ETHICAL DECISION MAKING PROCESS 1. Utilitarian Ethics: The Greater Good. Cheryl Tromley, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management atFairfield University where she has taught management, organizational behavior, organizational communication, organizationalculture, organization development, and diversity for 19 years. Rather than try to follow a set of simple rules (Dont lie. Dont cheat.), leaders and managers seeking to be more ethical should focus on creating the most value for society. An Interactive Expert System Based Decision Making Model for the Management of Transit System Alternate Fuel Vehicle Assets. Managers should use these cues to promote ethics. The authors go on to describe how an ethical culture may develop and change, from ethical to unethical or vice-versa. Business Ethics Quarterly 6:461476, McDevitt R., Van Hise J. Managers should also be conscious of how unethical behavior can be encouraged or rationalized through group norms. As a decision-maker, to help you understand when to use some common decision-making models, examine the definitions and steps below: 1. One of my clients, a corporation that gets rave reviews for its social-responsibility efforts, created an internal video featuring four high-level executives, each telling a story about going above the bosss head at a time when the boss wasnt observing the ethical standards espoused by the corporation. Because managers are role models for their departments, they must be able to discuss the ethical implications of decision-making and provide advice to employees in an ethical quandary. A method of making ethical decisions B. Ethics is important and beneficial to employees, managers, leaders, industries and society. More recently, this divide between good and bad is evident in the behavior of the Sackler family. The model offers insight into First, organizations could use assessment of how managers think about ethical dilemmas and cognitive moral development when selecting provides a way to typologize real world decision-managers for positions in which ethical decision making phenomena based on Kohlberg's empiri-making is an important part of the job. The ethical decision-making process proceeds from Ethical Awareness to Ethical Judgment to Ethical Behavior. Yet we all crave direction from our leaders. 7. People issues: the ethical problems that occur when people work together. It alerted me to the existence of a developed academic literature on the subject of ethical decision-making models. Human rights and fundamental freedoms: this principle is based on belief in the inherent worth of every individual and the equality of rights of all human beings, but it often stands in conflict with national sovereignty (e.g. Part of Springer Nature. Trevino, L. K. 1986. Aiming in that direction can move us toward increasing what I call maximum sustainable goodness: the level of value creation that we can realistically achieve. As technology creates amazing ways to improve our lives, our environmental footprint becomes a bigger concern. (The Care Ethics Lens). I generally subscribe to the tenets of utilitarianism, a philosophy initially offered by Bentham, which argues that ethical behavior is behavior that maximizes utility in the worldwhat Ill call value here. By establishing norms for ethical behaviorand clearly empowering employees to help enforce itleaders can affect hundreds or even thousands of other people, motivating and enabling them to act more ethically themselves. More recently behavioral ethicists in the social sciences have offered research-based accounts of what people actually do when confronted with ethical dilemmas. issues because of ideological reasons or because methodological problems are considered difficult to surmount. Dr. Giapponi teaches courses in management, organizational behavior, and strategy. To understand ethical decision making, we will operationalize the concept of ethics which underpins ethical decision-making. (The Common Good Lens), Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be? The process described in the model is drawn from Janis and Manns [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. Scholars of decision-making dont expect people to be fully rational, but they argue that we should aspire to be so in order to better align our behavior with our goals. Which is more important to you: your salary or the nature of your work? (For further elaboration on the justice lens, please see our essay, Justice and Fairness.). 1. College of Business: Ethical Decision-Making Models" (1996). An ethical dilemma exists as the moral issue surrounds the abuse that was experienced by Precious and the emotional strain that her mother was experiencing by then. The effects of moral identity on moral behavior: An empirical investigation of the moral individual. Social responsibility is as integral as economic performance. Equal treatment implies that people should be treatedas equalsaccording to some defensible standard such as merit or need, but not necessarily that everyone should be treated in the exact same way in every respect. 2. (1991) Research Note: Selected Factors Influencing Marketers Deontological Norms. We make most decisions using System 1. This article (a) proposes an issue-contingent model containing a new set of variables called moral intensity; (b) using concepts, theory, and . Approach your immediate manager first. Chapter 5: Ethics as Organizational Culture Can I learn more about the situation? Employees should participate in the problem diagnosis and planning process. Ethical decision-making model. 1. Rawls argued that if you thought about how society should be structured without knowing your status in it (rich or poor, man or woman, Black or white)that is, behind a veil of ignoranceyou would make fairer, more-ethical decisions. For example, they are more likely to hire men for mathematical tasks. Another way to think about corporate social responsibility (CSR) is in terms of multiple types of responsibility: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Journal of Business Ethics 6(2): 1111222, Weaver G. R., Trevino L. K., Cochran P. L. (1999) Control Ethics Programs as Control Systems: Influences of Executive Commitment and Environmental Factors. Journal of Business Ethics 51(2): 167173, Hegarty W. H., Simms H. P. Jr. (1978) Some Determinants of Unethical Decision Behavior: An Experiment. Gather the Facts. Strangely, people are willing to answer these questions even without knowing how much salary theyd need to forgo to have more-interesting work, or how much more space they could have if they lived five miles farther from work or school, and so forth. The video suggested that questioning authority is the right thing to do when that authority is destroying societal value. Ethical culture is a multisystem framework of formal and informal organizational systems. In my view, leaders answering ethical questions like these should be guided by the goal of creating the most value for society. At that gathering the I Just Cant Say No club was born. With that in mind a measurement instrument was developed using the Personal Ethical Threshold (Comer and Vega . Finally, they offer advice for workers to manage up and across in team situations. Unlike the utilitarian lens, which sums up and aggregates goods for every individual, the common good lens highlights mutual concern for the shared interests of all members of a community. In this paper we present a revision of the Ethical Matrix specifically tailored to decision . It also suggests how people can try to identify their values and voice them. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(4): 737-748. 5. They were more likely to agree that it was when the veil obscured which of the 10 people they might be. 3. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. The ethical decision-making process consists of (1) ethical awareness, (2) ethical judgment, and (3) ethical action. But to the extent that you care about others and society at large, your decisions in negotiation should tilt toward trying to create value for all parties. This paper reviews the major theories, studies and models concerning ethical decision making in organizations. Dr. McDevitt teaches financial and managerial accounting. (1986) Ethical Decision Making in Organizations A Person-Situation Interactionist Model. Journal of Business Ethics Identify the obligations (principles, rights, justice) 7. Trevinos model uses Kohlbergs stages of moral development in the cognition stage in providing a basis from which to examine the individual and situational factors that make his approach unique. A related strategy involves obscuring the social identity of those we judge. Precious' case presents an intricate and delicate ethical dilemma that touches on the physical and sexual abuse of a minor. Google Scholar, Bommer M., Gratto C., Gravander J., Tuttle M. (1987) A Behavioral Model of Ethical and Unethical Decision Making. This chapter looks at a series of business ethics and social responsibility cases within the framework of stakeholders, both primary and secondary. Have all the relevant persons and groups been consulted? Most of us are ethically inconsistent as well. An interactionist model of ethical decision making in organizations is proposed. Read more about what the framework can (and cannot) do. Furthermore, manufacturers could reasonably argue that people would be less likely to buy a car that doesnt prioritize their lives. Im guessing that you largely agree with these goals, even if you hew to philosophies that focus on individual rights, freedom, liberty, and autonomy. Machiavellianism: associated with unethical action, this should be a red flag for managers. Sentencing Guidelines, which have trended toward increasing fines for both individuals and organizations convicted of felony crimes. The chapter includes analysis of many of the more memorable business ethics cases (e.g. (1999) The New Corporate Cultures. We may not even agree on what is a good and what is a harm. As the authors develop their frameworks, they apply the concepts across multiple dimensions, dealing with not only managers and organizations but employees and stakeholders of all kinds. Chapter 2: Deciding Whats Right: A Prescriptive Approach The second problem is that the different lenses may lead to different answers to the question What is ethical? Nonetheless, each one gives us important insights in the process of deciding what is ethical in a particular circumstance. Create more value for society. Market integrity in business transactions: restrictions on political payments and bribery assume that these inject non-market considerations into business transactions. Each type builds on and goes beyond the prior type of responsibility, much like a pyramid, which the authors flesh out with examples. Scuba Certification; Private Scuba Lessons; Scuba Refresher for Certified Divers; Try Scuba Diving; Enriched Air Diver (Nitrox) Summary. Overall, the conventional cynical view concerning the ethics of Uber's model has been a source of money making opportunity and a basis of competitive benefit. This document is designed as an introduction to making ethical decisions. Think creatively about potential actions 9. Catherine Giapponi is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Charles F. Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Chapter 1: Introducing Straight Talk about Managing Business Ethics: Where Were Going and Why https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9202-6. Highly realistic, readable, and down-to-earth, it moves from the individual to the managerial to the organizational level, focusing on business ethics . What are the options for acting? Similarly, in research with the economists Iris Bohnet and Alexandra van Geen, I found that when people evaluate job candidates one at a time, System 1 thinking kicks in, and they tend to fall back on gender stereotypes. This document is designed as an introduction to thinking ethically. We probably also have an image of what an ethical . This often involves analyzing multiple solutions at once to choose the one that . A structured six-step framework may assist. The model combines individual variables (moral develop-ment, etc.) The authors offer eight steps to integrate these three types of analysis: (1) Gather the Facts, (2) Define the Ethical Issues, (3) Identify the Affected Parties, (4) Identify the Consequences, (5) Identify the Obligations, (6) Consider Your Character and Integrity, (7) Think Creatively about Potential Actions, and (8) Check Your Gut. The wine or the food at dinner? Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How To Do It Right While this group of eight models is not exhaustive, it is, I believe, definitive.