Ethical Issues in Business Decision Making
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Ethical Issues in Business Decision Making
Focusing on the process of ethical decision making within the organization involves bringing up the aspect of business ethics. In retrospect, business ethics involves the tenets and standards that direct personal and group mannerisms in the workplace setting. Usually, stakeholders are responsible for the verification of such conventions. Despite this, the respective elements tend to undergo alterations over time. Interestingly, the same standards have faced codifications hence occurring as rules and regulations. Since persons and teams within an organization may fail to embrace a similar collection of values, it is possible for ethical conflicts to take place. In this respect, questionable decisions as well as courses of action may lead to disputes further asserting the complexity evident in applying ethics in the process of decision making.
Personally, understanding that various aspects can impose effects on the engagement in ethical decision-making is imperative in preventing further participations within unethical activities and unfortunate results. From a more simple perspective, certain factors tend to affect the process considerably. These comprise an individual’s moral philosophy, the phase of moral progression, individual components such as age, gender, and experience, and the aspect of motivation. From the first aspect, the focus on barriers to ethical decision making delves profoundly towards the process of moral disengagement. Accordingly, moral disengagement involves the participation in unethical activities without necessarily suffering from repercussions of guilt from such actions. In such cases, individuals that engage in unethical activities may justify their actions due to their personal moral philosophies, which comprise the rules that they use in deciding between wrong and right.
Consequently, the moral philosophy of an individual may influence him or her to take part in unethical activities through euphemistic labeling. Unlike the initial illustration, taking part in euphemistic labeling involves perceiving unethical conduct as appropriate and therefore, right to carry out. Simply, a person engaging in an immoral act may choose to view it as ethical in relation to the dictation of his or her moral philosophies. In such instances, consequentialist perspectives become considerably apparent. Accordingly, a person may choose to assert his or her choice as right if the respective choice satisfies a needed outcome such as career development, pleasure, utility, knowledge, or self-interest. This egoistic perception explains the reasons that people apply in engaging in acts such as moral justification and particularly, euphemistic labeling.
Conflict between an individual’s expectations is also another reason that complicates participation in ethical decision-making. To be more specific, every individual desires to gain considerably from his or her actions. Based on this, it is no surprise to see numerous individuals engaging in dishonest actions in an effort to gratify their needs as aforementioned. Ironically, the same individuals still perceive themselves as honest persons. The conflict between both aspects draws parallels in the decisions and courses of actions that people apply on a daily basis. To make the matter worse, the contemporary society considerably values those that practice dishonest practices. Hence, for an individual to engage in ethical decision-making, he or she feels the need to gain profitably from it. For instance, one may follow an assignment’s rules hoping to achieve some form of gratitude.
To this end, engaging in ethical decision-making is a difficult task. In most cases, human beings are motivated to participate in activities that fulfill their needs and interests. Hence, even if such activities are unethical in nature, it becomes easy to forego such assertions due to moral justifications and euphemistic labels. Furthermore, the need to achieve glory and wealth represses engagement in ethical decision-making since people are more inclined to gratify their self-interests rather than abide by that which is objectively right or moral.