Corporate governance and ethical decision ion making - Essay Example

Corporate governance and ‘decision-making’ Organizations focus on efficiencies towards either having a profit or surplus on ments of income, a factor that identifies the importance of organizations’ management towards efficiency. This paper seeks to explore corporate governance and ethical decision making in organizations. Corporate governance and responsibilities of top managementCorporate governance defines a management approach among companies that involves control measures of activities and relations among stakeholders.

It is essential in defining a company’s prospects that include performance efficiencies and growth. This consequently identifies the role of a company’s top management in establishing and influencing frameworks for successful operations. The board of directors, as the top management team, therefore plays a major role in defining a company’s corporate governance as well as the governance’s effectiveness in achieving the company’s objectives. Subject to legal provisions and a company’s memorandum, the directors guide their organizations through offering directives as the top managerial decision making organ.

Simpler forms of businesses such as partnerships or limited liability partnerships and companies may have their top management roles vested in teams or persons (Kazmi, 2008).The roles and responsibilities of an organization’s top management centers on making macro organizational decisions that are then passed to line managers for implementation. One of the roles of the top management is developing an organization’s missions and values that define the organization’s overall direction. The management also determines major strategies to be adopted and lays down operational plans.

Similarly, the top management acts as a supervisory body to “monitor and control” the organization’s managers and other officers besides evaluating the organization’s position and making recommendations to owners and other stakeholders (Kazmi, 2008, p. 398). In a small laundry repair business where a father is the technician and his son is the administrator, the son assumes top management responsibilities to make strategic decisions, communicate the decisions, and supervise the father and other employees, and report recommendations to the stakeholders (Kazmi, 2008).

Ethical ‘decision-making’ and social responsibility of strategic ‘decision-making’An organization’s top management, whether board of directors or individuals, are in their roles faced with social responsibility, which is the moral obligation to maximize benefits of all stakeholders to a strategic decision. The management’s decision should therefore consider possible adverse “economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic” impacts on involved parties and mitigate the effects at all costs (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2012, p. 52). Similarly, ethical ‘decision-making’ observes established ethical practices into decisions to take care of stakeholders’ interest.

In the case, social responsibility and ethical decision making would involves the son’s informed decisions that takes the best care of his father’s interest, as a technician in the organization, and interest of other stakeholders such as customers and the surrounding community (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2012).Ethical ‘decision-making’ and social responsibility are important in promoting harmony among stakeholders towards achieving common objectives. It also ensures that strategic decisions made by an organization’s top management are not harmful to any involved party to the organization.

These lead to further benefits such as good corporate image and reduced threats from an organization’s surrounding (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2012).Ethics and corporate responsibility therefore ensures security of an organization’s property and economic interest. ReferenceFerrell, O., Fraedrich, J. and Ferrell. (2012). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making & Cases. Mason, OH: Cengage LearningKazmi, A. (2008). Strategic Management And Business Policy. New Delhi, India: Tata McGraw-Hill Education