Ethics in Strategic Management - Essay Example

? ETHICS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT The main intention of this paper is the exploration of challenges that are faced by companies in the integration of ethics in their process of strategic management. The paper looks into issues that are considered in indemnification of ethics, its analysis, and its control. It also allows for a deeper understanding of shortcomings and issues in ethical and strategic incorporation. Introduction Contemporary development in services dealing with finance has prompted stakeholders to question corporations’ moral obligation. These obligations together with business ethics provide important and integral part in the process of strategic management. Early management proponents showed the needs of CEOs to be morally responsible (Barnand, 1938). Executives should be ethical to their customers. Organizations endure the ethical breadth via which their governing is based. Moral responsibility is attached to executives to the people they serve. Likewise, they are responsible for the inspiration via leadership and creation of trust through understanding and common purpose. Those who pioneered strategic thinking advocated for ethics in decision making. Corporate strategy is defined as an organizational process that cannot be separated from behavior, culture and structure of a firm. This provides enterprise strategy basis by definition of context in which those firms operate in both economic and human terms. In the last ten years, there has been the development of ethics and strategic management. Strategic management originated recently and has been accepted in planning and business policy fields. Nevertheless, ethics is a different field that is still evolving, and up to date it has not troubled strategic management academics. Stakeholder's interests have internal worth despite it advancing shareholders interest. From this point of view, an organization’s success should not be viewed as an end but also as a means for advancing stakeholders interest. Ethical analysis is the only way for resolving conflicts in goals and values; it is important in strategic management. Part One Strategic and Ethical overview The past strategic management models focused much on application of resource and external threats. In the 1970s, the technique of strategizing thrived in business schools. Corporate strategy if defined as decisions pattern of a company that reveals and determine its goals, objective or purposes, produces policies and make plans on achievement of the objectives, and defines type of business a company is likely to pursue. While there are similarities between ethics and strategy, there are misunderstandings between the two. Recent thinking in management developments have converged the two. The notion on ethics and strategy are distinct, and separate fields do not hold of recent. Unless it acknowledged that the two should be closely integrated, more problems might be experienced and failures in business. Ethical issues Moral and Morality Problems Morality deals with beliefs, values and norms embedded in a process which define wrong and right for a particular society. The manager is characterized as a moral individual in accordance to the traits. With the moral values, a manager should convey ethical messages, which others can notice. Problems related to morality are associated to harm caused by others. Harming others do not bring any good but prevention of it promotes good. It can be debated that moral issues related to strategic management are complicated because harms caused to other individuals are predictably related to benefits of others. For instance, transformation of an economy to an economy of low wage harms workers who have been displaced but benefits the newly recruited employees and existing stakeholders. Ethical Analysis The policy behind the analysis of ethics can be linked to point of view which claims that principles of ethics are not measures of subjection which vary with economic and cultural conditions. In the real sense, they are first principles that ensure a good society. What brought out the difference between business ethics and social issues is that business ethics explains the framework which evaluates business. There have been slow developments in the business field ethics. Although ethics that is applied has gained ground for the last twenty years, it has been under researched. Developments that have been carried out recently in business ethics moved the argument from ethics of normative nature. Postmodern and discourse approaches of ethics view the decision maker’s character rather than viewing every action on underlying principles and outcomes. If there is acceptance to the notion that ethical issue analysis is objective, and they collectively provide a way of deciding on what seems just, right and fair in human goals and actions. The question arises on how the principles can be applied in management. Stakeholder’s perspective It has been argued that managers who are successful must attend to stakeholders’ interest. The firm’s success is not all about profit making but a means to the provision of shareholders’ interest. From the argument, firms should work on stakeholders’ range of benefits. Clearly, stakeholders can influence a company’s competitive position both negatively and positively. The corporation issue is ignoring of that various stakeholders have different perceptions on benefits and, therefore, solve issue differently and employ different criteria in assessment of intervention. StilSim personnel As StilSim personnel is in charge of recruitment of staff temporarily and attending to clients who are need of manpower, it is bound to face ethical issues in living conditions, knowledge, labor and environment. For instance, it deals with temporal recruitment of manpower. This means that the man power employed might not be equipped the right skills that are needed and therefore, training is needed. The training will lead to issues of discrimination due to knowledge required more so in technology. This situation compromises the principle of justice and rights of the workers. It states that all human beings are entitled to earning a livelihood and treated justly. The man power that might not be in a position to get the required qualifications is bound to be rejected. Another ethical issue that may arise is on labor. The recruitment may be due to the required skills. As the initiative of this firm was to serve the need of man power by multinationals and business organizations, recruitment process may be difficult as different man power may be required for different firms and therefore satisfaction of these workers may be in doubt. Man power will not be in a stable employment as they are temporary employed. Therefore, there living conditions will be pathetic and hence the rights of the manpower will be deprived. The unemployed would not be in a position to meet basic needs. Legal issues that may arise are breach of contracts. For instance, there can be a written contract that is for a given period of time but may be breached due to premature termination of the project. Part Two Risk assessment Risk assessment is the investigating, recognizing and considering each bit of risk, danger and intimidation to the firm outside and inside environment. It defines if a building is vulnerable to climate related events, and area hazards. It allows a business control the extenuating actions that have been in place to counter these exposures. Through a means of recognition of intimidation that are currently militated in contrary to threats which are not. There can be an accumulation of a recommendation list for enhancement by a firm. In order to be not beaten, assessment of every risk has to anticipate on problems that can be locally identified which link to the business. Before the discovery of other concerns, a focus should be on the most intimidating and realistic risk which exists in the setting of the business presently. By doing this, most factors are compromised such as technology reliance, facility structure, business character, climate patterns and facility vicinity. In carrying out assessment of risks, the risks that threaten the firm are assessed after their recognition. One also has to determine the deterrence practices utilized, describe practices alleviating risks, negotiate risks and lastly, gather the case for strategic selection. When conclusion of the assessment is up, a firm can decide on the way to extenuate risks. In carrying out of risk assessment and its impact on analysis, a firm stands a position to strategize contingency planning. Irrespective of determination of the deterrence practices utilized, description of practices alleviating risks, and negotiating risks which will cause damage to the firm should be considered. It is vital to do an assessment of risk despite the difficulties in finding out the consequences. After conducting the survey of assessment of risk and having a face wise dialogue, the next stage is the analysis and presentation of the results. This is done with the purpose of managing decision to be made and be capable of the acquisition of the data’s most use. In StilSim personnel the most probable risk that it is like to incur more cost than its income. The high costs will be due to training of recruits every now and then. They are also forced to ensure better living standards of these people as some may be brought from far places. This should be dealt with by ensuring that any overhead cost is avoided by the firm. Stilsim should ensure that it establishes a well laid down system of technology to ensure efficient communication. This is because wrongly laid system can cause misinformation that may lead to losses in the firm. The firm should also ensure consistency in the repair of the machines used in communication. By doing this StilSims mission and vision becomes viable as swift management leads to good returns. The assessment of risk and their solution leads good management as all risks anticipated are dealt with. Conclusion The integration of ethics into strategic management has added value to many industries. For instance, the acknowledging of ethics by managers has portrayed a good picture of the whole organization hence addition of value the reputation of the respective firm. In carrying out assessment of risks, the risks that threaten the firm are assessed after their recognition. Reference Barnard, C. (1938). The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, Masacheussets: Harvard University Press. Read More