...Ethical Leadership •What are the components of a comprehensive framework for ethical decision making in business? Ethical Issue Intensity Business Ethics Ethical or Individual Factors Evaluations and Unethical Organizational factors Intentions Behavior Opportunity Ethical-Issue Intensity The first step in ethical decision making is to recognize that an ethical issue requires an individual or work group to choose among several actions that various stakeholders inside or outside the firm will ultimately evaluate as right or wrong. The intensity of an ethical issue relates to its perceived importance to the decision maker. Ethical issue intensity, then, can be defined as the relevance or importance of an ethical issue in the eyes of the individual, work group, and/or organization. It is personal and temporal in character to accommodate values, beliefs, needs, perceptions, the special characteristics of the situation, and the personal pressures prevailing at a particular place and time. Senior employees and those with administrative authority contribute significantly to intensity because they typically dictate an organization’s stance on ethical issues. In fact, under current law, managers can be held liable for the unethical and illegal Moral intensity relates to a person’s perception...
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...Business Ethics Mitzi N. Harvey Liberty University Abstract This literature review examines the concepts of business ethics and how it is related to the organizational design of a corporation. The first section of this review defines the concepts of business ethics and organizational design to establish their meaning and use throughout this paper. The second aspect of understanding the relationship between business ethics and organizational design comes from understanding how and/or why ethics is important to organizational design. This will illustrate any underlying influences ethics has on business structure and design. The third section of this paper reviews and groups the literature found linking ethics and organizational design. Literature is grouped together based on the similarities found in authors’ opinions, research and/or results. The next section discusses the ideas of micro and macro ethics; first defining them, illustrating the differences and then explaining how they come into play when examining the link between ethics and design. The following sections of the review, provides examples of formal organizational structures, ethical programs, and the ethical decisions that impacted them. Finally, in the conclusion of the review it summarizes the relationship between business ethics and organizational design, how this relationship impacts business, and what this means for business managers. Introduction To sustain in a global economy, organizations must...
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...The Effect of Organizational Culture The organizational culture is very important to every person, especially to someone that works in a professional environment. Recognizing and acknowledging a firm’s organizational culture, its benefits and weaknesses before starting employment is one of the most important necessities. This helps a person to find out if they might be a good fit for the company and if that company will satisfy their personal values and beliefs. For me, as a future accountant in the professional public firm, some of the most important characteristics are ethical values and their practices within the company. I am very interested in learning how ethical values promoted by professional accountants’ impact organizational culture, how organizational culture affects accountants’ ethical judgments and how espoused organizational cultures influence public accounting firms. To analyze and look deeper into these issues, I evaluated and studied the following articles: Daniela, Ţogoe Greti, Mateş Dorel, and Mănescu Dragotoiu Mileva Valentina. Impact of Ethical Values Promoted by Professional Accountants on the Organizational Culture. Annals of the University Of Oradea, Economic Science Series 22.1 (2013): 1280-1285. Douglas, Patricia Casey, Ronald A. Davidson, and Bill N. Schwartz. The Effect of Organizational Culture and Ethical Orientation on Accountants' Ethical Judgments. Journal of Business Ethics 34.2 (2001): 101-121. Holmes, Scott, and Stephen Marsden...
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...Values and Ethical Decision Making Learning Team A Kevin Davis, Desmond Harris, David Stevens MGT 521 January 30, 2010 Richard Lewis Values and Ethical Decision Making Individuals and organizations make multiple decisions every day. Making decisions involves making a choice between two or more alternatives (Nickels, McHugh, & McHugh, 2010). Some of these choices are small, like what flavor of ice cream to buy, whereas other choices are big, like should a corporate executive take a bribe. Making ethical decisions is important for an organization’s success. An individual’s personal values and ethics help guide decision making. Organizational values also play a role in making decisions. Ethics awareness inventories help identify a person’s ethical perspective and how that perspective may conflict with organizational values to influence decisions. Values Evaluating personal values Norfolk Southern values can be evaluated through the individual actions, accomplishments, and achievements that have institutionalized the company’s commitment and many years of service. The personal leadership at Norfolk Southern developed the company’s long-term strategic formula for success in the railroad industry. The personal values of Norfolk Southern leaders, like former Chief Executive Officer David R. Goode, developed the company’s mission and vision and helped build a top company within the industry. Mr. Goode’s personal actions throughout countless situations helped guide the...
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...Personal Values In today’s society, we live our lives and make our future depending “on what we believe has value.” What we do with our time, our money and our lives are all directly influenced by our capacity to make clear, balanced and valued decisions. Each individual brings a set of personal values into the workplace. These values and the moral reasoning associated with them translate into behavior that are considered important aspects of ethical decision making in organizations. For example, the family background and spiritual values of managers provide principles by which they carry out business. Moreover, people go through stages or levels of moral development that affect their ability to translate values into behavior. There are distinct levels of moral development that affect behavior. The first level, as seen in children, is a low developmental level. In short, a child’s decision and behavior are based on rewards and the avoidance of physical punishment. At the next level, individuals conforms appropriate behavior based on the expectations of society. At the highest level of moral development are those individuals who develop and internal set of standards. In other words, they have self-chosen ethical principles that are more important than external expectations. Overall, personal values are developed from an ethical framework of individuals; it guides their decisions. Organizational Values Rarely are unethical or ethical practices attributed to a single...
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...Business Ethics Mitzi N. Harvey Liberty University Abstract This literature review examines the concepts of business ethics and how it is related to the organizational design of a corporation. The first section of this review defines the concepts of business ethics and organizational design to establish their meaning and use throughout this paper. The second aspect of understanding the relationship between business ethics and organizational design comes from understanding how and/or why ethics is important to organizational design. This will illustrate any underlying influences ethics has on business structure and design. The third section of this paper reviews and groups the literature found linking ethics and organizational design. Literature is grouped together based on the similarities found in authors’ opinions, research and/or results. The next section discusses the ideas of micro and macro ethics; first defining them, illustrating the differences and then explaining how they come into play when examining the link between ethics and design. The following sections of the review, provides examples of formal organizational structures, ethical programs, and the ethical decisions that impacted them. Finally, in the conclusion of the review it summarizes the relationship between business ethics and organizational design, how this relationship impacts business, and what this means for business managers. Introduction To sustain in a global economy, organizations must...
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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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...How Personal Can Ethics Get? Introduction Ethics are principles or morals in which one distinguishes right from wrong based on their beliefs, social and economical environment in addition to their upbringing. Businesses and organizations should implement good uncompromised ethical practices, policies and procedures in order to obtain a positive reputation and to be successful. Employees are faced with many personal ethical decisions on a daily basis; a wrong decision could lead to stress, a bad reputation from colleagues or retaliation from management. Organizational leaders should build trust with their employees, display integrity and good ethical business practices. This was not the case with Valerie Young and the CEO of the company, Lionel Waters. In this paper I will discuss the personal differences and preferences can impact organizational ethics, how organizational policies and procedures can impact ethics, the ethical dilemmas Valerie is facing, and the best recommendation for Valerie. Personal Ethics As individuals in the United States we are entitled to our own opinions, preferences and thoughts; whether it’s deciding organizational affiliations or potential places of employment. The impact of personal difference and preference on an organization can be both positive and negative, in addition to the correlations of personal values to organizational values. There are many diversified organizations, clubs and groups all of which have values...
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...ASSIGNMENT 1: HOW PERSONAL CAN ETHICS GET? Ana G. Hammell Leadership and Organizational Behavior – BUS 520 Professor: Shawn Richmond Strayer University 1. Discuss how personal differences and preference can impact organizational ethics. Ethics are the values and principles that help individuals determine between what is “right” and what is “wrong”. Ethics of an organization determine how the organization ethically responds to an internal or external stimulus. In this sense, organizational ethics are the set of formal and informal standards of conduct that people use to guide their behavior at work. These standards are partly based on core values such as honesty, respect, and trust, but they also can be learned directly from the actions of others. They also express the values of an organization to its employees and/or other entities irrespective of governmental and/or regulatory laws (Hellrigel & Slocum Jr., 2011). On the other hand we have personal differences and preferences. An individual’s personality combines physical and mental characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts, and feels. Personality differences and preferences can impact organizational ethics because each employee in an organization is unique and may or may not act like someone else will act in a similar situation as it can be observed in the present case under analysis. 2. Discuss how organizational policies and procedures can impact ethics. According to...
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...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 that exhibit...
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...Values and Ethical Decision Making MGT/521 September 10, 2012 Value Systems and Ethical Decision Making Ethical systems combine different values, morals, and principals. Values are character traits that define individual behavior. Morals are the ideals that separate right from wrong. Principals are ideals that put values and morals into action. Together each of these components influences decisions on a business and personal level. Companies use codes of ethics to dictate employee behavior when dealing with customers, vendors, investors, and coworkers. Codes of ethics incorporate characteristics of individual value systems, including honesty, integrity, trust, and fairness. The four-step process that governs ethical behavior includes character, obligation, results, and equity; these four traits also known as CORE. The Williams Institute Ethics Awareness Inventory provides insight into individual value systems. An analysis of each individual value system provides confirmation that personal values are often the foundation for establishing organizational values. A clear understanding of these values makes ethical reasoning more effective. During the hiring process personal perspectives and preferences often go unchecked. A balanced approach is necessary when seeking to fill a vacant position. Although an individual’s ethical perspective weighs heavily to one of the four traits, evaluation of the remaining three perspectives is mandatory when making a decision...
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...Head: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATION Title: How Personal Can Ethic Get? Name: Raymond McCall Instructor: Dr. Orsini School Name: Strayer University Course: Leadership and Organization Date: 1/23/2011 Discuss how personal differences and preference can impact organizational ethics. People have different attitudes towards their work due to their preferences. This implies that there exists natural tension between people values or preferences and organizational ethics (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2010). Personal and professional differences have impact on organizational impact in that people start behaving in ways that are inconsistent with their personal characteristics and not consistent with organizational ethics. Giacalone & Jurkiewicz (2010) established that “the deciding factor behind a person’s decision to conform, leave, or alter is based on the relative priority given to the conflicting organizational ethics” (p. 155). Individual preferences shape ones consciousnesses; imposing routines that reflect socially approved, purposive action hence they guide the perception and behavior of oneself. This implies that these preferences present cultural and contextual constraints that alter individual and organizational perspectives on social issues (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2010). Studies indicate that if a personal need for job is an individual’s overriding value above all other, then conformance to organizational ethics is the likely response to the detriment...
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...How Personal Can Ethics Get? Organizational ethics has come under much scrutiny over the last few years due to the financial crisis and misuse of organizational funds. The unethical behavior has come into the light due to the demand for government bailout and the outcry of the public for more oversight of funds. Uproar has ensued due to huge bonuses for corporate big shots running floundering companies while their employees are getting laid off and their benefits cut. All of it being plastered across the news making business and ethics anonyms. The following will discuss how personal differences and preferences impact ethics, how organizational policies and procedures impact ethics, and will examine a case study on dealing with ethical dilemmas. Discuss how personal differences and preferences can impact organization ethics. Values and principles strongly influence an individual’s decision making and behavior. Ethics are values and principles that help individuals distinguish right from wrong. A difference in an individual’s values and principles can result in a difference in what an individual considers to be ethical or unethical. The same can be said for an organization. For example, a person may value people more than an organization. Therefore, that person may not consider an action that is hurting the organization but benefiting the people within the organization to be unethical. Some may not consider an action to be unethical unless the action breaks the law. Ethics...
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...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 that exhibit...
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...ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND ETHICAL LEADERSHIP To improve ethical decision making in business, one must first understand how individuals make ethical decisions in an organizational environment. Too often it is assumed that individuals in organizations make ethical decisions in the same way that they make ethical decisions at home, in their family, or in their personal lives. Within the context of an organizational work group, however, few individuals have the freedom to decide ethical issues independent of organizational pressures. ETHICAL – ISSUE INTENSITY The first step in ethical decision making is to recognize that an ethical issue requires an individual or work group to choose among several actions that various stakeholders inside or outside the firm will ultimately evaluate as right or wrong. Ethical issue intensity, then, can be defined as the relevance or importance of an ethical issue in the eyes of the individual, work group, and/or organization. it is personal and temporal in character to accommodate values, beliefs, needs, perceptions, the special characteristics of the situation, and the personal pressure prevailing at a particular place and time. Ethical – issue intensity reflects the ethical sensitivity of the individual or work group that faces the ethical decision – making process. Research suggest that individuals are subject to six “spheres of influence” when confronted with ethical choices – the workplace, family, religion, legal system, community...
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