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Class 3-ethics-and-behavior-in-organizations-1233274710310841-1
This document discusses ethics and behavior in organizations. It provides an overview of key topics including: 1) Different models of business ethics including utilitarianism, rights, justice, and egoism. 2) International aspects of ethics and differing views around cultural relativism and ethical realism. 3) Ethical dilemmas that can arise in international business contexts regarding issues like child labor and anti-bribery laws.
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Class 3-ethics-and-behavior-in-organizations-1233274710310841-1
- 1. Ethics and Behavior inOrganizations
- 2. Introduction Inventory of EthicalIssues in Business • Employee-Employer Relations • Employer-Employee Relations • Company-Customer Relations • Company-Shareholder Relations • Company-Community/Public Interest
- 3. Public’s Opinion ofBusiness Ethics • Gallup Poll finds that only 17 percent to 20 percent of the public thought the business ethics of executives to be very high or high • To understand public sentiment towards business ethics, ask three questions – Has business ethics really deteriorated? – Are the media reporting ethical problems more frequently and vigorously? – Are practices that once were socially acceptable no longer socially acceptable?
- 4. Public’s Opinion ofBusiness Ethics • Gallup opinion polls about ethical behavior (see text book Figure 3.1) – Pharmacists ranked highest – Car salespeople ranked lowest – Business executives ranked near the middle – People in the United States do not have a positive view of ethics and behavior in organizations
- 5. Business Ethics: WhatDoes It Really Mean? Definitions • Ethics involves a discipline that examines good or bad practices within the context of a moral duty • Moral conduct is behavior that is right or wrong • Business ethics include practices and behaviors that are good or bad
- 6. Business Ethics: WhatDoes It Really Mean? Two Key Branches of Ethics • Descriptive ethics involves describing, characterizing and studying morality – “What is” • Normative ethics involves supplying and justifying moral systems – “What should be”
- 7. Conventional Approach toBusiness Ethics • Conventional approach to business ethics involves a comparison of a decision or practice to prevailing societal norms – Pitfall: ethical relativism Decision or Practice Prevailing Norms
- 8. Sources of EthicalNorms Fellow Workers Family Friends The Law Regions of Country Profession Employer Society at Large Fellow Workers Religious Beliefs The Individual Conscience
- 9. Ethics and theLaw • Law often represents an ethical minimum • Ethics often represents a standard that exceeds the legal minimum Ethics Law Frequent Overlap
- 10. Making Ethical Judgments Behavioror act that has been committed Prevailing norms of acceptability Value judgments and perceptions of the observer compared with
- 11.
- 12. Four Important EthicalQuestions • What is? • What ought to be? • How to we get from what is to what ought to be? • What is our motivation for acting ethically?
- 13. 3 Models ofManagement Ethics Three Types Of Management Ethics
- 14. Three Models ofManagement Morality and Emphasis on CSR
- 15. Making Moral Management Actionable ImportantFactors • Senior management • Ethics training • Self-analysis
- 16. Developing Moral Judgment ExternalSources of a Manager’s Values • Religious values • Philosophical values • Cultural values • Legal values • Professional values
- 17. Developing Moral Judgment InternalSources of a Manager’s Values • Respect for the authority structure • Loyalty • Conformity • Performance • Results
- 18. Can Business EthicsBe Taught And Trained? • Ethic courses should not: – Advocate a set of rules from a single perspective – Not offer only one best solution to specific ethical problems – Not promise superior or absolute ways of thinking and behaving in situations
- 19. Can Business EthicsBe Taught And Trained? • Scholars argue that ethical training can add value to the moral environment of a firm and to relationships in the workplace by: – Finding a match between employer’s and employee’s values – Handling an unethical directive – Coping with a performance system that encourages unethical means
- 20. Ethics-Moral Disengagement • SocialLearning Theory – Moral reasoning translates to moral action through self regulatory processes • You do things that bring you self-worth • You avoid things that avoid self censure • You have to disengage from your normal internal self sanctions to commit unethical or deviant acts
- 21. Moral Disengagement • Scoringthe questionnaire – Moral justification-A – Euphemistic language-B – Displacement of responsibility-C – Advantageous comparison-D – Diffusion of responsibility-E – Distorting consequences-F – Attribution of blame-G – Dehumanization-H
- 22. Chapter 3 Ethics andBehavior in Organizations
- 23. Ethical and Unethical Behavior •Ethical behavior is good, right, just, honorable, and praiseworthy • Unethical behavior is wrong, reprehensible, or fails to meet an obligation • Judgment of behavior is based on a specific moral philosophy or ethical theory
- 24. Ethical and Unethical Behavior(Cont.) • Nagging issues – Finding a standard of judgment with which all reasonable people can agree – Defining the meaning of “good,” “bad,” “right”, and “wrong” – Add the nasty issue of cross-cultural ethical behavior
- 25. Ethical and Unethical Behavior(Cont.) Find 1 cent Find $1 Find wallet with $1,000 and no identification. Find wallet with $1,000 and identification. Ethical dilemmas
- 26. Legal Versus EthicalBehavior: The Issue of Lying Ethical behavior Legal behavior Testifying under oath in court. Lying: deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. Lying to a customer about the safety of a product. “How does my hair look?”
- 27. Theories of Ethics •Four major theories of ethics in the Western world – Utilitarianism: net benefits – Rights: entitlement – Justice: fairness – Egoism: self-interest
- 28. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Utilitarianism – examine an action’s effects to decide whether it is morally correct – Action is morally right if the total net benefit of the action exceeds the total net benefit of any other action – Assumes a person can assess all costs and benefits of an action
- 29. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Utilitarianism (cont.) – Assessment of net benefits includes any important indirect effects – Example: assessing the effects of pollutant discharge from a factory on the immediate surrounding environment and those down stream or down wind from the factory – Two forms: act and rule
- 30. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Utilitarianism (cont.) – Act utilitarianism asks a person to assess the effects of all actions – Rejects the view that actions can be classified as right or wrong in themselves – Example: lying is ethical if it produces more good than bad
- 31. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Utilitarianism (cont.) – Rule utilitarianism asks a person to assess actions according to a set of rules designed to yield the greatest net benefit to all affected – Compares act to rules – Does not accept an action as right if it maximizes net benefits only once – Example: lying is always wrong or “thou shalt not lie”
- 32. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Utilitarianism (cont.) – Two main limitations • Hard to use in difficult to quantify situations • Does not include rights and justice – Other ethical theories meet these objections
- 33. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Rights – Right: a person’s just claim or entitlement – Focuses on the person’s actions or the actions of others toward the person • Legal rights: defined by a system of laws • Moral rights: based on ethical standards – Purpose: let a person freely pursue certain actions without interference from others
- 34. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Rights (cont.) – Features • Respect the rights of others • Lets people act as equals • Moral justification of a person’s action – Examples • Legal right: right to a fair trial in the United States • Moral right: right to due process within an organization
- 35. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Rights (cont.) – Rejects view of assessing the results of actions – Expresses moral rights from individual's view, not society's. Does not look to the number of people who benefit from limiting another person's rights – Example: right to free speech in the United States stands even if a person expresses a dissenting view
- 36. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Rights (cont.) – Types of rights • Negative rights: do not interfere with another person’s rights • Positive rights: A person has a duty to help others pursue their rights Negative: do not stop a person from whistleblowing Positive: coworker helps another person blow the whistle on unethical actions
- 37. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Justice – Looks at the balance of benefits and burdens distributed among members of a group – Can result from the application of rules, policies, or laws that apply to a society or a group – Just results of actions override utilitarian results – Rejects view that an injustice is acceptable if others benefit the action
- 38. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Egoism – Self-centered form of ethics – Two forms of ethical egoism: individual and universal – Individual ethical egoism • Judges actions only by their effects on one’s interests • Usually rejected by moral philosophers as a defensible basis of ethics
- 39. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Egoism (cont.) – Universal ethical egoism • Can include the interests of others when assessing one’s actions • Still self-centered: pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain • “Enlightened self-interest.” Considers the interests of others because the person wants others to do the same toward him or her
- 40. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Egoism (cont.) – Objections raised by moral philosophers • Does not resolve conflicts in people’s interests • One party would always have the pursuit of his or her interests blocked
- 41. Theories of Ethics(Cont.) • Questions from the ethical theories – Utilitarianism: does the action yield the greatest net benefits? – Rights: does the action negatively affect someone’s moral rights? – Justice: does the action give a fair distribution of costs and benefits among those affected? – Egoism: will the action lead to other people behaving toward me in a way I would like?
- 42. International Aspects of Ethics •Sharp contrasts exist between U.S. attitudes toward business ethics and those of other countries • Of the major capitalist nations, the United States has the highest frequency of reporting ethical violations, the toughest laws, and the greatest prevalence of organization codes of ethics
- 43. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) Cultural relativism Ethical realism Multinational organization Two ethical views
- 44. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) • Ethical views (cont.) Cultural relativism • Cultural relativism refers to differences in ethical values among different cultures • Premise: right and wrong should be decided by each society's predominant ethical values • Cultural relativists base their argument on three points
- 45. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) • Ethical views (cont.) - Cultural relativism(cont.) • Three points – Moral judgments are statements of feelings and opinions; neither wrong nor right – Moral judgments are based on local ethical systems; cannot judge right or wrong across cultures – Prudent approach: do not claim an action is either right or wrong
- 46. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) • Ethical views (cont.) - Cultural relativism(cont.) • Managers should behave according to local ethical systems, even if their behavior violates the ethical systems of their home country • Many philosophers have rejected cultural relativism's argument that codes of ethics cannot cross national boundaries • Agree, however, that countries vary in what they define as right and wrong
- 47. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) • Ethical views (cont.) – Ethical realism • Morality does not apply to international transactions • Because no power rules over international events, people will not behave morally • Because others will not behave morally, one is not morally required to behave ethically – See text for a revision to this view of ethical realism
- 48. International Aspects of Ethics(Cont.) • International ethical dilemmas – Goods made in a country with no child labor laws – Goods made in a country with child labor laws that are not enforced – Changing the behavior of local people – Making small payments that are allowed under the FCPA