Mgmt615 Intercultural Communication And Leadership Assessment Answers

You have been invited to speak to a group of newly hired managers at your place of work about management’s role in building and sustaining an organizational culture of ethics and integrity. To prepare for your talk, research and describe five different types of ethical dilemmas that are common in the workplace. Next, describe the potential impact of each dilemma on the organization, its employees, and stakeholders. 

Discuss management’s role in preventing unethical behavior among the workforce and describe five strategies that managers can implement to create an ethical workplace culture. Your research for this assignment should include current literature on the topics of workplace ethics, management’s role in creating an ethical work culture, and strategies for preventing unethical behavior at work.

Business and society Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management.

Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Lying for who we are: An identity-based model of workplace dishonesty. 

Organizational policies and evidence for two prevention strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology,

Target reflections on responses to workplace mistreatment. human relations

A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Answer:

Introduction

Ethics is the moral principles, standards or behaviors, which should be followed in the workplace such as honesty of an employee towards the workplace and performing business on time (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Ethical dilemma is defined as a complex situation, which often involves a noticeable conflict within moral urgencies (Cherry & Jacob, 2016).

For a situation to be declared as ethical dilemma, there are three conditions, which needs to be fulfilled. The first condition arises when the agent has to decide that which course of action is to be chosen to in order to provide the best result (Weiss, 2014). The second condition arises when there are lots of actions to and the individual has to make a choice between them. The third condition which proves to be the ethical dilemma when it is observed that whatever action is chosen, the perfectness cannot be achieved.  

Ethical dilemmas and its impacts

There are various ethical dilemmas that the employee at an organization has to face.  Some of them are-

1. Submitting the result of work performed on time (Carroll, 2014). The employee has the pressure to submit the work done on time. The pressure is made by higher authorities for the work to be done on time or may be in short span of time. The employees have two choices over there.  Either they can complete the work properly on time as per the requirements or the employee can finish the work inappropriately and submit it on time (Buchholtz, 2014).

Its impact on organization

• If the appropriate work is submitted on time, the organization gets benefits and it helps in the development of the organization (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014).

Its impact on employees

• If the employee does the work properly, he/she gets benefitted as performing good can be advantageous and the employee can get promotions (Kadushin & Harkness, 2014).
• If the employee does work on time but the work done is inappropriate, the employee may have to face downfall because of the wrong task done (Corey, 2014).

Its impact on stakeholders

• If the work is done properly, the stakeholders gets benefitted and invest more on the organization but if they face loss, their interest in the organization decreases and they do not invest in the organization anymore (Corey et al., 2014)

1. The employee are hired for a particular task but sometimes it may happen that the employee is asked to do some work which is out of the employee’s domain (Salin, 2014). That time the employee faces dilemma. The choices are to either learn and do the work or say no for the work.

Its impact on organization

• If the employee does the work, it means that the organization has got an excellent worker who can help in the development of the organization but if the employee does not do the work, it means that the organization has to invest more on bringing more employees for tasks (Tenhiälä, 2014)

Its impact on employees

• If the employee does the work, it can get the employee different types of bonuses and profits (Berdahl, 2014)
• If the employee does not do the work, there would not be much harm to the employee’s status as the work is out of his/her domain and thus, the employee’s status in the company remains constant (Salin et al., 2014)

Its impact on the stakeholders

• If the employee does the work, the stakeholders will get benefit and hence they will be more interested in the company but if the employee does not do the work, the investment in the company will increase thus, the stakeholders will have to invest more on in the company (Certo, 2015).

1. Sometimes, it may happen that the employee is said to work with some junior employee. It depends on the employee whether he/she takes full credit of the work leaving the junior behind or indulges the junior employee in the success of the work. The employees often face this dilemma (Leavitt, & Sluss, 2015).

Its Impact on organization

• If the employee takes all the credit, the organization will be unable to know the efficiency of the junior employee and thus cannot decide whether more employees need to be hired (Hetrick, 2016).

Its Impact on the employee

• If the employee takes all the credit himself/herself, the employee may get rewards from higher authorities for the work and may be promoted but his/her reputation will be destroyed among the juniors (Hoffman, 2016).
• If the employee does not take all the credit himself and gives some credit to the junior employee, he/she may not be promoted but can gain great reputation among the juniors (Hetrick, 2016).

Its impact on the stakeholders

• The stakeholders can know when and where to invest and cam keep an account of their investment

1.  At times it happens that, an employee sees his/her senior employee harassing other junior employees. That time it depends on the employee whether he/she takes action on the ill behavior of the senior employee or keeps mum and let the harassment happen. The employee has in mind that speaking against the senior can harm his/her job.

Its impact on the organization

• It is essential for the organization to know about the employees who are spreading negativity within the organization. If the higher authorities do not know about it, this may not be stopped and leading to junior employees leaving the company.

Its impact on the employee

• If the employee complains to the higher authorities, the employee can get profits and may be praised in the company for work
• If the employee does not complain to the higher authority, he/she may get profits from that senior who was harassing but his/her reputation may get spoilt among the junior employees

Its impact on the stakeholders

• The juniors may leave the company because of the harassment cause which may cause the stakeholders to invest more on the employee hiring.

5. Sometimes, the employee is asked to do something, which is against the moral of the employee, or something, which is against the ethics. That time the employee faces the dilemma that whether he/she should do as said by the higher authorities or shall deny and follow the code of ethics and morals. The employee faces dilemma because soaking against the organization can be fatal for the employee’s job and may be he/she has to resign from the designation.

Its impact on the organization

• The organization may face downfall if caught in the act of doing the thing unethically but if not caught, the organization may face profits

Its impact on the employees

• If the employee does that thing, the employee may get benefits from higher authorities.
• If the employee does not do the thing, it may affect the designation of the employee and the employee may even have to lose the job.

Its impact on the stakeholders

• The stakeholders may get benefitted because of the employee’s action but if the employee does not does the work; they may have to invest more to get the work done through the right way.

Management’s role to prevent unethical behavior

The management plays a very vital role in maintaining ethics in the organization. Higher authorities should take care of its employees and thus it is the responsibility of the management to prevent any type of unethical behavior in the organization. Actions should be taken by the higher authorities to maintain ethics in the organization. Various strategies that can help the management to maintain ethics in the workplace are-

• The management should make code of ethics and make it clear to all the employees. The benefits and harms of performing the action should be made clear to the employee, which would encourage the employees to follow the code of ethics set by the organization.
• Managers should be encouraged to be the role model of junior employees. The managers should be encouraged to do the things in the right way and be the role model of the employees. This will help the employees to work properly and follow the code of ethics set by the organization.
• Various bonuses should be set for the employees who do their work according to the ethics. This strategy can be very effective as every employee aims to get the bonus and this may encourage all the employees to work in an efficient manner and follow the code of ethics.
• The communication between all the levels of employee should be encouraged. If all the employees remain in contact with each other, they can easily share their problems and experiences. Thus, any unethical behavior can directly be communicated to the higher managements and they can take action against it.

Conclusion

Hence, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that it is very essential for any organization to have code of ethics. That code of ethics needs to be maintained by all the employees in the organization for the proper development of the organization. The junior employees should be encouraged by the senior managers to follow the code of ethics. Various strategies have to be followed by the higher authorities in the organization to maintain moral within the organization.

References

Carroll, A., & Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education.

Certo, S. (2015). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Corey, G., Corey, M. S., Corey, C., & Callanan, P. (2014). Issues and ethics in the helping professions with 2014 ACA codes. Nelson Education.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Kadushin, A., & Harkness, D. (2014). Supervision in social work. Columbia University Press.

Leavitt, K., & Sluss, D. M. (2015). Lying for who we are: An identity-based model of workplace dishonesty. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), 587-610.

Lyons, B. D., Hoffman, B. J., Bommer, W. H., Kennedy, C. L., & Hetrick, A. L. (2016). Off-duty deviance: Organizational policies and evidence for two prevention strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(4), 463.

Salin, D., Tenhiälä, A., Roberge, M. É., & Berdahl, J. L. (2014). ‘I wish I had...’: Target reflections on responses to workplace mistreatment. human relations, 67(10), 1189-1211.

Weiss, J. W. (2014). Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.