Influences on Ethical Decision Making of Senior Leaders - Thesis Proposal Example

Senior leaders in organizations owe the responsibility to display a high level of ethical and moral values in their conduct, both within the organization and outside of it. However, many instances have come to the fore, where they discard this significant aspect. Fox (2005) opined in his book regarding the 1998 March survey, that 90 percent of Americans are concerned with the moral decline: 49 percent labeled it a moral crisis, and 41 percent labeled it a major problem”(p. xiii). He goes on to assert that ‘in 1998, we were becoming aware of the moral decline than the question that becomes paramount, why was nothing changed’? The year 2001 will undoubtedly go down in history as a period fraught with corporate malfeasance. The spectacle of senior leaders being led away in handcuffs may become one of the images that define the corporate misdemeanors of modern times. The corporate scandals in North America, including WorldCom, International Olympic Committee, Enron, Tyco, Qwest Communications International, Duke Energy, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, as well as sex scandals in the Catholic Church, have resulted in a loss of confidence in the management and leadership of these large organizations. Consequently, investors have become unnerved and the jolts have shaken international markets. It is no wonder that a CBS poll taken in the fall of 2002 finds that 79% of respondents believe questionable business practices are widespread and only fewer than one-third think that CEOs are honest (Wallington, 2003).

            These corporations have all come into the limelight for the wrong reasons. As a result, the role of the CEO in ethical dilemmas has come under increased scrutiny. While ethical lapses occur at all levels of organizations, senior executives who fail to set high ethical standards and live by them become senior leaders within an organization that assume the belief to display high ethical and moral values in their conduct both within the organization and outside are not an important value.