
What is ethically responsible management? How can a corporation, given its economic mission, be managed with appropriate attention to ethical concerns? These are central questions in the field of business ethics. There are two approaches to answering such questions. The first one is Milton Friedman’s shareholder theory of management and the second one is Edwards Freeman’s “Stakeholder” theory of management, two different views about the purpose and aims of a business.
The issue of ethical decision making has become more important in recent years for a variety of reasons. An understanding of ethical decision making in organizations is more significant to the development of organizational science. Managers engage in decision-making behavior affecting the lives and well-being of others. The individual responds to an ethical dilemma with cognitions determined by his or her cognitive moral development stage.
This article attempts to explain how personal, cultural, and organizational values play significant parts in decision-making. In addition, the foundation of ethical dilemmas can
Creating and defining my own ethical framework is essential in future success as a businessman, a leader, and a team player. As a business student, I have learned that it can be a very cut throat industry and in order to get ahead, at some point and ethical dilemma will undoubtedly be an obstacle I have to overcome. The way I handle these dilemmas can make or break my career; business ethics are a key part of earning and sustaining respect, trust, and a good rapport with both clients and competitors in your industry. Therefore a solid ethical framework is an important tool for me to have as a standard for handling these types of dilemmas so that I can grow successfully while staying true to myself and to
Management is often faced with ethical dilemmas that have no clear cut correct answer. In our case study, (1)Desperate Air, George Nash, Vice President of Real Estate faces a conflict of values similar to the CEO in Seglin’s article, “How to Make Tough Ethical Calls”. They both want to tell the truth and they want to protect their companies, their investors, their employees, and their own livelihood. Neither Mr. Nash nor the CEO conducted a through examination of the problem they faced. I believe the decision to remain silent made by both Nash and the CEO to be short sighted, based solely on short term profit, and would not have been the route I would have taken.
One tricky part of the job that human service professionals have to face in the course of their jobs is to make decisions pertaining to ethical dilemmas. Often, such decisions can be tricky because they trigger conflicts of interests between various stakeholders of the dilemma whereas human service professionals have their responsibility towards more than one stakeholder groups at the same time. This means they cannot violate the rights of one stakeholder in order to protect the rights of another stakeholder. Such decisions are often referred to as 'Right versus Right' decisions (Corey, Corey & Callanan,2005). This paper aims at evaluating the decision making process of human service professionals under situations facing ethical dilemma. The ethical dilemma being discussed in this paper involves the problem of
Today’s workplace in consistent with several diverse backgrounds, which include different aspects of a working relationships within an organization, including age, nationality, education, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and religion. Although the companies include the diverse backgrounds, upon entering employment, each individual brings their own set of values, goals, and perception of acceptable behaviors (Lankard, 1991). In respect to the organization, these multicultural individuals are asked to work together in obtaining the corporations goals and policies. However, in the workplace, several ethical dilemmas may arise, which is not limited to, downsizing employees, salaries, successful employing organization, these dilemmas are additional stress to a diverse working population. Resolving ethical dilemmas requires critical discussion, analyzing, problem solving, and decision-making (Lankard, 1991). Resolution cannot be completed with one or two individuals; this process needs to include all stakeholders, current, and future for legal and ethical purposes. Stakeholder’s views must be expressed and reviewed because it
In general ,the stakeholder approach may be more conducive to balancing a wide variety of corporate interests and thereby discouraging impropriety.Executives and boards should take the perceptions of both shareholders and stakeholders into account when formulating strategy and enunciate their stance in all organizational communications. Only within that kind of clearly delineated context, can managers be expected to make appropriate decisions. Indeed, some of the most successful businesses are those which have embraced stakeholder values for example Bodyshop. However, we see that generally, shareholder value
Management constitute amongst major components of a company, organization or a business. As such, management oversees employees interactions with their supervisors and also control of people within a particular organization. Also, it includes critical and ethical decision-making process so as to address various ethical dilemmas experienced by employees while undertaking their respective assigned duties within the company. Ethical dilemmas are hereby to stay as issues usually arise now and then and place a variety of options that bear different repercussions. Therefore, it calls for ethical and critical decision-making skills so as to make the most appropriate option that bears more benefits in comparison to other options presented. While making ethical decisions, it 's substantially important to play heed to a certain ethical decision-making theory. This would enable an individual making the decision to ripe best possible consequences rather than living to regret. Moreover, ethical decision making is typically important in business as making a wrong decision may result not only in huge losses but also poor relationship amongst colleagues and miserable life for employee(s) working in a particular company or business in question.
Ethics involve an individual's moral judgments concerning what is right and/or wrong. Individuals or groups of people are responsible for making decisions in an organization (shaw, 2008). Decisions within the organization are always emanate from the company's culture. However, the decision to act ethically and morally requires an individual judgment. Thus, members of staff are obligated to make decisions that reflect their right course of action (shaw, 2008). This involves rejecting the option that could lead to the greatest short-term gain. The leadership of most organizations stresses the need to adopt ethical behaviors and corporate social responsibility. Ethical dealings can earn the organization various benefits. For instance, it may attract more clients to the business thus boosting sales; employees could be motivated to stay longer in the organization thereby reducing recruitment expenditures. Ethical behaviors could also earn the business a favorable reputation that could attract investors. Categorically, a lack of social responsibility or unethical behavior may hurt the firm's reputation and scare away investors. Sales and profits could fall in the process.
Making consistently ethical decisions is difficult. Most decisions have to be made in the context of economic, professional and social pressures, which can sometimes challenge our ethical goals and conceal or confuse the moral issues. In addition, making ethical choices is complex because in many situations there are a multitude of competing interests and values. Other times, crucial facts are unknown or ambiguous. Since many actions are likely to benefit some people at the expense of others, the decision maker must prioritize competing moral claims and must be proficient at predicting the likely consequences of various choices. An ethical person often chooses to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.
Using 2 different companies as example, analyse and evaluate the ethical decision making process within a business setting.
All employees (including the company executives) should be guided by moral principles and ethical values when making decisions (Balc & Simionescu, 2012). The ability of executives to make ethical decisions can be influenced by their cognitive bias (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford & Griffith, 2015). Utilitarianism is one of the frameworks that can be used to address ethical dilemmas. Utilitarianism holds that decision makers should take alternatives that maximize the happiness of the majority of the stakeholders (Choe & Min, 2011 and Marques, 2015). This presentation will discuss how the 8-step ethical decision making process can be applied when addressing a dilemma using the utilitarianism framework. The presentation will also guide the executives of Toyota on how to address the negative publicity associated with the production of cars with faulty acceleration system.
The integrative model of social responsibility, which involves the stakeholder theory and moral minimum theory, and the philosophical ethical theory of utilitarianism are the most responsible approaches to business because they involve the standards of knowing who your actions affect, knowing how to help the most people possible, and knowing how to benefit those who are left out of the positive externalities of a business decision. This paper will discuss the implications of these theories in further depth and will look at a few business cases that demonstrate a failure to meet standards of responsibility.
Stakeholder-orientated framework, analyzing ethical problems on the basis of whom they affect: consumers, competitors, society as a whole •