Management Ethics: Problem Solving - Assignment Example

Management Ethics - Problem solving Name Institution Course Lecturer Date 2.0 Ethical theories Ethical theories is modern business management strategy that promotes systematic and structured approach in an organization that ensures smooth and successful development and implementation of change to attain organizational, societal and national goals, objectives and obligations. 1.1 Utilitarianism The utilitarianism explains that a deed is evaluated to be ethical based on a set of rules or principles that can bring the greatest happiness to most employees (Bowen, 2004).  This depends on analytic tools such as cost benefit analysis and risk assessment for decision making purposes. The theory therefore emphasis on the fundamental nature benefits involved in the use of egg freezing practice in the female employees. The utilitarianism theory is centered mainly on the consequences and cost of an action. It helps the management of an organization to make effective decisions in multifaceted situations for example in the allocation of scarce labor, resources. The egg freezing practice is a business decision that ensures that female employees are paid for delayed delivery. The ethical management value of this process however, as the utilitarian theory insists, can only be determined by its consequences. The practice may lead to increase of corruption and unacceptable business practices (Bowen, 2004).  . 1.2 Kantian deontology Bowen, (2004) observes that deontology stresses of conduction of duties based ethics. This is to a great extent imperative in rational employees. It may reduce the ability and morale of female employee as they can only act according to the laws and regulations that may not be their will. The deontology theory therefore promotes managing employees by fear as they have to follow certain rules and regulations. This may lead to inefficiency and failure of organizational change. It causes reduced competitive advantage. This is because employees fail to add value in production as they are fearful and more focused to fulfil organizational regulations this causes employee turnover which in turn causes failure of organizational production. The female employees are not be able to effectively and maximal produce in the organization as they are feel threatened and at times undermined by their male counterparts. This in turn leads to a decline in competitive advantage and productivity (Bowen, 2004).  The Apple Company presents female employees with a set of rules and regulations. It encourages egg freezing to improve performance of female employees. As a result employees are obliged to follow these instructions as a way of proving their commitment to the company (Mason et al, 2000). . The ethics and knowledge acquired in education and training acquired is not considered as a way of improving performance of the employees. Furthermore the ability of the female employee to make rational decisions is also undermined. The female employee’s determination to do right should therefore be a motivation to practice egg freezing rather than benefits offered by the Apple Company. 1.3 Justice Rawls’ law of justice advocates for justice and fairness (Greene, 2007). It states that every individual has the right to do what is just and fair. In an organisation, the management should promote fair and equal treatment among all its employees despite their gender. The advocators of the justice view point argue that use of egg freezing practices on female employees is unfair as it does not promote gender equality. The male counterparts are left out in this practice. They too should receive benefits to encourage them to practise sperm freezing. The law of justice thus advocates for ban of such benefits on female employees (Greene, 2007). This is because use of such drugs promotes unfair competition and the end result is not profitable as it is not justifiable. In management practices therefore benefits due to egg freezing is an unfair wage that suffices distributive justice. Besides the practice does not prove any expertise or experience thus needs no compensation and benefits. 1.4 Rights The rights theory dictates that the best manner to deal with ethical issues is to form a foundation of obligations in order to justify all individual’s privilege to human rights (Mason et al, 2000). The rights theory also persists that human rights ought to be autonomous from influence by other factors. Human right is merely the accepted rights belonging to every individual by the virtue of being a human being. There are positive and negative individual rights. Positive rights are obligations put open people to freely express their freedom. It observes the negative rights are obligations imposed on people to stop them from interfering with other people’s freedom of action. One of the rights that the sports should observe is the right to life (Greene, 2007). The organization has the role of advocating, planning and implementing employee rights (Mason et al, 2000). . The employees have a right to enjoy both human and individual rights. The introduction and implementation of egg freezing limits human rights. Female employees have a right to decide when to get pregnant and give birth in their life span. The organizations such as Apple Company, that wish to limit this right by invading and distracting employees families need to conduct training. The training need to be aimed at developing logical knowledge, skill attitude, value and beliefs required to perform the task satisfactorily. It involves development and growth of an individual in terms of ability and understanding. Successful training and development makes an individual to adapt and implement the practice easily and faster. Additionally, it leads to increase in production employee and competitive advantage. In order for an organization to improve the rights of its employees, the management should conduct evaluation. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a practice like egg freezing should be done by the organizational management to ensure that there is organizational growth and development of female employees. The evaluation that illustrates that the performance of females at the age of Apple Company is low should prompt the ban of the practice. This consequently, results to improve competitive advantage and productivity in the organization. Management should hence always promote the right of employees to give life (birth) (Greene, 2007). 2.5 Ethical relativism The moral good in use of egg freezing enhance performance can differ from one society to another (Mason et al, 2000). The management of an organisation has the moral obligation of advocating for or against egg freezing. The egg freezing practice should be designed and advocated by an organisation if it promotes jobb satisfaction among female employees. Organizations that practices egg freezing culture makes it difficult for employees to work effectively and freely. It also causes dissatisfaction in an employee an example of such as Facebook and Apple which advocates for egg freezing in employees may experience employee dissatisfaction as the employees fail to freely practice their moral obligation of giving birth at a specific time. The employees thus keep searching for better working conditions (Mason et al, 2000). . The dissatisfaction in work conditions to an employee leads to employee turnover and therefore resulting to decline of the competitive advantage and productivity in an organization (Greene, 2007). As a result, implementation of individual and organizational change becomes cumbersome and impossible. The different academic literature provided by various philosophers can be used as guidance when it comes to management issues. However, there is no any regulation that can stand on its own (Mason et al, 2000). This is because the theory that is presented by one ideology is not practically sufficient in overcoming a massive amount of issues of management. Currently, the organisations ought to adopt interdisciplinary theories in order to realize better outcomes in handling egg freezing policy as an ethical management issues. 2.0. Tax Avoidance Tax avoidance is a legal utilization of the taxation regulation to an organizations own advantage (Friedman, 2007). Tax evasion on the other hand refers to the efforts of an organization to evade paying taxes. The two practices are tax noncompliance and describe a multiplicity of behavior that is unfavorable to the government and society. Tax avoidance in organization is considered as the evasion of its own duties to the society (Beauchamp et al, 2004).This is because it reduces government revenue to the society. In order to reduce tax avoidance the government needs to design and implement well framed tax policies. Organizations’ have corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is acquired through compliance to tax regulations. The management of any particular organization is therefore obliged to adopt and implement the taxation rules of the country from which it operates. Paying taxes is very essential to an organization as it creates a good reputation to the organization (Friedman, 2007). It also helps the government in promoting social responsibilities such as healthcare, infrastructure and education. The narrow classical economic view, considers that social responsibility of an organization is absolutely concerned on the responsibility to supply goods and services to consumers. However this is not adequate social responsibility as the organization uses some social amenities such as infrastructure to supply goods (Beauchamp et al, 2004). . Organizations’ thus need to pay taxes to aid the state in repair and developments of infrastructure. The narrow classical economic view is thus limits the organizations obligation to pay taxes in order to promote the social economic change in a society. Classical view of taxation thus gives a narrowed view and economic returns of organizational operations and processes (Slater & Narver, 2000). The broader social economic view of taxation in business advocates that an organization has the duty to promote growth and development of a society. It focuses only on economic growth and promoting legal responsibilities (Friedman, 2007). This view therefore, promotes a company responsibility to promote societal economy through taxation which is used to improve of metrics like life expectancy, literacy, GDP and creation of employment. The broad maximal view of business in taxation puts organizational responsibilities into a wider perspective (Atkinson & Draheim, 2010). An organization has the responsibilities of social, environmental and economic growth. The organization according to the broader view has the responsibility of developing and conserving the society through conservation of resources, developing community and protecting environment. An organization ensures taxation ethics based on the principles of accountability, integrity and morality Colander et al, (2004). Consequently this creates and sustains a wider potential and production for the organization and society. On the other hand, the Kew Garden Principles is based on the essence of distinguishing between negative and positive impacts of taxations. These can be done through determining the fairness of a tax policy in relation to government. The Kew Garden Principle is thus based on ensuring taxation ethics through promoting fairness (Friedman, 2007). Management of organization views tax avoidance as a way of maximizing profits within the organization (Slater & Narver, 2000). This helps to increase benefits and cost to the different shareholders. Tax compliance in the narrow classical economic view however, helps reduce the government the burden of social responsibility. Paying tax ensures that an organization simply fulfills its moral and social obligations. Avoiding taxes therefore is immoral behavior that destroys an organizations reputation and public trust (Friedman, 2007). Such a company is viewed by the society as selfish and greedy and this ruins the organizations name. The society expects organizations to pay taxes as a fair share of individual and organizational obligation Colander et al, (2004). The question of what needs to be viewed as fair arises due to the fact that it is difficult to classify fair taxation in a manner that gratifies all organizations. Organizations’ should thus view taxation as a cost to avoid but rather as a practice that is legitimate pay on wealth generated to the society and its nation (Slater & Narver, 2000). Tax payment is therefore an ethical obligation by an organization. The tax payment should thus be founded and grounded on the ethical principles of transparency, consistency and accountability. The ethical principles promote fair return of wealth to the society through taxes. This fair return is due to the fact that the amount paid as tax is varied depending on profits of the particular organization (Friedman, 2007). Organizations according to the Kew Garden Principles are obliged to maintain good moral practice by complying tax obligations (Slater & Narver,2000). The organizations need to ensure transparent yet clear statements on their view on tax. This ensures that the organization promotes business ethical values and principles on taxation. An organization need to demonstrate its commitment to the code of ethics this can be done through addressing taxation issues and drawing a clear guidance on how to deal with the issues (Atkinson & Draheim, 2010). This can be done through designing of ‘tax code of conducts’ that clearly stipulate and state its entrustment to paying fair taxes in accordance to the rules to promote social economy of a nation. The significance of the intent to promote societal economy and business laws should be emphasized in the code of conduct. The government needs to introduce the General Ant-Abuse Rule (GAAR) in order to prevent tax that seems ‘abusive’ and ‘morally wrong’ (Slater & Narver, 2000). Besides government should always encourage the investment firms to ensure social responsibility by taking account of organizations tax obligations and commitments before choosing on where to invest. This screening over taxes will help ensure that organizations are fully submitted to paying taxes as a result, this will shift and balance the burden of social responsibility from state to organizations. 3.0 Due care The due care theory is a theory that promotes legal standards that establishes a duty for organizations to act in a reasonable manner to prevent harm and damage to consumers. The study on Chinese- made toys have revealed a rising tread on the number of recalls. This has raised alarm on the Toys made from China. The concept of Due care can be used to justify the opinion that China is the problem. 3.1 Product quality The number of recalls has also increased due to lack of well distinguished designers and manufacturers have resulted to low quality toys. The designers flaws such as open tubes which can trap children’s fingers, tongues causing harm or injury. The long strings, glued eyes and sewn buttons have also led to injuries. Manufacturing issues such as use of poor quality materials such as broken needles and wires has led to unsafe and poor quality toys. 3.2. Product safety China Company has failed to ensure product safety (Beauchamp et al, 2004).This is because most of the recalled toys were found to have defects related to design issues. The company failed to promote product safety through ensuring accountability of toys by improving design. Lack of product safety has led to death of a child (Carrigan, & Attalla, (2001). The company thus needs to develop and design products that promote product safety of consumers to prevent harm, damage or death of children while using the toys. The Chinese toy company needs to learn from their own increase in number of recalls and also the recalls of other toy companies. The company should pay attention to untimely warnings and responds by improving the hazards of its toys. The management policies should conduct a thorough investigation on the safety and quality of its toys ( Beauchamp et al 2004) .This will help design and manufacture quality and safe products thus increase demand and supply of toys across the world. As a result, the company will increase production and completion of safe and quality toys. In addition this will promote due care to consumers of Chinese toys. The world of business portrays the vicious competition among companies and participants. This situation results in many individuals company moving to unethical business issues in order to get ahead of their competitors. Different theories are used to discuss the management of business activities to enhance performance, production as well as consumer safety. This paper has discussed the different ethical theories that are relevant to the business industry in order to develop ethical problem solving tools in conforming to business cultural norms. References Atkinson, C., & Draheim, D. (2010). Business process technology: A unified view on business processes, workflows and enterprise applications. Springer. Beauchamp, T. L., Bowie, N. E., & Arnold, D. G. (Eds.). (2004). Ethical theory and business. Beauchamp, T. L., Bowie, N. E., & Arnold, D. G. (Eds.). (2004). Ethical theory and business. Bowen, S A 2004 Expansion of ethics as the tenth generic principle of public relations excellence: A Kantian theory and model for managing ethical issues Journal of Public Relations Research, 161, 65-92. Carrigan, M., & Attalla, A. (2001). The myth of the ethical consumer–do ethics matter in purchase behaviour?. Journal of consumer marketing, 18(7), 560-578. Colander, D., Holt, R., & Rosser Jr, B. (2004). The changing face of mainstream economics. Review of Political Economy, 16(4), 485-499. Friedman, M. (2007). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits (pp. 173-178). springer berlin heidelberg. Greene, J D 2007 The secret joke of Kant’s soul pp 59-66 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Hegtvedt, K & Warner, J 2008 Justice Bingley: JAI Press. Mason, E, Miller, D & Hooker, B 2000 Morality, rules, and consequences: a critical reader Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (2000). The positive effect of a market orientation on business profitability: a balanced replication. Journal of business research, 48(1), 69-73. Wolterstorff, N 2008 Justice: rights and wrongs Princeton: Princeton University Press. Read More

The female employees are not be able to effectively and maximal produce in the organization as they are feel threatened and at times undermined by their male counterparts. This in turn leads to a decline in competitive advantage and productivity (Bowen, 2004).  The Apple Company presents female employees with a set of rules and regulations. It encourages egg freezing to improve performance of female employees. As a result employees are obliged to follow these instructions as a way of proving their commitment to the company (Mason et al, 2000). . The ethics and knowledge acquired in education and training acquired is not considered as a way of improving performance of the employees.

Furthermore the ability of the female employee to make rational decisions is also undermined. The female employee’s determination to do right should therefore be a motivation to practice egg freezing rather than benefits offered by the Apple Company. 1.3 Justice Rawls’ law of justice advocates for justice and fairness (Greene, 2007). It states that every individual has the right to do what is just and fair. In an organisation, the management should promote fair and equal treatment among all its employees despite their gender.

The advocators of the justice view point argue that use of egg freezing practices on female employees is unfair as it does not promote gender equality. The male counterparts are left out in this practice. They too should receive benefits to encourage them to practise sperm freezing. The law of justice thus advocates for ban of such benefits on female employees (Greene, 2007). This is because use of such drugs promotes unfair competition and the end result is not profitable as it is not justifiable.

In management practices therefore benefits due to egg freezing is an unfair wage that suffices distributive justice. Besides the practice does not prove any expertise or experience thus needs no compensation and benefits. 1.4 Rights The rights theory dictates that the best manner to deal with ethical issues is to form a foundation of obligations in order to justify all individual’s privilege to human rights (Mason et al, 2000). The rights theory also persists that human rights ought to be autonomous from influence by other factors.

Human right is merely the accepted rights belonging to every individual by the virtue of being a human being. There are positive and negative individual rights. Positive rights are obligations put open people to freely express their freedom. It observes the negative rights are obligations imposed on people to stop them from interfering with other people’s freedom of action. One of the rights that the sports should observe is the right to life (Greene, 2007). The organization has the role of advocating, planning and implementing employee rights (Mason et al, 2000). . The employees have a right to enjoy both human and individual rights.

The introduction and implementation of egg freezing limits human rights. Female employees have a right to decide when to get pregnant and give birth in their life span. The organizations such as Apple Company, that wish to limit this right by invading and distracting employees families need to conduct training. The training need to be aimed at developing logical knowledge, skill attitude, value and beliefs required to perform the task satisfactorily. It involves development and growth of an individual in terms of ability and understanding.

Successful training and development makes an individual to adapt and implement the practice easily and faster. Additionally, it leads to increase in production employee and competitive advantage. In order for an organization to improve the rights of its employees, the management should conduct evaluation. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a practice like egg freezing should be done by the organizational management to ensure that there is organizational growth and development of female employees.

The evaluation that illustrates that the performance of females at the age of Apple Company is low should prompt the ban of the practice.

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