How Personal Can Ethics Get - Essay Example

953). Two very different individuals may carry with them two entirely different perspectives of the world. These perspectives possess a viable potential to influence the individuals’ preferences concerning a variety of considerations in the organizational workplace. One area of an organization which is undoubtedly influenced by personal differences and (related differing preferences) is ethics. S.J. Reynolds (2006) finds that “individual differences can interact with issue characteristics to shape moral awareness” (qtd.

Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006, p. 954). As such, two different people may perceive an ethical dilemma differently. For example, one person may perceive the existence of nepotism in the workplace as a coincidence in which an employer’s relatives happened to be best suited for a job. Another person may perceive the existence of nepotism in the workplace as a breach of ethics in which fair hiring principles are abandoned in favor of personal interest. Whereas the former may derive their opinion from a personal experience in which a family business proved fruitful, another may harbor grievances concerning high levels of unemployment effecting his or her family, community, or self.

The former maintains an ethical preference for directly helping one’s friends and family, while the latter maintains an ethical preference for indirectly helping one’s friends and family by maintaining fair and equal hiring practices. An organization containing both hypothetical individuals is subsequently shaped and form by the shifting dynamic of their conflicting ideals. Discuss how organizational policies and procedures can impact ethics. The ethical preferences of members of an organization are shaped by individuals’ predisposed positions on varying issues as well as externally imposed policy and procedure.

As such, an organization’s policies and procedures can impact criterion for ethical dilemmas as well as ethical results substantially. Wotruba, Chonko, and Lo (2001) identify three primary functions executed by codes of ethics in an organization. First, codes of ethics can demonstrate a concern for ethics by the organization. In this manner, an organization may elect to create a code of ethics in an attempt to convey a general awareness and reverence for ethical observation and conduct in the workplace.

For example, a company might create a code of ethics which is read and understood by its newly hired employees during their training in an effort to effectively communicate that the company is aware of ethics and embraces ethics as a high priority in the workplace. Second, codes of ethics can “transmit ethical values of the organization to its members” (Wotruba, Chonko, and Lo, 2001, p. 59). This function is substantially more specific than the former function, which seeks to convey a simple, general awareness of ethics as an existent priority within the workplace.

Instead, ethical values transmitted to members of an organization by the organization are designed to create a better understanding of what an organization is and what values it holds most dear. For example, a service-oriented organization might include “putting the customer first” as an ethical priority in the w