Practical Business Ethics for the Busy Manager - Admission/Application Essay Example

Even though a lot of people may criticize the self-centered nature of individualism, this concept actually provides many benefits to the society. Members in an individualistic society share lots of features, though they also have the right to be different. These diverse personalities and perspectives add new lifestyle customs and means of social communication. This makes a rich and colorful culture with effects from a collection of religions, cuisines, languages, values and ideology. On the contrary, collectivist societies support and still enforce the same lifestyle, which restricts the diversity in culture.

Individualism, however, limits group thinking, or rather thinking about others. The tendency of groups to perform inefficiently and take poor decisions, due to lack of proper controlling, contrasts with thoughts to stop conflict. The thought of individualism is essential to the American way of life. It is a vision of the person that gives extraordinary influence to his or her interests, choices and claims. The needs of the individual are given most importance here. Americans pay strong attention towards the responsibility of an individual, that is, the idea that every individual must manage his or her own dealings and be responsible for the consequences of those dealings.

“Individualism considers personal benefit to be the most important factor when making a decision. For example, a company that promotes individualism might encourage employees to secure personal benefit by finding ways to outperform coworkers. Essentially, the company uses the selfish inclinations of individual workers as a motivational tool to improve performance.” http://smallbusiness.chron.com/individualism-ethical-decision-making-56240.html There are mainly two approaches which the philosophers make use of while handling ethical dilemmas.

One approach concentrates on the practical results of their actions, while the other focuses on the actions themselves. Philosophers have argued about the relative qualities of these methods for centuries, and these approaches are not just used for getting help with managing ethical dilemmas, but they also act as balancing plans for evaluating and resolving problems. 2. The concept of "the team" as an organizational metaphor for business behavior is common place in texts and management seminars as well.

To what extent is the bureaucratic ethic just another name for teamwork? American corporate culture benefits from the positive traits connected with individualism. For instance, it embraces the principles of individual accountability. A lot of American employees enjoy the opportunities US businesses provide them with and it also increases mobility. Most Americans believe it is true that anybody, regardless of their background, should get an opportunity to make it through working in business. However, it is possible that the organization or corporation, which employs people, does not work under a bureaucratic ethic.

In the context of bureaucratic ethics, it is not astonishing that business codes of ethics give little help to a middle level or lower level managers. To most of the corporations, ethics include the rules which an organization requires its workers to follow. Lawyers appointed to protect the firm frequently make and enforce these codes of ethics. On the other hand, these codes can be hard for middle level managers to apply