11.3 The Role of Ethics in Decision Making
Learning Objectives
- Consider the role of ethical behaviour in decision making.
Ethics and Decision Making
Because many decisions involve an ethical component, one of the most important considerations in management is whether the decisions you are making as an employee or manager are ethical.
Ethics of a Decision
Here are some basic questions you can ask yourself to assess the ethics of a decision.
- Is this decision fair?
- Will I feel better or worse about myself after I make this decision?
- Does this decision break any organizational rules?
- Does this decision break any laws?
- How would I feel if this decision were broadcast on the news?
(Blanchard & Peale, 1988)
Examples
Suppose you are the GM/Owner of a small golf course that needs to cut operational costs or face bankruptcy. You have decided that you will not be issuing the yearly bonus that employees have come to expect. The first thing you think about after coming to this decision is whether or not it is fair. It seems logical to you that, since the alternative would be the failure of the company and everyone losing their jobs, not receiving a bonus is preferable to being out of work. Additionally, you will not be collecting a bonus yourself, so the decision will affect everyone equally. After deciding that the decision seems fair, you try to assess how you will feel about yourself after informing employees that there will not be a bonus this year.Although you do not like the idea of not being able to issue the yearly bonus, you are the owner, and owners often have to make tough decisions. Since your ultimate priority is to save the golf course from bankruptcy, you decide it is better to withhold bonuses rather than issue them, knowing the golf course cannot afford them. Despite the fact that bonuses have been issued every year since the golf course was founded, there are no organizational policies or laws requiring that employees receive a bonus; it has simply been a company tradition. The last thing you think about is how you would feel if your decision were broadcast on the news or social media. Because of the dire nature of the situation and because the fate of the business is at stake, you feel confident that this course of action is preferable to laying off loyal employees. As long as the facts of the situation were reported correctly, you feel the public would understand why the decision was made.
Exercises
- How can you assess whether you are making ethical decisions or not?
- Have you seen examples of ethical or unethical decisions being made? Describe what you observed.
- Have you seen examples of national culture affecting decision making?
- What advice surrounding decision making would you give to someone who will be managing a new division of a company in another culture?
- What can go wrong when cultural factors are ignored?
“11.5: The Role of Ethics and National Culture” from Organizational Behavior by LibreTexts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
