ETHICS

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ETHICS
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RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING (21) QUESTIONS (Never,
Sometimes Or Often)(Lawton, A. (1998)
Ethical Management for the Public Services,
Buckingham, Open University Press)

• Have you taken stationery or other minor items
  home from your workplace for personal use?
• Have you used the office telephone for personal
  calls?
• Have you asked a colleague to say you are not in
  when you are?
• Have you told white lies to customers or
  clients along the lines of the cheque is in the
  post when it is not?
• Have you blamed your subordinates?
• Have you criticised your organisation to
  outsiders?
• Have you exaggerated your achievements?
• Have you revealed confidential information about
  individuals to others?
• Have you done what you believed to be wrong
  because everyone else does it?
• Have you tempered advice to senior managers to
  give them what they want to hear?
• Have you taken free lunches from clients or
  customers?

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RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING (21) QUESTIONS (Never,
Sometimes Or Often)(Lawton, A. (1998)
Ethical Management for the Public Services,
Buckingham, Open University Press)

• Have you shifted blame for your mistakes to
  others elsewhere in the organisation, eg, Its
  head offices fault?
• Have you bent the rules to get things done?
• Have you carried out a task you fundamentally
  disagreed with?
• Have you covered up for a colleagues?
• Have you acted in favour of a client because of a
  bribe or friendship?
• Have you accepted hospitality, over and in excess
  of that prescribed in codes of conduct?
• Have you discriminated against potential or
  existing staff on the basis of age, colour,
  sexual orientation, gender, religion or race?
• Have you presented misleading information?
• Have you manipulated performance indicators to
  reach targets?
• Have you kept information back from clients
  concerning entitlements because of some other
  constraint, eg, resources, personal preferences,
  treatment?.

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MODEL OF ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING(Hill, C W and
Jones, G R. 1998. Strategic Management An
Integrated Approach. Houghton-Muffin)
Engage in ethical behaviour
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ACTIVITY(Bradburn, R. 2001. Understanding
Business Ethics. ISBN 0-8264-5331-7 Shelfmark
174.4BRA)
Imagine you are the ruler of the world. You
have total power over everything that happens on
the planet. You are faced with the following
dilemmas

• You can almost completely remove hunger from the
  face of the planet. Unfortunately, to do so
  will involve you killing one million people.
  The reason for this is not clear you just have
  to and there is no way out.
• You can reduce hunger in the world by 20 from
  its current level. This is still clearly a
  desirable outcome. Again though, there is a
  down side. In this case, you have to kill one
  hundred people.
• You can leave things as they are. There is no
  trade off whatsoever in this case. .

What do you do? Here are a couple of other
rules that ypu should note

• Whichever decision you make, you will not kill
  yourself
• The people you kill if you adopt options 1 or 2
  will all be complete strangers to you. You
  will not be killing friends or relatives.

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Option 1

• You will be achieving something that mankind has
  failed to achieve in all its years of existence.
• On the other hand, killing a large number of
  people like that is a frightening prospect.

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Option 2

• Still very desirable and benefits a lot of people
  for a relatively small down side.
• What are 100 people out of 6 billion?
• This 100 people might get run over by a bus
  tomorrow anyway!

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Option 3

• No major advantages
• No major drawbacks

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Foundation of Ethical Decision-Making

• Teleological Ethics
• Focuses on the ends, ie, the results of the
  decision rather than the method of getting to the
  result.
• ends justify the means
• Ethical Egoism
• Utilitarianism
• Machiavellianism

• Deontological Ethics
• Focuses on the means of getting to the result,
  eg, certain things you should simply not do, such
  as killing.
• Considers morals, rules and justice.

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Teleological Ethics1 Ethical Egoism

• A person should act in a way that maximises his
  or her own long-term interests.
• We are all genetically programmed to do what is
  right for us, (Hobbes).
• We show an interest in others, but if we do, it
  is only because it is in our own self-interest to
  do so.

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Teleological Ethics2 Utilitarianism

• A person should act in a way that maximizes the
  good of the greatest number of people, eg, Ruler
  of the World case.
• Everyone is deemed equal.
• Take into account the long-term consequences
  whose pleasure?
• Pleasure is measured in total.
• What is pleasure?
• Hedonist (someone who believes that you should
  always maximize pleasure).

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Teleological Ethics3 Machiavellianism

• Do what you have to do to get the job done, ie,
  expediency.
• Denies the existence of morals.
• Decisions based on the facts presented at that
  time.

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Deontological Ethics

• Crucially rules and principles guide reasoning.
• Means just as important as the ends.
• Kant all things have value but may be
  detrimental too, eg, wealth, beauty and
  intelligence.
• Kant do things according to your duty
• Act such that the principles of ones act could
  become a universal law of human action in a world
  in which one would hope to live.
• Respect everybody as a rational and free being.

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Therefore with Deontological Ethics

• There should be rules and morals in society that
  are fair to everyone and that should universally
  apply.
• These rules should hold universally even over the
  passage of time. A decision made today should
  not have a predictable adverse comment on the
  future.
• All members of society under deontology should be
  treated with equal respect.

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Other Approaches

• NORM (Green) recognises the importance of
  morality, fairness and common sense.
• Neutral Omnipartial Rule Making.
• A decision is morally correct when the decision
  proves to be rational and impartial, ie, this is
  really a cross between teleological and
  deontological decision-making.

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Other Approaches

• Values
• Terminal values (desirable end state or goals)
• 1 Personal , eg, what we want out of life
• 2 Social, ie, more general desires, eg, peace
  on earth.
• Instrumental values
• 1 Moral values, eg, honesty, being reliable
  etc.
• 2 Competence values, eg, aspirational personal
  performance, eg, ambitious, competent, attraction
  to opposite sex, intellectual capability, etc.
• Values are the core beliefs or desires that guide
  or motivate attributes and actions.
• Values explain why a person behaves the way they
  do, ie, this is what I believe in.

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Ethical v non-ethical values

• Honesty
• Respect
• Being reliable
• Being fair
• Caring for others
• Doing the right thing
• Being an honest citizen.

• Desire
• Money
• Fame
• Status
• Happiness
• Personal freedom.

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Moral Reasoning

• Self-centred
• Conformity (group related)
• Twelve Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957 Henry
  Fonda)
• Latino accused of murdering his father with a
  switchblade knife.
• Jury 111 guilty
• Eventually acquittal!

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The Development of Business Ethics

• Consumer Movement (1962)
• JFK right to safety, be informed and be heard.
• New Yorks Wall Street (1986)- insider trading
• Corporate environment
• View of the founder
• Body Shop Levi Strauss Co Ben Jerrys Ice
  Cream
• Good business
• Reduce the demand for consumerism
• Active consumer-education
• Cooperating with government agencies, non-profit
  organisations and consumer groups.
• Industry-wide codes of ethics.

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THE CIRCLE OF CORPORATE ETHOS(after Campbell, A,
Young, D and Devine, M. Ashridge Mission Model
In A Sense of Mission)
Community
Telos or purpose
E T H O S
Values
Strategy
Actions
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Therefore . . .
Behaviour Standards Actions
Purpose
Creating a sense of mission
Values
Strategy
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ETHICS

• Ethics
• deontic
• (ancient Greek deos meaning duty)
• Modern Greek deos fear)
• aretaic
• Greek virtues

Most business ethics based on deontic code (duty)
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ETHOS AS FOUR FOLDS OF SUBJECTIFICATION (AFTER
GILLES DELEUZE)
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ETHOS BASED MISSION
Smite
Indo-European (s)meit throw or send

• Latin mittere or missus to let go,
• to cause to go,
• to send

Mission (The task on which one is sent or feels
compelled to set out)
Related words Missile . (a weapon thrown
forward) Dismiss . (a sending
away) Demise . (death, a sending away) Emit
. (send forth) Permit
(send through) Premise (a foundation or
proposition sent forth).
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Nonmarket Issue Life Cycle(originated by Ian
Wilson, General Electric)
Impact on Firm
1957 Roberts auto accident
1959 Nader Moynihan news media
1962-66 GSA NHTSA
1966-present NHTSA rule making recalls
Compliance NHTSA manufacturers interest groups
Time
Issue identification
Interest group formation
Legislation
Enforcement
Administration
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Framework for Analysis of Nonmarket
Issues(Baron, D P. 2005. Business and Its
Environment, 5th ed.)

• Screening
• Elimination of alternatives contrary to
• Law
• Company policy
• Widely-shared ethics and principles

Analysis Interests Moral motivations Institutions
officeholders Information Predictions Market
reactions Nonmarket reactions
Choice Evaluations of ethics claims Application
of normative principles Choice and strategy
formulation
Strategy and implementation
Generation of Alternatives
policies
Refinements, reconsideration, generation of new
alternatives