Ethics in Business - Coursework Example

Ethics Student’s Name Subject Professor University/Institution Location Date Zame (2008) argues that, utilitarianism model as a normative ethics posit that, a proper course of action aims at maximizing utility. Generally, the course of action should maximize happiness and reduce suffering. It is an ideal perfection of morality where any decision is made with an attempt to foresee the consequences. If the action is ascertained to have moral worth then it is accredited. However, any action that has decidedly negative impact to other people should not be supported. The resulting outcome of any action determines the worth of a course of action. Consideration should be made in order to give the actual intended and foreseen consequences. A range of values related to the public needs to be preserved. The actors can use rules to choose the right action. Though there are problems acknowledged that faces calculation of consequences, the use of rules can promote the right decision to settle for what is useful. The model transcends in wide-range scenarios and particularly where human rights are involved. In case the actors choose something less in the course of action, the consequences that would result would see the actors subjected to myriad claims since there are rules that guides morality and safeguards the rights of subordinates. The dominant force cannot act alone without considering not only the consequences that would affect those to whom it owes the duty of care. It also has to consider the impacts its actions may have if at all the course of action chosen ends up being taken as decided unethically (Zame, 2008). As Rigamonti (2007) observes, moral rights approach assumes that, there are fundamental rights and liberties that human beings enjoy and cannot be taken away by individual’s decision. An ethical direct decision has to maintain the rights of those people that are affected by it. Moral rights approach is founded on a number of principles where each supports the right choice by actors. Free consent is fundamental human rights where individual can only be treated knowingly and having consented to be treated in a certain manner. The right of privacy demonstrates individual’s choice to act as it would please them and control information on private life. Individuals’ right and freedom of conscience should be promoted and they should be refrain from anything that violates their religious and moral norms. As Beugré and Acar (2008) argues, moral rights also offers individual’s right to free speech where one is allowed to criticize truthful ethics and the legality of other people’s actions. A due process should be a right offered to individual to extend the rights to fair treatment and impartial hearing. Individual’s right to life and safety should be acknowledged without anyone endangering or violating their safety and health. In order to proceed with ethical decisions, managers then need to avoid any interference with fundamental rights of other people. There should not be decision that would in turn affect a person’s right to privacy, freedom of conscious, free speech or any other moral rights that fundamentally impact on a personal life. Any action should be regulated and moral conduct. The model covers wide range of basic premises as set in general understating of human actors as different from non-actors. According Beugré and Acar (2008), justice approach posits that, moral decision should be based on some standards related to equity, impartiality and fairness. These are major three types of justice that are highly applicable in managerial roles where a manager deals with different people, with different levels of skills and experience and have to apply the rules or standards set to define actions, privileges and meets desires and expectations. Generally, the approach is built on distributive justice when applied in a social setting. If at all people are treated differently, it should only be so based on arbitrary characteristics. In other treatment outside distributive justice can be counted as discriminative or promoted by presumptions or stereotypes. The prevailing rules and sorts of definitions guides on how managers should deal with different people. For instance, when it comes to division of labor, the hierarchy is formed in the structure and people at different levels are treated different according to the defined norms. Individuals who are similar in terms of skills level, roles and responsibilities, input levels and expertise have to be treated in similar manner. Accordingly, men and women cannot be treated differently like offering different salaries even when the actors in both gender does the same job. However, justice approach holds that, people who differ in substantive way due to differences in responsibility and job skills can be treated differently but according to proportion of job skills and responsibilities among them. The difference should also be clear when setting organizational tasks and goals. Justice approach restrict actors to place unnecessary emphasis on such characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, family relationships, religious beliefs, physical and intellectual disability. In this case scenario, the general code of ethics applies to a number of instances. Selling information to a different party is highly unethical and can have deleterious effects. The company has the right to refrain from direct payment or exchange of personal information. Majorly, personal consent is highly important to the destination where their information goes. If this company will sell personal information to suggested multinational party, it eventually breaches its customers’ rights. A deleterious effect is seen to impact on such a decision and action as the company may not wholly determine the extent to which the multinational party will use the data, shares and cannot also put up and enforce security to personal information as the company had regulated itself. The company should consider the liabilities that might emerge in form of claims if at all the consumers had not agreed for their information to be shared. In this scenario, if at the company will sell the personal information, the action would only amount to disclosure and thus breach. Generally, the case in our scenario has to consider the moral right of selling consumers information to a multinational company. There are probabilities and possibilities that are to be considered in relation to moral approach. Individual decision should not overrides human rights fundamental rights. If at all the company decision has to maintain the rights of its consumers, it has to take into consideration a number of aspects which will ultimately determine whether to settle for selling or retaining the use of its consumers’ personal data. There are major moral rights to consider before and during making decisions. The company should consider the free consent of it consumers. The consumers should be notified and freely consent for their information to be treated as the company desires. However, it is expected that, where consumers are not directly interacting with the multinational company, they might perceive the likelihood of their rights and safety of personal information jeopardized. Most of them would eventually oppose the move to sell. There might arise many questions as to why the company would do so and the company has to do its utmost to ensure a fair opportunity to reply. In consideration of the right to safety, the company must involve consumers to choose whether its move would ensure that they are not endangered and their safety is not violated. Information transfer follows particular regulations. In the process of transfer, essential facts may be disclosed. It would be hard to give the information without attributing to the owner. The consumers would also require knowing and understanding how their anonymity and motives towards confidentiality would apply. The company interest might be known to this company but it is not always so with its consumers. Their interests, commitment and fairness might not be demonstrated and thus risk personal data (Grossklags and Acquisti, 2007). The consumers have a right to criticize the legality actions and truthful ethics carried by the company. Despite the utmost legality of transfer of personal data and regulations on ethics, most consumers might affect the decision due to differences in awareness. The right to privacy resurfaces and consumers may choose to do according to what pleases them. Most may withdraw and the company would eventually lose the profits it would have obtained by selling information (Ciocchetti, 2007). There are competing interests where the company is faced with a need to follow the code of conduct in dealing with personal information. The rule of regulations following collection and transfer of personal information regulates the company. Consumer consent will depend on explanation of purposes of personal information to multinational company (Grossklags and Acquisti, 2007). The process of seeking consent, confirmation of multinational company safeguard and practices of regulation practices by the company. The need to notify all the participants might end up in dire frustration as consumers considers the sales as ambiguous. It might also delay or worse still cause many to terminate their relationship with the company hence lose doubly; both the consumers and profits (Ciocchetti, 2007). In conclusion, with the consideration of the above facts, ethical concerns, bargaining power of different actors and ambiguity resulting from unawareness of the multinational company, the company should not sell. Bibliography Beugré, Constant D., and William Acar. "Offshoring and Cross‐Border Interorganizational Relationships: A Justice Model*." Decision Sciences 39, no. 3 (2008): 445-468. Ciocchetti, Corey A. "E‐Commerce and Information Privacy: Privacy Policies as Personal Information Protectors." American Business Law Journal 44, no. 1 (2007): 55-126. Grossklags, Jens, and Alessandro Acquisti. "When 25 Cents is Too Much: An Experiment on Willingness-To-Sell and Willingness-To-Protect Personal Information." In WEIS. 2007. Rigamonti, Cyrill P. "The Conceptual Transformation of Moral Rights." The American Journal of Comparative Law (2007): 67-122. Zame, William R. "Can utilitarianism be operationalized?." Theoretical Economics 2 (2007): 187-202. Read More