Introduction An ethical dilemma exists when a moral decision must be made between two or more possible scenarios. It is defined as a situation requiring a person to take action or not to take action based on moral grounds (Braunack-Mayer, 2001). In business, such dilemmas occur frequently as employees, leaders, and organizations, are faced with complex problems that may impact multiple stakeholders in various ways that are not always equal or equitable. A sound ethical decision begins with a set of core values that define the person facing the situation (UC San Diego, 2014). The following case study identifies an ethical dilemma, compares the use of consequentialist theory and virtue based theory to determine the best decision to make, and analyzes the results. Ethical Dilemma The head of Potter Candy Corporation, William Potter, is considering placing his eldest son, Henry as the CEO of the organization. …show more content…
Since the offensive behavior occurred, there have been no reports of sexual harassment by Henry. On the contrary, Henry has performed well over the last couple of years. He has demonstrated professional development and effective job performance as evidenced by the success of the Miami branch. There are four basic attributes of virtue based ethical theory that can be applied; generally accepted character values, nurturing of these values by the community, ability to utilize sound moral judgement, and exhibition of developed moral character over time (Dobson, 2007). Henry’s behavior towards Jill was completely inappropriate and devoid of a common standard of moral decency. However, his time in Miami has proven to be successful. Jill is not aware of any further harassment of employees. The environment Henry worked in and created produced increased productivity for the
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.
Ethical dilemma is the concept of a complex situation where there is no apparent answer or there are two competing solutions (Winch). It is unlikely that one will achieve the correct answer in an ethical dilemma as the answer will vary due to several factors influencing the person’s reasoning. Factors such as culture, environment, education, family, religion, age, gender, media outlets, etc. can influence someone’s point of view in an ethical dilemma. The case study, “Bankruptcy at the Philadelphia Inquirer” represents a dilemma with no clear or apparent answer.
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.
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
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.
Using 2 different companies as example, analyse and evaluate the ethical decision making process within a business setting.
An ethical dilemma is defined as a moral issue, where a situation has two equivalent undesirable alternatives and neither choice will resolve the ethical predicament.
An ethical dilemma is a conflict between two moral imperatives. There are five basic moral principles: the value of life, goodness/rightness, justice/fairness, honest/truth-telling, and individual freedom/autonomy. When a person is faced with an ethical dilemma, he or she is forced to choose the lesser violation of the two. Not only does this occur in everyday life, but authors also use this plot line in their novels. An example of an ethical dilemma novel is “The Hunger Games.” In fact, “The Hunger Games” contains several ethical dilemmas.
A few problems arise when one tries to make an ethical decision, especially as a leader. First, ethics may mean different things to different people. For example, my religious and spiritual beliefs are the foundation for what I deem ethical. However, for someone else, ethics might be based on laws or their own personal understanding of what is
Ethics and virtue have been a very contentious issue facing society for centuries. Many argue over the merits of various theories, each with its own philosophies and assumptions. It is this argument that has given rise to many popular and followed theories of ethics and virtues. The theories discussed primarily in this document include the virtue theory, utilitarianism, and deontological theory. Each is very distinct to the others in regards to its principles and assumptions regarding human behavior. Each however, has merit in regards to question of ethics and virtue, and how it should subsequently be valued.
The ethical dilemma is a situation by which it’s difficult to determine whether a situation is can be handled without disappointing both sides. Therefore, an ethical dilemma exists when the right thing to do is clear or when members of the healthcare team cannot agree on the right thing to do. Ethical dilemmas require negotiation of different points of view (potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall 2011pg 78).
Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.
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.
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.