Managing Ethics
Ethics are a set of moral values about what is right or wrong. According to (managementhelp.org), Philosophers have been discussing ethics for at least 2500 years, since the time of Socrates and PlatoBeing a manager, one deals with countless ethical dilemmas which makes his or her job challenging and complex (book). Managing ethics then refers to how a company ethically treats employees, stakeholders, owners, and the public which greatly affects the organizational performance. This paper aims at exploring the meaning of behaving ethically, how managers and organizations can achieve an ethical behavior towards the people and organizations in their environment, and tackles some ethical issues that managers often face
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Each of these models has its own ways of determining if a decision or behavior is ethical.
Managers deal with decision making in every single day of their job. Therefore, they need to make ethical decisions which would benefit their organization. An ethical decision is the one which a reasonable or typical stakeholder would find acceptable because it aids stakeholders, the organization, or society. An unethical decision is one where a manager would have to hide from others because he rejects all ethics that apply in a certain situation in order for him or the organization to benefit at the expense of society or other stakeholders. When manager are trying to determine whether their decision is ethical or unethical, they should ask themselves a certain set of questions. First, a manager should ask themselves if their decision falls in the accepted values or standards that typically apply. Second, they should ask themselves if they are willing to share their decision with all the stakeholders affected by that decision. Finally, managers need to ask themselves if the people with whom they have a strong personal relationship would approve of their decision. (book).
If an organization is too large, its managers may need to develop an overall ethical code which every employee should not break. Codes of ethics are formal standards and rules that managers can use to help themselves make appropriate
The survey was performed in 2010 involving members of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA). They focused on the evolution of business ethics by analyzing six other studies over a span of two-and-a-half decades. Members of the survey were ethics manager, but members on the previous studies were regular employees and management. The results of the analysis of the previous studies showed that ethics programs in companies during a time span of the 1980’s through the 1990’s was used to show social responsibilities and not necessarily to enforce it throughout the company. It showed that ethics programs now that companies follow ethical laws and they are motivated to be ethical. Another result of the study showed that ethics training at companies has increased since the 1990’s due to the passing of Sarbanes-Oxley and other laws directed at ethics. The passing of the laws in the early 2000’s has led to ethics being a major component of everyday
The author Robert Solomon argues that ethics has to an integral part with regard to business management. He does not believe that business management must include unethical or illegal methods to be able to succeed. Solomon preaches that business management is not as simple as obtaining revenue. “Businesses need to abide by fair policies and their owners have to be ethical in dealing with their customers” (Shaw p. 37). The author acknowledges that while illegal practices in business management could bring positive results at first, eventually the business is bound to fail. This is why Solomon recommended eight important policies that can help businesses in integrating ethics into their operations.
Past research has discovered that managers react to ethical dilemmas according to the situation. If specific values that are related to ethical behavior can be identified, they would offer strong tools for managers who want to retain high standards of ethical behavior in their society.
(Panza & Potthast, n.d.) Ethics is very important to a company’s success. Ethical behavior can bring benefits to a business. They can attract customers, which can lead to a boost in sales and profits. It can attract the right employees and increase productivity. It can also attract investors and keep the company’s share price high. Unethical behavior on the other hand can damage a company’s reputation and make it less appealing to stakeholders. It could also result in lower profits.
Ethics are values and principles that individuals use to govern his decisions and activities. Ethics are about moral judgment of an individual about right and wrong. In an organization, code of ethics refers to set of guiding principles and organizations use these principles in their policies, programs, and decisions for business. Within organizations, decisions are taken by groups or individuals and these decisions are influenced by the culture of the company. Decision making and relevance of ethics may also differ for nonprofit and for profit organizations. In contemporary business environment, organizations must have a clear ethical policy and implement it in proper manner. There are many social, legal and economic outcomes that company has to face in case of any ethical dilemma, so there must be a smart strategy to deal with ethical dilemmas. In this paper, we will address the ethics for nonprofit and profits organizations, ethical dilemmas being faced or faced by each of these companies and the outcomes of these ethical dilemmas. Critique of actions of each of these companies will be provided from the point of view of applicable philosophical theories of organizational ethics.
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.
The theme of this work is that managers constantly adapt to the social environments of their organisations in order to succeed. In such contexts, they have no use for abstract ethical principles, but conform to the requirements of bureaucratic functionality. What implications follow for the ethical leader in business?
A code of ethics/conduct is an important part of an organization. It clarifies the organization 's mission, values and principles, linking them with standards of professional conduct. According to CSUGlobal.edu (n.d.), ethics is the study of good and bad behavior and a person is acting ethically, they are doing what is right. Additionally, ethics require that a person conforms to a higher standard of behavior than the law requires. A code of ethics is an open disclosure for the way an organization operates and provides visible guidelines for behavior (ethics.org, 2009). Having a code of ethics is important as it guides decisions, at all levels, which creates a common foundation for which all decisions are based. As Ingram (n.d.) adds, it is important for any business because breaches of ethics can put companies in serious trouble with consumers, other organizations or government authorities. There is a prevalence of ethics codes in organizations all around the world; in the United States, according to Schwartz (2002), over ninety percent of the larger corporations have a code of ethics. By establishing a clear cut set of ethical standards, employees become aware of what the organizational standard is for ethical decision-making and the culture it strives to establish. No matter the type of organizational form, it is important to establish ethical standards.
In today's business and personal world, ethical decisions are made on a daily basis. Most of these decisions are based on company ground rules. The others are based on personal ground rules. All decisions can have a number of ground rules that help us determine whether our decision is ethical or unethical. Each decision whether it is based on company or personal ground rules will have its own set of implications. In the following paragraphs I will discuss the impacts of ethics on decision-making, discuss the elements of an ethically defensible decision, define what the ground rules are; what they could be and what they should be, discuss
In ethical responsibility we have to take care of many groups, organization and people as a whole. Managers have to take care of their employees, customers and society as a whole.
1) Choose one of these ethical theories and explain it as clearly as you can (highlight its key aspects):
Manage There are so many instances in life where ethics play a major role in decisions that we, as humans, make. Ethical decision making processes take place mostly when conclusions are reached that directly effect people, but what are ethics? The Random House-Webster's Dictionary of Modern English defines ethics as: The branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of actions and the goodness and badness of motives and ends. This paints a pretty clear picture of what it means to make ethical decisions. This sounds like if you just follow your conscience then it would be fairly easy to come up with the right verdict. There is only
Recently, most companies realize the importance of operating ethically and reasonably regarding surrounding environments. Most companies implement new systemic implementation of ethics like ethics' committee, codes of ethics, ethics audit which review and mentor the performances of ethics programs in the organization. There are several factors influencing ethical behavior like; the person, family influences, religious values, personal standards, and personal needs (see figure 2).
An institution that is consciously and deliberately ethically aware will play a valuable role in pursuing wider community and societal aims. Our staff and students should be enabled to handle the range of ethical dilemmas they will face in an increasingly multicultural society with global dimensions. It is necessary to make people aware of how valuable the ethics are, irrespective of the particular professional fields. Higher education should be regarded as an inherently valuable activity that sets out to benefit society. The relationships between the
In their personal and professional lives, people can and, unfortunately, sometimes do go against their moral and ethical standards. Ethical standards are what it means to be a good person, the social rules that govern our behavior. Ethics in business is essentially the study of what constitutes the right and wrong or the good or bad behavior in the workplace environment. A business is an organization whose objective is to provide goods or services for profit. The organization has a group of people that work together to achieve a common purpose. The moral challenges that these men and women face each day along with a whole range of problems that could occur, are why ethics plays such an important