Nyberg’s (587-598) article examples that the current workplace is riddled with problems that are ethical in nature, these do not occur in policy formulation or special occasions. They manifest themselves in the day to day activities. Therefore, ethical discussions are necessary to develop a practical concept ethics that will guide the staff in their daily activities. The developed set will reduce the occurrence of unethical conduct at the workplace by defining what ethical and unethical behaviors in the workplace are. The author investigates how societal phenomena are translated into workplaces. He focuses on how organizations respond to absenteeism due to sickness and other reasons, implementation of technologies and staff views on the same.
He identified that the traditional ethical theories are not functional in the current workplaces and times, because the universal regulations and standards are inflexible, unlike the modern day workplace (Nyberg, 587-598). Additionally, the traditional theories evaluated their ethicality with the outcome or the consequences while the deontology theory based itself on justice, duty, and rights. These are not keenly followed in the current workplace. The traditional approaches to ethics focus on whether an action would cause harm, was universally applicable as a law, respect human laws and was just. There are concerns that the use of legislation and policies will make the corporate institutions cease paying attention to the surrounding communities. That is because the laws are rigid and ought to be followed regardless of the happenings in the community. Enron, a company with an extensive ethical research, shows that it is one thing to have the codes in place and another to use them very few institutions adhere to their ethical codes (Nyberg, 587-598). There are concerns that the codes limit people’s awareness on the topic because adherence to moral codes does not guarantee that one conducts himself ethically.
The current workplace allows more interaction and communication, calls for facial and eye contacts when conducting business activities. Cooperation has proven vital for the businesses. There are a lot of changes occurring in the current workplaces. For example, in a Customer Care Call Center, customer care agents have to interrupt a client who stays in the line for too long. That is because the calls affect their statistics especially the average time that an agent stays on the phone with a client. Also, businesses have organized cooperation that allows them to rectify and cover up each other’s mistakes without reporting to their managers. These actions are not necessarily unethical. That is because they help solve problems that could have arisen if the errors were found, some workers may even lose their jobs. However, customers usually suffer from these type of challenges. For instance, interrupting a customer care call when a client wants further assurances leaves the client unhappy with the service delivery. Additionally, it can cause the agent to forget to get critical information from the customer as he is in a hurry to get over the call and on to the next one. These are examples of how ethics in the current workplace can be studied and conceptualized.
The use of practical wisdom is thoroughly explained. However, it makes the codes have limited usability while at the same time, practical ethics ensures immunity to universalization. However, that does not restrict people from making judgments on issues. On the contrast, it encourages judgment making that is bent on considering the social and material contexts of an event, and the judgment made.
Additionally, we realize that it is important to give people a chance to reflect on their actions and consequences. Such an action promotes a change towards ethical behavior. Another alternative to enforcing change is making rules that have to be followed and pressuring people so that they behave as recommended. However, law enforcement will not help people become ethical in their daily activities as there are those who will break them, or find loopholes that will ease their work (Inwood, 44). Therefore, it is better to let the change come from the people, that way; people will begin acting ethically whenever the chances present themselves.
Additionally, the world is developing, inventions are occurring daily, and it is impossible to have codes for everything. Additionally, situations that demand a clear-cut conduct ethic are few and far in between, leaving people with the need to make use of judgment if they are to behave ethically. Aristotle promoted the traditional ethics which were utilitarian and universal while focusing on justice. The current times demand thought and judgment before undertaking an exercise. One has to consider carefully the consequences of taking or failing to undertake a particular action.
Works Cited
Inwood, Brad. Ethics after Aristotle. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014.
Nyberg, Daniel. "The Morality of Everyday Activities: Not the Right, But the Good Thing To Do." Journal of Business Ethics, v81 n3 (2008): 587-598.
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