Business Ethics
Ethics can be defined as the code of moral values and principles that govern how an individual or a group relate to what is good or bad. It constitutes parts of a corporate culture that deal with inside principles. As to decision-making and conduct, ethics sets standards as to what is wrong or right. In addressing moral and economic legal concerns, ethical business decision making plays a vital role in balancing both corporate and social responsibilities. This essay is going to discuss the considerations and the criteria for the process of ethical decision making in business. In addition, it will discuss business situations using predominant ethical theories and analyze a case relating to business ethics in a learning institution.
Ethical decision-making process involves several steps. To begin the process, one needs to gather facts. Even though some facts may be difficult to gather due to uncertainty found around ethical issues, it is important to gather as many facts as possible before going on with the process. No conclusion should be jumped into without any facts. Questions such as what, who, where, why, how and when, should be vital in assisting one to get answers. Once this is done, one then needs to define the ethical issue in the situation. Identify the basis of the issue to focus on, and when multiple issues arise, focus on one at a time.
Before making any ethical decision or judgment, it is important to consider the affected party. For instance, in a business setting such as a corporate, one should identify all the stakeholders, both primary and the secondary. This should be followed by conducting perspective taking for the affected party. The other point of consideration that one needs to focus on are the consequences. Think about potential consequences, both positive and negative for the individuals that are to be affected by the decision. What are the odds that it will be likely to result in these consequences? Finally, the extent of the consequences. Besides, the process involves identifying relevant principles and rights involved. This entails the obligations created by a specific ethics value that might be used in a particular situation. After which one should consider their integrity and character by thinking about potential actions creatively. Finally, before making any business related decision decide on the course of action to take and be ready to respond to whoever may oppose their position.
Ethical decision-making is backed up by a few predominant ethical theories that are involved when analyzing business situations. These include Utilitarian, Kantian and virtue ethics. Utilitarian theory, also known as Utilitarianism, is a type of normative ethical theory that holds that the best moral action is one that employs maximum utility. Under this approach, the decision maker considers the consequences of each decision with all parties involved in mind and chooses one that satisfies a greater number of people optimally. For instance, in a company, this approach can be used to monitor employees' activities. For example, many companies deem it necessary to monitor how employees spend their time online. This is necessary in order to maintain good ethics in the workplace, failure to which an organization might suffer if employees spend much time online shopping, chatting or viewing pornographic websites.
On the contrary, Kantian theory employs a rather different approach. The theory holds that the righteousness or wrongness of an action is not dictated by its consequences but rather by the duty or obligation it fulfills. For instance, in businesses, the theory holds that if breaking laws and principles will allow an individual or a group to carry out activities that result in the greater good of the business, so be it. According to Kantian analysis, the theory can be summed up with the statement: "I am to do X in circumstances Y in order to promote Z." Where X is the ethic or rule one has to break, Y is the reason for doing so, and Z is what results from the actions.
Virtue ethics theory is the last of the three approaches in normative ethics that emphasizes on virtue and moral characters as the vital component to ethical thinking as opposed to rules or consequences of the action. Virtual ethics constitutes three central concepts, which include Eudaimonism, agent-based approach, and ethics of care.
I believe that the board violated Mrs. Pettit's right to privacy. Teachers, similar to any other individual have the right to privacy. Hence, the Board of Education was not justified to conduct an investigation into her private life. Moreover, they were not justified in firing her for her misconduct for various reasons. First, Mrs. Pettit was a licensed teacher with over thirteen years of experience in teaching mentally challenged children (Shaw 2014, p.342). According to the study, this field required skills, patience, and devotion, which were all found in her. Secondly, there was no point in her career that she let her private life interfere with her professionalism. This proved how competent she was at distinguishing her career from her private life. Lastly, throughout her career, Mrs. Pettit's competence was never questioned, and surprisingly, the school principal even went ahead to report positive evaluations of her (Shaw 2014, p.342).
Even though Mrs. Pettit's behavior can be said to be immoral, I am against the notion that this made her unfit to teach. Her conducts might be assumed to be immoral due to the diverse and extreme public sexual activities that she was involved in, which contravened the penal code. However, Pettit's actions were private and could not have affected her teaching ability (Shaw 2014, p.343). For over thirteen years she had been a teacher she never showed any record of misconduct with her students. Therefore, this advocates that there was no reason to expect any future problems (Shaw 2014, p.343).
Behaviors that show unprofessionalism or immoral conduct among teachers
The teacher-student relationship is one of the behaviors that shows the lack of professionalism among teachers. This type of relationship involves cases of sexual misconduct, which is against the law. On the other hand, drug abuse is another behavior that shows unprofessionalism among teachers. For instance, an act such as marijuana smoking among teachers is not only viewed as a criminal conduct but also as an act that affects teachers' professional competencies. In close relation to that, the third behavior that would show immorality among teachers is the misuse of school resources. This type of demeanor amounts to immoral conduct, and when a teacher is found engaged in this act, their contract should immediately be terminated.
The fourth behavior that can be deemed as unprofessional is the abuse of staff privileges; such as sick leave. This happens when a teacher false to be ill and intentionally take sick leave for personal reasons. Finally, since immorality constitutes an act of crime involving moral turpitude, theft can also be considered a behavior that shows immoral conduct. This shows that the teacher cannot abide by moral standards, and therefore his or her fitness to teach is called into question. All these misconducts and immoral behaviors attract different kinds of penalties ranging from suspension, termination of a contract to imprisonment.
References
Shaw, W. H. (2014). Business ethics (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co. (p.342-343)
