Ethical Decision
An ethical decision in business refers to a choice made by an individual or organization that aligns with moral principles and values. It involves considering the impact of the decision on various stakeholders and choosing a course of action that is fair, honest, and respectful. Ethical decisions are essential for maintaining trust, reputation, and long-term success in business.
7 Key excerpts on "Ethical Decision"
eBook - ePub- Alessia Amato, Nicholas Clarke, Malcolm Higgs, Ramesh Vahidi(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Project Management Institute(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 5 Ethical Decision Making Introduction There has been considerable focus on unethical behavior and decision making in recent years, as concerns regarding their impact and consequences have been laid bare through successive corporate scandals and questionable business practices (Muolo & Padilla, 2010). Within the academic community, this has spurned interest in how individuals arrive at Ethical Decisions. An Ethical Decision is a decision “that is both legally and morally acceptable to the larger community” (Jones, 1991, p. 367). The first review of studies in the area of Ethical Decision making was published just over two decades ago when Ford and Richardson (1994) summarized much of what was known to that point about factors influencing how people make Ethical Decisions. Since then, three further reviews have appeared in the literature, reflecting increasing interest by researchers in seeking to gain a better understanding not just of factors that influence whether Ethical Decisions are made, but also how Ethical Decisions are made—i.e., the Ethical Decision-making process itself (Craft, 2013; Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000; O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2005). Individual and Situational Factors That Affect Ethical Decision Making Much of the early work in the field has focused on identifying individual factors that shape how people see or interpret ethical or moral dilemmas. Chief among these have been gender, age, education, employment background, nationality, religion, personality, and personal values (e.g., Brady & Wheeler, 1996; Kohut & Corriher, 1994; Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1990)...
eBook - ePubManagement Ethics
Placing Ethics at the Core of Good Management
- D. Melé(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...These are extreme situations, but ethics in managerial decision-making is not limited to those circumstances where the ethical content is particularly evident. Neither is Ethical Decision-making only about dilemmas or a reduced number of issues. If ethics are a dimension of every human decision and action, ethics and the corresponding ethical judgment should be included in every decision. It is worth adding that decision-making is the core activity of managers at all levels of an organization. Depending on their position, managers will have to contribute to or make their own decisions on matters of strategy, tactics and operations. There are also small decisions to make on minor questions that crop up in the course of their daily work. Some decisions are made quickly, but others take a long time. In business, decision-making commonly follows a process oriented towards solving a problem regarding something unsatisfactory or achieving an improvement. If Andrews affirmed that the values of a company’s leader are evident in every strategic decision, we can say that the values of the decision-maker are present in every decision he or she makes; and not only their values but also their virtues, which as noted previously are values internalized as traits of character. Applying the values of a company’s leader, generally the decision-maker, is obviously not a guarantee of making sound moral judgments, nor ultimately of making good Ethical Decisions. This would depend on whether or not such values are truly ethical values and also on the correctness of the ethical reflection on a particular situation. In this respect it is worth pointing out that “ethics in managerial decision-making” can involve two different meanings. One is descriptive, based on behavioral studies, while the other is normative, and therefore prescriptive...
- JozefÍna Hvasová(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- EDUCatt(Publisher)
...Chapter 3 Ethical Dilemmas in the Business After presenting some moral and ethical principles (concluding the previous chapter with practical moral principles based on the Christian Catholic tradition) we will move now to certain ethical situations which may occur in business work. It is clear that business decisions contain both business and ethical considerations. In this chapter, we will discuss what an ethical dilemma in business is and we will consider some of the ethical issues that are emerging in business today. Under circumstances of intense competition and the need for expediency, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur may be faced with certain dilemmas. It may even be that entrepreneurial managers may sometimes inadvertently overlook the ethical elements of business decisions, or worse still, choose to ignore them. To make a right decision in these particular situations, it is necessary to know how these issues arise from the demands of specific stakeholder groups. Then we will name specific types of ethical dilemmas in business world. 3.1 What is an Ethical Dilemma in Business? Whenever a manager or a businessman asks the question “What is the right thing to do?” he or she is searching for the morally appropriate action. If he or she seeks an applicable rule, norm, value or example to follow, then he seeks to apply normative ethics. Ethics in business means making the right choices – often there is no apparent one right way and one must choose the best choice in the circumstances. Managers are sometimes faced with business choices that create internal tensions between ethics and profits, or between their private gain and the public good. Any decision where moral considerations are relevant can potentially give rise to an ethical dilemma...
eBook - ePubCulture, Conduct and Ethics in Banking
Principles and Practice
- Fred Bell(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Kogan Page(Publisher)
...This is an example of a dilemma. In this chapter we are mainly concerned with ethical dilemmas, which typically require a choice to be made between two or more apparent moral imperatives, and by choosing one course of action to satisfy one imperative it results in violating the other. In a broad sense it may be said that there are two approaches to decision making – intuitive or rational. Intuitive decision making is based primarily on feelings, emotions and ‘gut instinct’ while rational decision making requires the use of information, analysis and logic to come to the preferred outcome. As bankers, all our stakeholders would expect decisions to be made objectively and rationally and decision-making models are common across most firms. Given the complexity that underpins most ethical matters, the concepts that underpin decision theory can be very useful in this context. This theory provides a formalized and logical structure for making decisions and recognizes that decisions are often required in situations where there are 1) uncertainties because of a lack of complete knowledge about the issue, 2) multiple parties involved or who may be impacted, 3) complexity around the nature of the issue in question, and 4) alternative courses of action, each with differing impacts. While there are a number of approaches that may be employed, they generally follow this sequence: Define the problem. Identify key stakeholders. Gather data. Generate a range of possible solutions. Assess the risks and impacts associated with the alternatives. Select the solution that best addresses the key considerations. Validate the solution. Implement the solution. Review the outcome(s). Consider the scope for process changes to prevent recurrence. Ethical Decision-making criteria In making Ethical Decisions, it’s best to adopt a structured framework, as we have just summarized...
eBook - ePub- Aric W. Dutelle, Randy S. Taylor(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Once the ethical dilemma has been identified, an analysis as to ones course of action can be undertaken. Making a Decision When one is confronted with an ethical dilemma, necessitating a decision, one should attempt to work through a decision-making process. A sample process is outlined below: When attempting to make a decision, analyzing the issue or problem is typically the best place to begin. The next step is to consider the facts involved. For instance, one should ask what is beneficial? What is necessary? At this point, it is helpful to consider perspectives that others might hold regarding the issue at hand. If time and place allows for it, it is suggested that opening the issue or decision up for debate might help. Asking questions of others and receiving feedback from those outside of the decision process may aid an individual to discover novel solutions or enable unique perspectives to present themselves. It is not uncommon for decisions to be made without adequate time to stop, ask for input, analyze the information, and think about the repercussions of the decision. It is in these situations that individuals should rely on their personal character as a guide for the decision-making process. After the initial process, there may be multiple decisions that may emerge. Each decision-making scenario that an individual is confronted with is unique and, thus, requires a thorough look at the options that present themselves. At this point, an individual would be wise to weigh the pros and the cons of each potential decision outcome. What are the values of each action compared with the consequences that may occur from each option presented? The application of situational ethics may assist an individual in rationalizing decisions or actions and, thus, assist in the decision-making process...
eBook - ePubOrganizational Behavior for School Leadership
Leveraging Your School for Success
- Leslie S. Kaplan, William A. Owings(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...How much weight should a principal give to an influential Dad who wants to handpick his child's teachers, despite the school's goal to give every child the opportunity to work with its most effective educators? Should principals assign highly effective, experienced teachers to classrooms with 12 high-powered achievers or to classrooms with 28 struggling students who need the most talented instructors to help them catch up and keep up with rigorous grade level work? These decisions—and others—may not make local headlines, but their impacts affect students' opportunities to learn what they need to advance academically and (eventually) economically and socially. In this chapter, we will first consider James Rest's basic Ethical Decision-making theory that underpins many organizational ethics theories. 4 Next, we consider theoretical (and empirical) views about how factors in the issue, the individual, and the environment/context influence Ethical Decision making and behavior in organizations. A discussion of sensemaking-intuition theories of Ethical Decision making, dual process theory, and the theory of developing ethical expertise in the workplace follow. We conclude by discussing the implications for educational leadership of these Ethical Decision-making theories. The Basic Ethical Decision-Making Process People make decisions all the time. They make Ethical Decisions when they face a situation that requires a response or a solution that when performed freely, may harm or help others. 5 Behavioral ethics refers to the individual behavior judged according to generally accepted norms of moral or ethical conduct (the terms moral and ethical are commonly used interchangeably)...
eBook - ePub- Simon Robinson, Paul Dowson(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- CIPD - Kogan Page(Publisher)
...Whistleblowers are frequently ostracised or fired, leading to a fear of negative consequences (Miceli and Near, 1992). Underlying many of these factors is the dynamic of individuals taking their ethical cue from the surrounding culture, and especially where unethical behaviour is associated with success. Nearly a third of respondents to one US business ethics survey (Trevino and Brown, 2004) said that colleagues condoned the ethically questionable practice of a leader who achieved success. All of these considerations suggest the importance of developing an explicitly ethical culture, but also a critical culture, in which the ethical views are not accepted without question. In Chapter 6 we return to how such a culture can be developed. an Ethical Decision-making framework The stress on descriptive theories of ethics does not of itself solve the problem of what is right or wrong. Descriptive ethics can, however, begin to help us work out how to think ethically and make decisions that take account of the key issues. James Rest (1994), for instance, develops Kohlberg’s thinking, arguing for a complex, multiple-stage decision- making process. This involves: moral awareness (taking in the situation and the key ethical issues) moral judgement (deciding that a specific action is morally justifiable) moral motivation (the commitment or intention to take the moral action) moral character (persistence or follow-through to take the action despite challenges). To explore Ethical Decision-making further we now return to the case study at the beginning of the chapter. This was an actual case. Analysis of the facts as outlined shows key elements for an Ethical Decision-making framework, involving data-gathering, value clarification and management, option assessment, planning with stakeholders, and audit. data-gathering The starting place of ethics is reflection on the situation...
