A Conceptual Framework of Corporate and Business Ethics - Case Study Example

Business Ethics Author’s Name Institutional Affiliation Tutor Date Introduction In business, there are many ethical issues which arise. If the business management fails to place more emphasis on issues of ethics, the end result is that everything goes wrong in the business and the collapse of a business organization is hasten by lack of moral probity by those who are charged with the very vital task of running the business. At the heart of every business, there should be some guidelines as to what is considered acceptable and the limits beyond which employees and employers should never go past (Goran & Wood, 2011, p.27). Business ethics therefore refers to a type of applied ethics which looks at principles of ethics and problems of ethics which are bound to occur within any business environment. People have made attempts to comprehend the behaviour of business and the methods employed are descriptive. The issues of ethics in business organization is best seen in issues relating to the goal of most businesses which is maximizing profit and other issues which are not economic in nature. Business ethics have gained prominence since the 1980s. This was an issue which was of relevance to academics and corporations which controlled a large share of the market. Many businesses make it known of their commitments to values such as social responsibility (Shaw, Barry & Sansbury, 2008, p.42). Government is involved in issues of ethics by ensuring that companies honour issues of ethics in conducting their businesses. However, the government can only guide corporations as to what is considered ethical but ethical behaviour depends entirely on the corporations involved. This essay seeks to cite an ethical dilemma which has been encountered at the work place. The paper also aims at determining the strengths and weaknesses of theories on ethical behaviour as a tool used to guide managers in doing what is right while conducting their businesses. Discussion Each and every day, many people come to realize that the work environment at the office is not entirely rosy. There are so many issues that haunt people while they are engaged in their usual duties at their places of work. The issues weighing down on workers could relate to the pay they receive family issues or even they could have their source as stress. However, it is important to note that a great number of situations which are stressful relate to morals. There are many moral issues that workers and the management encounter each and every day at their places of work. The essay focuses on harassment. Many employees find that they are not able to decide as to the best course of action when they witness an incident where an employee gets to harass another employee. There are even instances where employees holding senior positions could harass other people who are not employees of the company in which they work but they take advantage of the positions that they hold to harass people with whom they interact in the course of their business interactions (Chryssides & Kaler, 1993, p.450). The abuse by employees to their fellow employees or even outsiders takes different forms. Employees could harass their colleagues mentally, sexually or even physically. When an employee witnesses a situation where his or her colleagues are harassing another employee, they find themselves in a dilemma. If the person who witnesses the harassment of a fellow employee holds a junior position and the perpetrator of the unacceptable conduct happens to hold a senior position, the issue that would come to one's mind is whether they are going to lose their jobs if they reported such an incident to a person holding a higher office in the organization. Such an employee could also have the fear that by exposing the existence of such harassing behaviour could get the unflattering tag of a trouble maker for reporting a co worker who behaves in a manner which is unacceptable to a fellow employee (Zsolnai, 2011, p.894). The question that begs an explanation then is how a company would ensure that incidents of harassment do not occur in the organization. Measures should be put in place to protect the so called 'whistle blowers' to protect their identity and ensure that they are able to feel confident by reporting issues of harassment which take place at the organization without fearing that they are going to face a backlash for their decision to report the matter. According to Wimbush and Shepard (1994, p.641) the most common form of harassment is sexual harassment. Sexual harassment takes the form of bullying, coercion or intimidation which take a sexual angle. Sexual harassment could also be said to occur where a person who is mostly in a position of authority promises rewards such as a promotion or a pay rise based on such an employee accepting to grant the person in authority a sexual favour. Many countries have enacted laws which make it illegal to harass any person on the basis of their gender (Harrison, 2001, p.35). Even where laws are in place to check sexual harassment, there are a few things which are not prohibited such as offhand comments and teasing. In a place of work, sexual harassment becomes unacceptable when it increases in frequency such that the work environment becomes hostile for the person who is on the receiving end as far as the unwelcome sexual advances are concerned (Boatright, 2007, p.73). There are different categories of people who engage in sexual harassment and these include a supervisor to the employee, a person who is entirely not an employee and these could include a client or even a supervisor from a different section and at times it involves co-workers. Shaw (2011, p.42) argues that business ethics theories have attempted to deal with the issues of morality at the places of work. These theories are meant to ensure that each and every individual who works in a company acts in manner which is acceptable and appropriate. Owners of business and manager can make use of a given ethics theory which is applicable in the operations that their organization is involved in. There are a number of theories on business ethics which exist. These theories include the common good theory, virtue approach theory, justice theory, the utilitarian theory and justice theory (Goran & Wood, 2011, p.25). According Zsolnai (2011, p.894) normative ethical theories cover a number moral theories which are different and each of the theories presented has a number of rules on morality which individuals could make use when deciding if the decision they are making is moral in any given situation. Research concerning the role played by ethical theories in business focuses on the most part in applying guidelines which are ethical in practices involving human resource, assessment of behaviour by managers and corporate social responsibility. The studies are geared towards getting to know which rules of ethics that individuals should follow while conducting business. Traditional ethical theories are the sources of the moral principles. Ethical theories do not find much application in the area of making decisions (Harrison, 2001, p.37). The decision making models which rely on ethical models are very few. An example of a decision making model which makes use of ethical theories is Hunt and Vitell's model on decision making. According to this model of decision making, when evaluating a decision making process a manager should make use deontological assessment but also a utilitarian assessment as well. There are decision making models which do not bring ethical models to the fore and such models are based on the assumption that the ethical theories get reflected in the process of decision making. Other decision making model do not even make an attempt of relying ethical theories choosing instead to rely on other theories which could include cognitive moral development (Schaefer, 2008, p.299). Studies which have focused on theories dealing with ethics and decision making processes which put into consideration ethics more often than not put their focus on the justification or the ethical reasons that individuals advance in explaining the decisions which such individuals take in situations which offer a moral challenge (Shaw, Barry & Sansbury, 2008, p.51). The reasons given by individuals can be assumed to come from diverse theories on ethics and such theories are different from each other when the basic criteria of their reasoning are considered. Such ethical theories used by individuals to make their decisions rational include egoism, deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. Many studies tend to concentrate more on deontology and utilitarian theories and thus fail to put into consideration a number of other theories that people could base their decisions on in their organizations (Chryssides & Kaler,1993, p.442). Ethical decision making is a process which is made of a number of stages and each stage is dependent a different person, a different environment and situations which change constantly. The process of decision making could be described as having four components whereby a person making the decision should first take note of the moral issue involved. After this stage, the decision maker has to make a judgment based on morals and thus ensures that issues of morality take priority over any other concern. The person making the decision therefore acts based on the moral concerns. According to Svensson and Wood (2003, p.359) some experts have described ethical decision making as being a result of the interaction between the individual making the decision and components in a given situation. The way that an individual thinks concerning dilemmas on ethics is moderated by moderators which depend on a given individual or a specific situation. There are models which seek to make it clear which cognitions are made use of when a person is making a decision through reason and evaluation. A sense making model developed by Hunt and Vitell gives two cognitive stages. The first stage is the stage of perception in this stage the person making the decision appreciates the ethical problems that he is presented with as well as what alternatives are available and what the outcome of the decisions made would be. Secondly, there is a stage of utilitarian and deontological evaluation and judgment. Hence, as far as this model is concerned, the first stage in making sense of an issue personal experience plays a very important role. Other important factors in this stage include the culture in such a person's organization and the cultural environment in which such a person finds himself or herself in. Therefore, a decision making process with an ethical dimension starts with recognizing the moral elements that are available in the given issue. There are several factors which determine the outcome of this stage. These include the moral intensity of the issue in question. The ethical orientation of an individual is also important in determining what the outcome of the process shall be (Harrison, 2001, p.44). Whether an issue is ethical or unethical and whether the right judgment took place arises in instances where there is need to consider issues of ethics. An ethical issue could be considered to be a situation or problem which requires and a person individually or even an organization to make a choice between different actions. These actions require an evaluation on the part of the decision maker as to whether they are either ethical or unethical if they are ethical then they can be considered right but if such a decision is unethical then it can be considered to be wrong. Ethical issues can be considered to be equivocal since there are more ways than one of interpreting such issues (Trevino & Nelson, 2011, p.265). Ethical issues are never certain with regard to the future. One reason why ethical issues raise problems is because they are not traditional. This means that issues of ethics will usually not have been encountered previously and thus it would be difficult for them to have been categorized into categories that can be used in every situation. Another reason which makes issues of ethics difficult is because they place a person charged with making a decision in a position of dilemma. According to Weiss (2009, p.61) situations which are not clear and hence ambiguous and having uncertainty cause the person charged with making the decision to determining some issues which may be difficult to achieve conclusively. A person is required to first understand a situation and make a rational decision about the situation before making a decision. The process of the decision making is heavily affected by the intensity of the moral issue in question. The moral intensity in any given situation depends upon a number of factors. The first factor is extent of the consequences of performing an act. The other factor is the consensus in the society concerning the act in question (Wimbush & Shepard, 1994, p.642). The other factor is how probable the effect of the decision is going to be and how soon the results are observed. Finally, the other factors are how close the object is and how the effect of such a decision is going to be concentrated. The moral intensity of a given issue usually has a bearing on the impact that a decision making has. Researchers have found out that moral issues do not involve a similar level of moral reasoning but the important factor is the moral intensity of the issue involved. Studies have shown that in situations where people feel that serious consequences are likely to follow, then such people have a motivation to act ethically. On the other hand, where the consequences are not so dire, and then people would most likely not find reasons to act in a manner that is ethical (Schaefer, 2008, p.301). The moral philosophy of a person has been found to play an important role in identifying the ethical content that an issue contains (Shaw, Barry & Sansbury, 2008, p.48). Research tends to indicate that in a particular issue, different individuals apply different types of moral philosophy to determine whether an issue is ethical or unethical. It is not clear how and to what extent those human beings are aware of the philosophies that guide them in making decisions. By getting feedback from different respondents, researchers are able to establish that human being respond differently to different scenarios. Therefore, people tend to evaluate what ethical issues are involved on a case by case basis. Where the issue in question could be concerning having benefits distributed to various people, a person involved in the decision making process would likely think or issue of rights and justice. If a situation has got to do with a case of a conflict of interest an individual would make a decision relying on considerations of utilitarianism or egoism (Wimbush & Shepard, 1994, p.638). Therefore, different ethical reasoning is apparent where different issues of ethic are in question for the simple reason that each content results in the person involved reasoning in a different way since each situation results in the person making the decision making different evaluation. Ethical reasoning which results in a judgment which is ethical refers to the manner in which people get to decide whether the decision taken or the position taken on an issue which has got to do with ethics is right morally (Robertson & Athanassious, 2009, p.1136). This involves looking critically at a number of options open to the person making the decision and ethical principles that such a person puts into consideration. Moral decision making must as a matter of good practice involve reasoning which is ethical (Shaw, Barry & Sansbury, 2008, p.61). The second stage of ethical decision making model by Rest covers the centrality and importance of ethical reasoning so as to achieve a decision which is moral and hence have a behaviour which is acceptable. In order to determine the strategies that people use in order to come up ethical decisions, people are presented with moral dilemmas through hypothetical situations. Cognitive Moral Development theory developed by Kohlberg is one of the most influential accounts of how people's reasoning process works. Kohlberg built upon Jean Piaget's study which focused on moral development among young children. Kohlberg sought to find out the reasons which informed the way individuals perceived moral issues. Kohlberg therefore divided the different reasons that are adduced in support of decisions into six stages in the moral development (Weis, 2009, p. 465). The six stages could further be classified into three categories which are: preconventional level, conventional level and the post conventional level. The level which carries the perspective of an individual is the pre conventional level. At stages one and two, a person tries to adhere to rules which are laid down in order to avoid being punished or getting harmed. At this stage, the morality of a decision is entirely pegged on outcome of making a decision in a given way and not the other. At the conventional level, people are conversant with rules and what others expect of them. At this level, people gets concerned about the laws set out, being approved by the society and an individual also shows some concern on the welfare of other people (Goran & Wood, 2011, p.27). The second level therefore is an indicator or people conforming and also striving to maintain relationships which have been established previously. This is the level that managers use in resolving dilemmas at their places of work. At the third stage, people's interest tends to focus on trust between people and approval by the society. This is the stage at which the moral reasoning of a person is focused of the society in which such individuals form part. People realize that they ought to uphold the laws and respect and preserve the social system. The post-conventional level otherwise known as principle level sees an individual making decisions on his or her own. A person is able to have a perspective which is broader with regard to the society when making the decisions whether such decisions are wrong or right. At this stage, an individual is more inclined towards moral principles that are universal with the laws and societal values taking a second position. There are individuals who reason at the fifth stage and their emphasis is on the law and societal values (Trevino & Nelson, 2011, p.262). Even when thinking about the law and values of the society, such are only considered for the purposes of them being changed to suit the interests of the society. At the final stage which is stage six, an individual lives by ethical principles which the individual chooses and these are related with justice and the rights of the individual (Shaw, 2011, p.500). There are not many managers who reason consistently at stage five. It is very rare for managers to use stage six in reasoning out what they intend to do. The cognitive moral development model has as its basis the conception that development in judgment as to what is moral along the three levels indicated involves a scheme which is quite complex (Robertson & Athanassious, 2009, p.1133). Conclusion In international business, the literature available indicates that managers from different nations have different cultures. Therefore, they different cultures of the managers is evident in the way such managers perceive power, ability to cope with instances of uncertainty, the concern for time by such manager and how they relate with other people. Differences are also seen by whether the managers regard human as important or they are more concerned about material wealth. A number of studies have been conducted with a view to understanding international ethics on business. At the work place, people face dilemma almost each and every day of their working lives. The difference lies in the way that each individual decides to handle a given situation. There are dilemmas which are very common at most places of work. Employees are tempted on many occasions to utilize the time of the employer to conduct their own businesses. Employees usually work in teams and such teams could be involved in advertising and there are cases where certain people take credit for something which they never deed. The third case is where there are instances of harassment of fellow employees. All the scenarios place an employee in a situation whereby they have to make a decision and it is never easy to make the right decision. There are many theories which deal with the way that human being makes their decisions and they help in understanding why different people would react differently to similar situations. References Boatright, J. R. (2007). Ethics and the conduct of business (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Chryssides, G. D., & Kaler, J. H. 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