There are many challenges when playing the role of a manager in any capacity at a business. Managers need to be able to make informed decisions that can have financial or personnel impacts, they need to fully understand and implement all organizational policies, and they need to manage and drive employee performance. Managers are in a state of perpetual assessment. Performing these tasks in one country and one culture is challenging enough, but from an ethical point of view, there is a pretty solid line when it comes to areas such as discrimination, customer relations, and employee interactions here in the United States. There are organizational policies in place which are relatively standard across industries, as well as local and federal laws that many of these are based on. The challenge for managers in the global market is that the cultural differences impact behavior of employees, and it can be difficult to manage an ethical issue the same here in the United States as you would internationally. Using discrimination as an example, businesses here in the United States have standard workplace discrimination policies regarding fair treatment of all workers regardless of race, color, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Using gender as an example, in the United States women have an equal right to work and are expected to be treated the same as their male counterparts, and sexual harassment is taken very seriously. In some European countries, it is not uncommon for
Learning Outcome / Section 1: Understand the specific responsibilities of middle managers in enabling an organisation to achieve its goals
The United States has laws that affect the hiring practices of all country based companies. Regulations of federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Labor protects employees in the United States from discrimination to wages. Other Countries may not have the same protection for its citizens as an example. Although U.S. based organizations would not be bound to the wage laws of other countries, they are usually morally bound to ethical practices by which they establish core principles that are filtered down to their employees. Jeopardizing this standard of ethics would have a broad based effect on the organizations overall effectiveness considering a platform of which to maintain a standard that all employees can act on behalf of. Compromising ethics and social value could present major public relation issues. A perfect example of this would be the Hershey Corporation. The Hershey Corporation of the United States is North America’s largest chocolate producer, however at one time most of its cocoa was purchased from West African Nations. These Nation’s had a very poor record of labor fairness and was reported to employ children in long and unsafe working conditions. Although this was against Hershey’s published core values, the company sought refuge in the fact that none of these children were employed by the Hershey Corporation and therefore claimed plausible deniability. A public relations campaign ensued which prompted the corporation
Understand the specific responsibilities of middle managers in enabling and organisation to achieve its goals
I think being ethical in a diverse workplace is the most difficult challenge many organization face today. Leading a group of culturally diverse individual is both a challenge and an opportunity for leaders. The challenge is to create a new work environment that most inadvertently lead to organizational change and social awareness. While the opportunity is having a competitive advantage among other related organizations to address and resolve cultural issues and problems. However, with every organization jumping on the bandwagon of global expansion, ethical behaviors are often compromised.
Every organization in the world, regardless of its varying location geographically all have one thing in common. It is the fact that the core of every decision made, every policy that is written, every company for which they choose to support and do business, and every product or service offered follows the guidelines and beliefs for which the companies’ ethics and culture are built upon. It is not to say, however, that these ethical practices and cultural beliefs are definitive and widely accepted. But what it does suggest is that each individual operating in a business setting runs in to the chance that the ethical practices and established culture may conflict with ones very own personal beliefs. Therefore, determining which dilemma, if any, can be overlooked to the point of tolerance versus that of which is completely prejudicial is a decision that only the impacted individual may conclude.
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
Hosmer suggests to managers that making decisions on an ethical or moral level that these social and cultural influences must be considered. It is also offered that human beings judge standards of behavior according to a implemented and modified criteria based on a set of adopted and adapted moral criteria, based on education, professional occupation, nationality, social class and religious affiliation and that it is not enough for a manager to just “reach a decision on what he or she believes to right and fair” to benefit some and harm others (Hosmer 2011,
The primary sources for the facts about the ethical case above are from governmental factsheets. Apparently, the government has established rules and laws which focus on ensuring a comfortable workplace environment for all employees in an organization. The government has done so by outlining the minimum workplace requirement that managers must follow to ensure equality and fairness for the employees.
When we are called upon to make decisions, several factors are taken into consideration before this decision can be made. Depending on the type of decision, such factors could be cultural beliefs, personal beliefs, and organizational beliefs. We have come to realize that there are fundamental challenges in trying to apply ethical principles in a cultural and organizational environment. Each culture has unique distinctions in values, which may or may not be considered ethical by each individual within society. These differences in culture and personal beliefs influence any decision, whether personal or professional, of any individual. Certain
Many HRIS doesn’t cater to all different cultures, in fact most of them only have the common values of the United States and several Western European nations. “This is unfortunate, because even though they may be well-intended, organizational practices often will have diminished effectiveness if they fail to consider differences in employees values”(Gueutal,2007). Cultures plays a big part in people’s life’s and the way they live them and having a HRIS that is designed to be “one system fit all” might lead to employees not feeling accepted or comfortable with the organization. All different cultures has their views on work ethics and narrowing it down to a system that allows only the values of some can lead to miss applicants and miss opportunity
What some might perceive as being unethical in one country might be perfectly acceptable in another. “In addition to demographic diversity, cultural diversity introduces challenges to managing ethical behavior, given that cultures differ in the actions they view as ethical.” (The Role of Ethics and National Culture). Therefore, I would provide additional training tailored to their specific cultural setting while emphasizing the need to comply with the company’s vision as a whole. Within my HR department, there would be a need for a special international code of ethics unit that would focus on learning the different cultures of our locations and how to ethically incorporate them into our company’s core ethic model. That means providing the necessary training to ensure that all managers familiar with the ethics for the market in which they operate and train their employees accordingly and in accordance with the company’s
The four functions of a manager are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. These are key elements that managers must understand to run a successful organization. I will view each concept as well as their roles to acknowledge how these functions have been related to my personal experience in the work environment. Behind the scenes of a manager, they spend an equal amount of time planning so that he or she can successfully achieve the leading and controlling functions. These functions are standard for any industry that is striving to maintain a strong organization. While reviewing this paper, try to think of the four functions as a method that is established to build on each other. The four functions must be performed efficiently, and when done correctly, an organization will reap the accomplishments from a well-defined plan. My own experiences of how the four functions operate illustrates that each role requires a manager to devote time and patience in order to ensure that the main principles are achieved.
Works ethics guides the behavior of the work force. All firms and businesses have a set of rules or guidelines influencing or guiding their organizational behavior. Further, policies that provide guidance on ethical behaviors in are influenced by different factors across nations. Thus, the workforce of nations subscribes to work ethics which possesses or exhibits some similarities as well as differences. The differences could be brought about by the uniqueness in the cultural background of workers in different countries (Beng-Huat 200). Furthermore, the political systems that form the foundation of governance in the respective countries have far-reaching effects on ethical policies enacted in the country. In summary, intuitional, political, economic, religious, societal and philosophical notions influence the evolution and emergence of a business enterprise in any country. The interaction of these factors brings about the various similarities and differences in work ethics in different countries. Hence, the United States, Malaysia, and Singapore possess some similarities and differences in their work ethics.
Review financial statements , sales or activity reports to measure productivity or to be able to know if reduced of cost is needed or program improvement,
I remember a conflict in which I were involved during my adult nursing II (med-surge) rotation at Northside Hospital. One of my colleague nurse student shared with me her concern about a procedure performed by her preceptor which was different than the procedure technique taught to us in class from the nursing book. She realized that the required steps were not fallowed, but she was afraid to make any comment to her preceptor because we were warned not to do so (conflict avoidance) by our instructor. It is something that create an intrapersonal conflict to the nursing students, because to maintain quality care is a professional responsibility and all nurses are obligated to report instances of clinical incompetence. Keeping in mind that patient care is the number one concern and meet the standard is mandatory and necessary (Yoder-Wise, 2015).