Managerial Decision Making : Communication Process

The actual meaning of ethics is difficult to explain in a sentence, and individual views about ethics are unstable and blurry. According to sociologist Raymond Baumhart, most of the people associate ethics with personal feelings. However being ethical is not going after one’s feelings but happens that an individual who follows his feelings commit the most unethical thing. It is quite common for an individual to turn aside about what is ethical. Although being ethical is not also following the law, even if law often comprises ethical standards to which most of the citizen pledge. It is also not what society accepts, even though society accepts standards that are ethical but sometimes principles of behaviour can divert from what is known as ethical in a society. Ethics mainly refers to the well structured principals of right and wrong that recommends what individual should act, usually in terms of rights, societal benefits, justice, obligations and values (Eubanks, et al. 2012). Thus, ethics can simply be explained as a section of philosophy that involves standardization, shielding, and recommending idea of right and wrong behaviour. Ethical choice reveals the morals of those concerned in an ethical situation.

Business ethics can be explained as the set of moral principles that direct and guides an individual’s actions that effect the business operations and processes (Weiss, 2014). Business world is much more complicated and it is difficult to practice ethical decision in business process.

Importance Of Ethical Decision Making Skills In Managers:

Business ethics includes values and ideology that direct the behaviour of the workforce in business organizations. Stakeholders decide the principles which can transform over period. The majority of these principles have been set as rules and policy. Business ethics generally stretch ahead of legal matter. Business organization has diverse workforce who has diverse values, ethics and principles as a result frequent ethical conflict is possible. Disputable decisions and acts can result in organizational dispute that should be resolved through negotiation or litigation. Coding ethical standards into significant policies that guides what is accepted and what should not be accepted enables managers an opportunity to decrease the opportunity of behaviour that could develop ethical as well as legal problem (Christen, et al. 2012). Business decision making process is a complex and comprehensive dialogue in which correctness may not be transparent. It is vital that a mutual idea of suitable behaviour is develop from an organizational point of view to form dependable and reliable relationships with its stakeholders. Having knowledge of the ethical decision-making method can facilitate managers and businesses design strategies to avoid wrongdoing. There are mainly three the vital factors of ethical decision making and they are: individual factors, organizational relations, and opportunity. In the age of digitalization and globalization, stakeholders are more aware of business ethics, it is crucial that business organizations start emphasizing ethics in business process and develop a framework and workplace environment that promotes ethics at highest priority (Langlais, 2012). Increase in use of internet and social media, business organizations have a lot to achieve by empowering and promoting strong business ethics. Now stakeholders are much more aware and through internet they are getting information about an organizations reputation, corporate morals and in general transparency prior to investing. Contemporary business organization takes advantage of this situation by using this consumer trend. Organizations that are highly committed and practices ethical standards in business processes are not only socially responsible but also profitable.

Unethical Practices Causes Negative Reaction Among Stakeholders:

Unethical behaviour by business organizations frequently directs to negative publicity which results negatively in positive corporate image. Below are two recent examples of unethical behaviour in professional world which lead to negative stakeholder’s reaction.

US Media reports on refugees: According to Ethical Journalism Network, the reporting on refugees and migrants crisis does not cover the original and full story but falls pray of propaganda traps by politicians. This news are often led by political interest and show half truth and misleading information. In September 2015, CNN correspondent reports the shocking image in a beach which was latter identified as a three year old Kurdi boy. The publication of the picture generated a brief U-turn in sections of the press who were blaming the victim for the crisis. Stakeholders and media showed worries and doubts over the ethical issues raised by circulating such a heartbreaking image. In complains from the readers for issuing such a horrific image, Berlin based daily Bild isolated every picture from a successive edition. This is an ideal case study for ethics students at business schools.

Facebook and unethical emotional manipulation experiment: According to a report in Proceedings of National Academy of Science, the researchers confessed to have changed the algorithms on News Feeds of nearly 600,000 Facebook users in January 2012, to observe if a mainly positive or a mainly negative and news feed would bring out diverse status updates. Without user’s knowledge, a group of Facebook data scientist are continuously brining new and innovative ideas to examine human behaviour through the social network. As a result, more than 140000 members signed a petition for accusing Facebook for misusing their information and data without knowledge of the concerned person. As a result, Facebook alleged it will modify the method it conducts research.

Promoting Ethical Decision Making Environment:

Ethics has always been associated with effective leadership, and recently researchers are emphasizing on ethical leadership and how leaders can promote ethical activities and sustain ethical environment in an organization (Reed, 2012). Observations of ethical leadership are certainly connected with a number of desired results correlated to their subordinates at the personal and group levels. These results consist of enthusiasm to apply extra effort and lend a hand to others, job performance, job fulfilment, organizational loyalty, view of an ethical environment, mainly when individuals experience that they are treat equally, confidence in the potential concerning the organization and their scope to sustain and grow in the organization, point of view of task importance and independence, and influence as well as a enthusiasm to report inconvenience to management (Nunn, & Avella, 2015). Leaders who practice ethical workplace environment are viewed as potential to achieve senior leadership position. Individual perceptions of ethical leadership are also pessimistically related to violating social norms and negative work behaviour (Greco, 2013). These main results are accomplished mainly throughout monitoring the behaviour of others and the outcome of the actions. By the character of their prominence as a leader, ethical leaders are powerful role models. They also provoke feelings of belief and accountability by nature of the connection they have with their followers.

Important individual reasons which influence the ethical decision-making process incorporates private ethical attitude, period of ethical development, inspiration, and other personal factors such as sex, maturity, and skill (Barron, 2015). Moral attitude are the values or rules an individual relates in making a decision what is correct or incorrect. Moral attitude can be categorised as consequentialism, ethical formalism, or fairness (Rusch, 2015). When an individual take ethical decisions only it satisfies personal enjoyment, knowledge, profession growth, the awareness of self-interest, or effectiveness is known as Consequentialism philosophies which can be further classified as egoism and utilitarianism (Burnes and By, 2012). Ethical formalism emphasises on the human rights of individuals and on the purpose related with a particular behaviour rather than on its results. Whereas, in ethical formalism, an individual rights and the intention associated with the particular decision making and does not consider the consequences. Justice theory is the assessment of equality, or the temperament to handle alleged injustices towards others (Arneson, 2014). Kohlberg proposed that there are six stages in cognitive moral development through which an individual grow and develop. Whereas, according to McClelland, who acknowledged three different social needs which motivates an individual in ethical decision-making situation: accomplishment, relationship, and authority.

Unlike cultural environment which as an impact on ethical decision making, other factors like superiors, peers, and subordinates, also has direct impact in the process (Georganas, et al. 2015). In simple words corporate culture is common set of shared a set of principles, values, objectives, purpose, standards, and rituals by organizational employees. While an organization’s by and large culture set up ideals that guide the behaviours for member of the group, its fair environment emphasises particularly on issues of correct and incorrect. Other important factors who have significant influence in organization’s decision making processes are the superiors, peers, and subordinates. Relations involving corporate culture and executive leadership assist to establish the moral value system of the organization, although conformity to influence also give explanation why many individuals solve workplace matters by following the directions and command of a superior. It has been observed that when an individual who is contently exposed to unethical behaviour in an organizational practice, is more likely to conduct unethical behaviour by himself.  Peer pressure can plays a significant part in developing an ethical issue (Bateman, et al. 2013). According to recent studies, it has been observed that employees who practice unethical behaviour and escapes any punishment or is actually get rewards are more likely to conduct the same mistake again (Barreda-Tarrazona, et al. 2014). This situation can be explained as Opportunity is a set of circumstances that limit hurdle or give rewards. All the above factors play a crucial part in influencing the ethical decision making in business organization. By implementing and manipulating these factors, effective managers can boost the quality of the performance of the workforce and increase the business performance.

Conclusion:

As the business environment is changing and increase in communication process, stakeholders are much more aware about business activities of business organizations. So, there is a need for effective leadership in business organizations who have skills and abilities for taking ethical decision making as it builds and sustain organizational reputation. In the above essay the author has critically discussed why managers need skills for ethical decision making. Also, after studying recent scholarly literature author has outlined details how ethical decision making can be achieved, taking into account individual contributions to group decision making taking recent unethical organizational behaviour in business organization as practical situations. Concluding the essay the author states that management ethics have become an important function in business organizational processes and for contemporary mangers it is a primary challenge to avoid unethical practices but taking ethical decisions. Implementing ethical practices can only implemented in business processes is by taking ethical decision making and for those managers needs to have and develop ethical leadership qualities.

Reference:

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