...Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 73:219–229 DOI 10.1007/s10551-006-9202-6 Ó Springer 2006 A Model of Ethical Decision Making: The Integration of Process and Content Roselie McDevitt Catherine Giapponi Cheryl Tromley ABSTRACT. We develop a model of ethical decision making that integrates the decision-making process and the content variables considered by individuals facing ethical dilemmas. The process described in the model is drawn from Janis and Mann’s [1977, Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict Choice and Commitment (The Free Press, New York)] work describing the decision process in an environment of conflict, choice and commitment. The model is enhanced by the inclusion of content variables derived from the ethics literature. The resulting integrated model aids in understanding the complexity of the decision process used by individuals facing ethical dilemmas and suggests variable interactions that could be field-tested. A better understanding of the process will help managers develop policies that enhance the likelihood of ethical behavior in their organizations. KEY WORDS: decision making, ethical framework, ethics, process, stress Roselie McDevitt Sc.D. is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the Charles F. Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Dr. McDevitt teaches financial and managerial accounting. Her Primary areas of research are accounting education and accounting ethics. Catherine Giapponi is an Assistant...
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...today’s world, business decisions are involved in everything that people do. In homes, on the job, and in everyday transactions, business is in one way or another applied. These decisions may be based on finances, personal beliefs, power, or even on greed. Due to these many reasons, it is very important that businesses use a set of rules or guidelines in helping them to make the right decisions. It seems that a different company or organization is on television every other day because they have been caught using unethical measures in their business. In applying an ethical decision model, companies can cut down on making decisions, which can hinder their companies in a negative way, now and also in the future. Applying ethics in the form of a decision model is no replacement for morals or for business leadership, but it gives guidelines to follow, and identifies which problems actually need to be addressed and offers various ways to solve them (Sternberg, pg. 112). The decision model helps to organize the information in a way that is more productive in solving the problem in the right way. Through analyzing ethical decision models a number of ethical issues can be solved quite well, and with good grace. The following ethical decision models will help illustrate the importance if using these rules and guidelines. Sternberg’s ethical decision model is based on five steps. Step one is to clarify the questions, which is very important in tackling all ethical business problems. Many...
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...Ethical Decision Making Introduction Implementing a framework for ethical decision making within the Toy Company should be the first step to supporting overall company adoption of core ethical business approaches. So what exactly does ethical decision making address? From the base definition, it addresses the ability of an employee to make a decision when no apparent answer is obviously right or wrong. It addresses decisions based on differing perspectives, beliefs or bias. Ethical decisions may also incorporate ethics related to obedience, general care, or reason. In relation to obedience, decisions may not solely be based on legal concerns. Ethical decisions based on obedience may also address the moral implications of the decisions outcome. Moreover, ethical decisions made with care will introduce empathy or require the ability to see things from others perspectives. Finally, ethical decisions addressed with reason permit the company to base decisions on experience to predict the most likely outcome. Suggested Strategies for Implementation Following are two suggested strategies by which the Toy Company may ensure multi-level participation into ethical decision making models. 1. Implement a Code of Ethics and integrate that code into the company's mission statement and policies. By researching, reviewing, developing, and implementing a Code of Ethics into all facets of the company the employees will have a guideline detailing the base values governing ethical considerations...
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...essay will examine and analyze whether hiring ethical people is the key factor in encouraging and producing an ethical organization. Ethics refer to the moral standards set that enables an individual to tell what is right from wrong and what is good and bad. In today’s organizations, the importance of the code of ethics is more prevalent than ever. Code of ethics consists of various factors such as being honest, building trust, and upholding the ethical standards. Organizations that exercise ethical codes not only feel that it is a way to portray a positive image to the stakeholders, but also because it highlights its own organizational virtues and values. It is believed that such culture could cultivate and encourage more ethical behavior for the employees in the organization (Stevens, 2008).Code of ethics are also used to articulate the restrictions for the organization, and to set a benchmark of what is acceptable and unacceptable, boosting responsibility, and conveying the standard expectations demanded from the employees as well as the leaders in the organization (Stevens, 2008).The ethical codes can be described as an effective tool to promote ethical behavior in the organization(Stevens, 2008).However, researchers have came up with reports that hints that the practice of ethical codes are unproductive and they have failed to create an impact in an employee’s behavior(Stevens, 2008). One of the studies suggested that ethical codes are not suitable and were ineffective especially...
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...ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND MORAL BEHAVIOR | | Related Links WebNote Index Leadership Overview Decision Making Values Contact information: Dr. Richard W. Scholl 36 Upper College Road Kingston, RI 02881 p. 401.874.4347 f. 401.874.2954 rscholl@uri.edu Much of the recent interest in ethics and moral behavior in business comes from Enron and Worldcom, as scholars, educators, practitioners, and the public seek to understand the behavior of executives in these firms. Many have chosen to view these cases from the perspective of ethics, that is, the behavior of these executives is seen as unethical and the explanation is that they are unethical or immoral people. Furthermore, the solution is improved moral education in business programs. “Somehow, we need to make future executives more moral or more ethical” and we can do this in the context of an undergraduate business program or MBA degree program. Some have even suggested that today’s business programs not only do not facilitate the “moral development” of students, but students leave these programs “less moral” than they were when they entered the programs. Here a couple of points to consider: What is Ethical or Moral? What do we mean by ethical decision making? Are there decisions that are not ethical in that there is not ethical component to a choice? In their review of ethical decision making, Tenbruensel and Smith-Crowe (2008) present a distinction between moral decision making and amoral decision making. Within...
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...Title First and Last Name College Lead problem in a toy manufacturing company Our toy company has plans for shipping our elementary toy collection at the end of the week. One of our products has failed the quality control testing. The product that has failed was found to exceed the legal limits of lead that is set laid down by the federal government. The test found that the amount of lead was slightly beyond the U.S. lawfully acceptable boundaries for children aged 7 and below. According to Parboteeah and Cullen, (2013), Lead is a harmful substance that has several health problems. Some of the challenges caused by lead are neurological damage, hearing problems, delayed mental and physical development and learning disabilities when ingested by children. Young children are more vulnerable to the harmful effects caused by lead because they mouth and share many objects that they come across. The cost of replacing the toy (whistle) and conform to the guidelines laid by the government is projected to be $100,000. There are three possible alternatives that our company can embrace to address the whistle problem. The first option that the company can take to address the whistle problem is to ship the toys as planned after two weeks. The toys will be transported with the lead amount exceeding the amount that is dictated by the government of the United States. It is possible that the even if the toys are considered unsafe...
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...Values and Ethical Decision Making MGT/521 July 22, 2012 Week Three Abdelmagead Elbiali Values and Ethical Decision Making Ethical decision-making involves considerations about our deepest values and commitments. It allows us to think about our relations to others and what we owe to them. While ethical decisions are often our highest priority, in the real world, they often have to be balanced against other concerns. For example, business concerns involve generating a profit and maximizing individual or corporate gain. One of the biggest problems for modern businesses is how to balance ethical goals with business goals. Should a company like Verizon work with Chinese companies in securing corporate goals? Chinese finds acceptable certain practices that American culture shuns, such as child labor. By working with these Chinese companies, Verizon can secure goods more cheaply and maximize corporate profit, but on the other hand, ethical principles would be violated. As individuals, we must simultaneously make ethical and business decisions. Resourceful thinking, we can formulate goals that share a considerable overlap with the goals of business and ethics. * Tina’s Decision-making Process * Based on the outcome of the Ethics Awareness Inventory, what is the most...
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...workforce and their decision-making capabilities. Many times the ethicality of such decisions have been questioned because of the profit driven strategies of these organizations. As Nobel Prize winner economist Milton Friedman quotes, “An executive’s responsibility generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” The decision-making process and hence ethicality of the decisions in such organisations is greatly influenced by the culture of the workforce. Bartels (1967) was one of the first to note the importance of the role of culture in ethical decision-making. There are different studies which discuss the diversity of ethical decision-making based on different perspective for example, Vitell, Nwachukwu and Barnes, 1993 discuss the effect of culture on ethical decision-making with the help of Hofsted’s typology while Patel and Schaefer, 2009 discuss the same with the help of Douglasian Cultural Theory (CT) perspective in the Indian context. Summary Patel and Schaefer’s article discusses the impact of culture on ethical decision-making from a Douglasian Cultural Theory (CT) perspective. It explains the dynamic ethical behaviour of the individual with four solidarities of CT. The Article also discusses the business ethics in the Indian context. Authors argue that applying static conception of culture to the process of ethical...
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...justified to the right. Keep a Photocopy or Electronic Copy of Your Assignments: You may need to re-submit assignments if your mentor has indicated that you may or must do so. Academic Integrity: All work submitted in each course must be the Learner’s own. This includes all assignments, exams, term papers, and other projects required by the faculty mentor. The known submission of another person’s work represented as that of the Learner’s without properly citing the source of the work will be considered plagiarism and will result in an unsatisfactory grade for the work submitted or for the entire course, and may result in academic dismissal. | | MGT7019-8 | Dr. Chad McAllister | | | Foundations for Doctoral Study in Business | SIMMONSMGT7019-8-ASSGN#1 | | | All work submitted is original and my own intellectual property. I am open to guidance and instruction that enable me to achieve my educational goal of excellence. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Faculty Use Only ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty comments here> ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- <Faculty Name> <Grade Earned> <Writing Score> <Date...
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...organization's business ethics on the performance of the organization. Explain how poor business ethics could adversely affect a business. Use examples. Ethics is the field of study that is used to prescribe morally acceptable behaviors, and including a wide range of moral and ethical principles, providing methods and guidance for the distinguish between right and wrong. "Ethics is important for managers involved with Management Control Systems (MCS) because ethical principles can provide a useful guide for defining how employees should behave." [Management control-related ethical issues and analysis] It is important for an organization to have good ethics as unethical behaviors are costly not only to the individuals involved but also the organization, market and the society.' People learns from history,' each time a serious unethical issue arises, the government creates extra laws and standards for the governing of organizations, however these extra enforcements mechanisms "are incomplete, imperfect, and expensive, and have the typical drawbacks of rigid action controls." [Management control-related ethical issues and analysis] Business ethical issues arise because in most cases ethical actions may not generate the best outcome for an organization, "ethical individuals sometimes must make actions that are not in their own self-interest or their organizations owners' best interest." [Management control-related ethical issues and analysis] There are many dilemmas when making ethical...
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...Scope of Marketing Ethics INTRODUCTION Marketing ethics is viewed as important because of marketing’s interface with many diverse stakeholders. Marketing is a key functional area in the business organization that provides a visible interface with not only customers, but other stakeholders such as the media, investors, regulatory agencies, channel members, trade associations, as well as others. It is important when addressing marketing ethics to recognize that it should be examined from an individual, organizational, and societal perspective. Examining marketing ethics from a narrow issue perspective does not provide foundational background that provides a complete understanding of the domain of marketing ethics. The purpose of this chapter is to define, examine the nature and scope, identify issues, provide a decision-making framework, and trace the historical development of marketing ethics from a practice and academic perspective. DEFINITION OF MARKETING ETHICS Ethics has been termed the study and philosophy of human conduct, with an emphasis on the determination of right and wrong. For marketers, ethics in the workplace refers to rules (standards, principles) governing the conduct of organizational members and the consequences of marketing decisions (Ferrell, 2005). Therefore, ethical marketing from a normative perspective approach is defined as “practices that emphasize transparent, trustworthy, and responsible personal and organizational marketing policies and actions...
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...Scope of Marketing Ethics INTRODUCTION Marketing ethics is viewed as important because of marketing’s interface with many diverse stakeholders. Marketing is a key functional area in the business organization that provides a visible interface with not only customers, but other stakeholders such as the media, investors, regulatory agencies, channel members, trade associations, as well as others. It is important when addressing marketing ethics to recognize that it should be examined from an individual, organizational, and societal perspective. Examining marketing ethics from a narrow issue perspective does not provide foundational background that provides a complete understanding of the domain of marketing ethics. The purpose of this chapter is to define, examine the nature and scope, identify issues, provide a decision-making framework, and trace the historical development of marketing ethics from a practice and academic perspective. DEFINITION OF MARKETING ETHICS Ethics has been termed the study and philosophy of human conduct, with an emphasis on the determination of right and wrong. For marketers, ethics in the workplace refers to rules (standards, principles) governing the conduct of organizational members and the consequences of marketing decisions (Ferrell, 2005). Therefore, ethical marketing from a normative perspective approach is defined as “practices that emphasize transparent, trustworthy, and responsible personal and organizational marketing policies and actions...
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...Running head: Code of ethics Code of ethics within businesses Saif Mustafa Ali Monash University Ethics relate to an individual's moral judgements about right and wrong. Decisions taken within a corporation may be made by individuals or groups, but whoever makes them will be influenced by the culture of the company. The decision to act ethically is a moral one; employees must choose what they think is the right course of action. This may require declining the route that would lead to the largest short-term profit. Ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility can bring considerable advantages to a business. Ethics and ethical behavior are very high priorities for companies today (Davis 2004; Weber 2006). Although codes of ethics are tools that are frequently used as one of the efforts to promote ethical behavior, research suggests that there may be a great deal of room for enhancement of existing codes (Kitson 1996; Blodgett and Carlson 1997; Moyes and Park 1997; Hume, Larkins and Iyer 1999; Schwartz 2001). The aim of this paper is to recognize and discuss ways to improve the code of ethics of an corporation. Blodgett and Carlson reviewed twenty-nine business codes of ethics and concluded that "the codes often contained unclear references to acting ethically, then give widespread compliance lists which operate mainly to forbid breach of current laws"(1997, 1369). Schwartz (2001) in his research based on fifty-seven in detail interviews at four large Canadian companies...
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...Chicago Press, Chicago 60637; 1973 The ethical decision-making process begins when an individual recognizes an ethical dilemma. Subsequently, the individual makes a judgment and forms behavioral intentions, which are thought to be predictive of actual behavior. This process is affected by individual, situational and issue-contingent factors. Our study examines the effect of four issue contingencies on marketers' ethical decision-making process. More than 300 marketing professionals took part in our study, responding to questions regarding two sales scenarios. We controlled for relevant individual and situational factors and tested hypotheses using hierarchical regression. Perceptions of a greater magnitude of consequences were positively related to issue recognition and judgments that the action was unethical in both scenarios and behavioral intentions in one scenario. Perceptions of a societal consensus were associated with issue recognition and judgments that the action was unethical in one scenario. Magnitude of consequences demonstrated the strongest relationship with the ethical decision-making process. Author ISSUE-RELATED FACTORS. Conceptual research by Thomas Jones in the 1990s and subsequent empirical studies suggest that ethical issues in business must have a certain level of "moral intensity" before they will trigger ethical decision-making processes. Thus, individual and situational factors are unlikely to influence decision-making for issues considered by the individual...
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...Running Head: BEHAVIOURAL BUSINESS ETHICS Understanding Ethical Behavior and Decision Making in Management: A Behavioural Business Ethics Approach David De Cremer Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University London Business School Rolf van Dick Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany Ann Tenbrunsel Notre Dame University, Mendoza College of Business, USA Madan Pillutla London Business School J. Keith Murnighan Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, USA Abstract Management and businesses in general are constantly facing important ethical challenges. In the current special issue, we identify the widespread emergence of unethical decision making and behavior in management as an important topic for a future research agenda. Specifically, we promote the use of a behavioral business ethics approach to better understand when management, leaders and businesses are inclined to act unethically and why this is the case. A behavioral business ethics approach which relies on important insights from psychology should be a necessary addition and complementary to the traditional normative approaches used in business ethics. Understanding Ethical Behavior and Decision Making in Management: A Behavioural Business Ethics Approach The numerous scandals in business such as those at AIG, Tyco, WorldCom, and Enron have raised many concerns about the emergence of unethical and irresponsible behavior in organizations. The seemingly unending...
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