Ethics
Introduction
It is important to study business ethics because unethical behavior can sometimes cause undesirable consequences. An example of such consequences that had already become classical is the crisis of 2008 when ethical misconduct of AIG, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and some other companies brought down the global economy.
Ethical issues had lately become a major point of concern. Ethical misconduct, such as conflicts of interests, abusive behavior, bribery, producing defective products, accounting fraud, harassment or employee theft are often taking place in different organizations.
This paper is devoted to the research of ethical issues and resolving ethical dilemmas.
1. What concepts or thoughts have you learned from our study of ethics that you did not know before?
Interestingly, National Business Ethics Survey showed that ethics misconduct more often occurs in large organizations with more than five hundred employees. Moreover, seventy seven per cent of senior management employees reported observed misconduct while only forty eight per cent of nonmanagement employees reported violations and abuse.
Surprisingly, many companies involved in different business activities from production to healthcare faced ethical dilemmas in their activity. A worthy solution of the ethical dilemma is important from several points of view: pragmatic, strategic and ethical.
I got to know that there is a difference between social responsibility and ethics. Thus, social responsibility could be philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic.
Economic responsibility is the primary function of any business is to produce goods or provide services which are needed by customers while making profit. Some activities are prohibited by the law, such as child pornography. So, the profit could not be derived from illegal or immoral business activity.
Legal responsibility suggests that any business has to be conducted in accordance with current laws and government regulations.
Ethical responsibility means doing right things beyond legal responsibilities.
Philanthropy responsibility prescribes participation in activities which promote human welfare and make donations of time, products and money.
Ethics concepts include honesty, fairness and integrity. I was familiar with all of these concepts because it seems to me that anyone should be aware of these core ethics concepts. These three ethical concepts relate personal characteristics while social responsibility concepts relate abiding social rules.
2. Why do we need to respect and try to understand the ethics of those who believe differently from us?
Globalization is a distinctive feature of the contemporary business environment which makes amendments in business processes. The organizations interact with a great number of quite different people who are their investors, suppliers, shareholders, employees, customers, community members and government agencies. It is impossible for anyone to stay away from this communication process.
As business is often conducted within diversified companies, finding paths of proper ethical behavior is crucial for the parties.
Another reason for understanding the ethics of other people is the link between ethics and financial side of organizational performance. Various researches and business cases demonstrated that establishing ethical reputation among customers, employees and public in general was paid off. In order to build up better ethical reputation it is essential to examine the stakeholders’ interests and sometimes simply act as socially responsible society member. Understanding ethics of those who have different values and views is important for development greater employees’ commitment, greater investors’ trust, greater customers’ satisfaction, and, as a result, better financial performance.
The research conducted by the Millennium Poll showed that sixty per cent of 25,000 surveyed citizens in 23 countries tend to focus on social responsibility rather than brand name or financial reports when forming impressions of a company.
Google which is considered to be one of the most prosperous companies of the world shows extreme care for its employees who, in their turn, are making extreme efforts for exceptional company performance.
3. What principles and concepts from our textbook best resonate with you?
Despite of the fact that I have read some books related ethical issues before, I made several discoveries regarding ethical behavior after reading the textbook. I think that the fifth chapter “Ethical Decision Making and Ethical Leadership” is the most influential part of this textbook.
First of all, I got to know that ethical decision making depends on individual and organizational factors. It was new for me that ethical or unethical behavior is not just a question of “positive” or “negative” nature. It was also interesting to know that making decisions depends on gender, age and nationality. I tied decision making with upbringing and personal incentives before.
It was also a bad surprise for me that some companies encourage and support unethical behavior. I think that this approach is outdated and ethical behavior should be the main priority for both individuals and organizations. Another interesting fact is that some of the employees resolve ethical conflicts by following directives of a superior.
The most informative part of the fifth chapter is the part devoted to leader’s functions in the organization, leadership styles and habits of ethical leaders.
I learned that the roles of leadership in corporate culture are as follows:
- making ethical codes available and understandable for everyone;
- be an example of ethical decision making for other people;
- maintain commitment from superiors;
- monitoring and assessing ethical climate in the organization;
- provide training and check ethical awareness among personnel;
- provision of confidential resources;
- promoting ethical standards by all means available;
- constant revision and improvement of ethical standards;
- ensure implementation of ethical standards.
I also discovered that leadership styles influence ethical decisions. I knew only four leadership styles before reading this book. Now I know six styles of leadership: coercive, authoritative, facilitative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. I discovered that authoritative leader can create a strong positive performance climate and the pacesetting leader could create negative climate due to setting high standards.
The information about habits of strong ethical leaders was quite new for me, namely:
- ethical leader must have strong personal character;
- acting adequately and properly in any situation is the main priority of an ethical leader;
- ethical leader aims to be proactive;
- ethical leader always considers the interests of all stakeholders when making a decision;
- ethical leader is transparent, he or she is an active participant in organizational decision making process;
- ethical leader is competent manager who has a holistic view of the organizational ethical culture;
- ethical leaders respects and promotes organizational values.
I think that this information will help me form strong ethical personality and make ethical decisions easily.
Conclusion
Studying ethics is valuable for several reasons: it helps recognize ethical issue and offers approaches to resolve business ethics conflicts. Learning ethical issues that organizations of various businesses encountered could be a great help in making right ethical decisions in personal business practice. Developing ethical leadership habits will help improve personal ethics and become a good leader.
