Managing Legal and Ethical Principles

Revised Edition

Elearn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136383441
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Stuck for ideas, inspiration or just want to work differently? Management Extra brings all the best management thinking together in one package. The books are practical and well structured to provide an in depth treatment of these management topics.

Titles in the series:
* Business Environment
* Change Management
* Development for High Performance
* Effective Communications
* Financial Management
* Information and Knowledge Management
* Leadership and Management in Organisations
* Leading Teams
* Making Sense of Data and Information
* Managing Markets and Customers
* Managing for Results
* Managing Health, Safety and Working Environment
* Managing Legal and Ethical Principles
* Managing Yourself
* Positive Working Relationships
* Project Management
* Quality and Operations Management
* Reaching Your Goals Through Innovation
* Recruitment and Selection
* Reputation Management

The series fuses key theories and concepts with applied activities to help managers examine how they work in practice. The books are created with individuals in mind. They are designed to help you improve your management
skills. Management Extra can also be used in conjunction with management programmes of study aligned to standards.

Each of the books has case studies, self assessments and activities all underpinned by knowledge and understanding of the frameworks and techniques required to improve performance. Management Extra provides managers and trainers with a handbook for action and development.

"You found it – what a find! A practical resource packed with all the relevant theory and suggested activities to support your professional development. An essential resource to have at your fingertips, jump in and enjoy."
--Russell Jeans, Learning and Development Manager,
ntl

"All the essential concepts are here, presented in an easily digestible format with lots of up to date case studies and
references – but, most importantly, with plenty of thought provoking activities and self-diagnostic exercises to make the learning personal and transferable."
--Peter Manning, Head of Training & Development, News International Newspapers Ltd

The business of ethics

Ethics, in its simplest sense, is about learning the difference between right and wrong, and then choosing to do the right thing. But in practice this can be more difficult than it sounds. Most of the ethical dilemmas that confront people at work are not a straightforward matter of ‘Should James fiddle his expenses?’ or ‘Should Helen lie to her boss?’

Take the following for example, what would you do?

1. 
   After a two month search for a new researcher, you offer someone the job. At a conference later that week you bump into an ex-colleague who tells you he's on the job market. He's head and shoulders above the person you've selected.
2. 
   You are eager to manage a major project that's just been signed off. You ask your manager but she says it's been lined up for your colleague. Your colleague has told you in confidence that she's four months pregnant.
3. 
   Your manager has told you that there are going to be wide scale redundancies in the near future but has asked you to keep it quiet. Meanwhile one of your team tells you he's about to buy a bigger house.
4. 
   A Portuguese developer in your team has asked to move into sales support. He fully fits the person specification but you're concerned that customers won't understand his limited English.
5. 
   A client offers you a lucrative contract if you can complete the project in two months. You think it might take three but the organisation is down on sales and needs all the business it can get.

At work and in all walks of our lives, we are constantly asked to make value judgements and select from alternatives that are neither ‘wholly right or wholly wrong’. We start this book by exploring the central role of ethics in shaping organisational behaviour.

In this theme, you will:

1. 
   consider why organisations need to focus on ethics in the work environment
2. 
   explore how organisations adopt an ethical and values based approach to governance
3. 
   explore how organisations gain commitment to their corporate values
4. 
   reflect on your own values and how in line they are with those of the organisation you work for
5. 
   consider how you as a manager can encourage ethical practice in your team.

The rise of business ethics

Business ethics is about providing people with a framework of values such as integrity, trust, courage and fairness to guide their action at work. Its growth as a management discipline is fairly recent and has been influenced by some key factors:

1. 
   changing management practice
2. 
   the need to enhance corporate reputation
3. 
   a shift from shareholder to stakeholder management.

Changing management practice

Organisations have changed radically in shape and size over the past two decades. They have internationalised aggressively. They have become leaner, faster and fitter and their leadership and management systems have changed in parallel.

Decision making is no longer the preserve of those in power. Management by instruction has yielded to a faster decision making process which is characterised by a shared vision and the responsive judgement of employees at all levels of the organisation.

With this greater empowerment comes the need to provide guidance and support to help individuals make the right choice as they face difficult situations.

Protection of corporate reputation

Although the positive impact of globalisation on the developing world is evident, it has also raised serious ethical issues of corporate social responsibility.

In the early hours of December 3, 1984, a lethal mix of toxic gases from Union Carbide's pesticide plant at Bhopal leaked from its tank.

What followed was a nightmare. The killer gas spread through the city, sending residents scurrying through the dark streets. It was only when the sun rose the next morning that the magnitude of the devastation was clear. Estimates suggested that as many as 10,000 may have died immediately and 30-40,000 were too ill ever to return to their jobs.

The pesticide factory was built in the midst of densely populated settlements. Union Carbide chose to store methylisocyanate, one of the most deadly chemicals (permitted exposure in USA and Britain are 0.02 parts per million), in an area where 120,000 people lived.

Source: Bhopal Information Centre

More recently a series of governance and accounting scandals in 2002, including Enron and Worldcom, have unsettled the corporate world, damaged stock markets, and caused investors, regulators and the public...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of activities
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Series preface
• Introduction: Legal and ethical principles
• 1 The business of ethics
• 2 Principles of law
• 3 The law of contract
• 4 Negligence and product liability
• 5 Employment law
• References