Q. what ethic/moral are best applied to the business world? Is it ethical for corporate to use physiological research to manipulate people through message? What is the most appropriate way to handle ethical issue when they arise? ANS: - Managers are faced with ethical and moral decision making in business dealings everyday. The way people make ethical decisions in their personal lives most times is not the same way that people make these decisions when they are in a business environment. Business decisions need to be grounded in ethics, but the manager also needs to make decisions that are in the best interest of the company he/she serves. This is where moral dilemmas can come to pass. Two possible solutions that can help managers sort out these moral dilemmas are; deliberative methods whose goal are decision making and deliberative methods whose goal is edifying perspectives. Several models need to be reviewed in order to determine which method best fits the particular moral dilemma that the manager is faced with. Ground Rules Managers may find themselves in ethical business situations that require decisions to be based on morally confusing situations. "A moral dilemma is a situation in which people judge that morally they ought to do one thing (A) and morally ought to do another thing (B), and sometime a third (C), or even a fourth thing (D) as well, however they cannot perform all of these mutually exclusive options together," (Lurie & Albin, 2006). Some situations may require a manager to face competing values, and tough decisions must be made in order to determine which moral value appears to be stronger than the other. As an example, a manager who is obligated to protect proprietary information about an organizational layoff in the coming months may also have to address a conflict with this knowledge as it relates to a friend who will become affected by this layoff. Would this manager make the same decision if they had knowledge that 1
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Q. what ethic/moral are best applied to the business world? Is it ethical for corporate to use physiological research to manipulate people through message? What is the most appropriate way to handle ethical issue when they arise?
ANS: - Managers are faced with ethical and moral decision making in business dealings everyday. The way people make ethical decisions in their personal lives most times is not the same way that people make these decisions when they are in a business environment. Business decisions need to be grounded in ethics, but the manager also needs to make decisions that are in the best interest of the company he/she serves. This is where moral dilemmas can come to pass. Two possible solutions that can help managers sort out these moral dilemmas are; deliberative methods whose goal are decision making and deliberative methods whose goal is edifying perspectives. Several models need to be reviewed in order to determine which method best fits the particular moral dilemma that the manager is faced with.
Ground RulesManagers may find themselves in ethical business situations that require decisions to be based on morally confusing situations. "A moral dilemma is a situation in which people judge that morally they ought to do one thing (A) and morally ought to do another thing (B), and sometime a third (C), or even a fourth thing (D) as well, however they cannot perform all of these mutually exclusive options together," (Lurie & Albin, 2006). Some situations may require a manager to face competing values, and tough decisions must be made in order to determine which moral value appears to be stronger than the other. As an example, a manager who is obligated to protect proprietary information about an organizational layoff in the coming months may also have to address a conflict with this knowledge as it relates to a friend who will become affected by this layoff. Would this manager make the same decision if they had knowledge that was going to affect a close relative? What if the scenario included both parties; would the manager make the...Business ethics is crucial to overall society well being and corporate organizations, if to view the issue from the business standpoint. Public confidence is ethical business operation is only yet to recover, as of February 2004, 75 percent of Americans found the image of big corporations either “not good” or even “terrible”. The crucial step when
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it comes to business ethics – is to admit existence of a problem that is essentially based in the difference in the corporate values of different stakeholder groups. While society wants to receive well paid jobs, the focus of many organizations remains on cost minimization and maximization of productivity levels. While society wants to purchase goods at the lowest prices possible, businesses are normally profit seeking entities. Finally, it is crucial for society to sustain environmentally clean surroundings, whereas for business – this goal is followed by additional costs. These conflicts are fundamental to the nature of business, it is crucial for managers to find the balance between different stakeholder groups including workers, customers, company owners, and the larger community.
Rapid technologic and scientific innovation followed by globalization makes the need to balance between stakeholders needs even more difficult. Ethical standards and practices often are not even able to keep with scientific innovation such as cloning. When it comes to business practices issues arise with U.S. job outsourcing to Third World community, valuation of intangible assets in the new technological era (Mayer, 2004). Despite the rising difficulties, it is crucial for managers to find the balance – otherwise a company might cease to exist unable to compete in the market place.
The role of business ethics in contemporary marketplace should be mainly discussed from the pragmatic approach. In order for business to exist, there must be a community of potential buyers and sellers, whereas this community and overall public morality are the two indivisible and integrated parts. Obviously, in order to preserve business, organizations must sustain a certain level of morality in order to successfully function and remain competitive. As business are interested in the first place in profitability of an enterprise, they are, therefore, interested in maintenance of a positive corporate image. Consequently, businesses are interested in ethical practices.Consequently, marketplace is realizing undervaluation and investors are less likely to put own money to generate profits. The effect on economy overall is direct – while series of scandals created a boom in the stock market, now economy is developing at a lower rates, as the cost of funds to be used in business is raising. As such, the relationship between ethical malpractice and economic stagnation is direct – ethical scandals undermine public trust, whereas
business, investors, and society overall are the ones to bare the costs of unethical practices of individuals. Consequently, the role of ethical behavior in contemporary marketplace from the value created for society can hardly be overestimated
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. Applied ethics is a field of ethics that deals with ethical questions in many fields such as medical, technical, legal and business ethics. Business Ethics is the application of Ethical values to the business world. It applies to any and all aspects of business conduct. Business ethics is relevant to the conduct of individuals and also relevant to the conduct of the business organizations as a whole. In the increasingly conscience-focused marketplaces of the 21st century, the demand for more ethical business processes and actions (known as ethicism) is increasing. Simultaneously, pressure is applied on industry to improve business ethics through new public initiatives and laws (e.g. higher UK road tax for higher-emission vehicles). Businesses can often attain short-term gains by acting in an unethical fashion; however, such antics tend to undermine the economy over time.
Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporate websites lay emphasis on commitment to promoting non-economic social values under a variety of headings (e.g. ethics codes, social responsibility charters). In some cases, corporations have redefined their core values in the light of business ethical considerations (e.g. BP's "beyond petroleum" environmental tilt).
This part of business ethics overlaps with the philosophy of business, one of the aims of which is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company. If a company's main purpose is to maximize the returns to its shareholders, then it should be seen as unethical for a company to consider the interests and rights of anyone else.
Corporate social responsibility or CSR: an umbrella term under which the ethical rights and duties existing between companies and society is debated.
Issues regarding the moral rights and duties between a company and its shareholders: fiduciary responsibility, stakeholder concept v. shareholder concept.
Ethical issues concerning relations between different companies: e.g. hostile take-overs, industrial espionage.
Leadership issues: corporate governance. Political contributions made by corporations. Law reform, such as the ethical debate over introducing
a crime of corporate manslaughter. The misuse of corporate ethics policies as marketing
instruments.
Ethics of accounting information Creative accounting, earnings management, misleading
scams: concerns (criminal) manipulation of the financial markets.
Executive compensation: concerns excessive payments made to corporate CEO's and top management.
Bribery, kickbacks, facilitation payments: while these may be in the (short-term) interests of the company and its shareholders, these practices may be anti-competitive or offend against the values of society.
Ethics of human resource management
The ethics of human resource management (HRM) covers those ethical issues arising around the employer-employee relationship, such as the rights and duties owed between employer and employee.
Discrimination issues include discrimination on the bases of age (ageism), gender, race, religion,
disabilities, weight and attractiveness. See also: affirmative action, sexual harassment.
Issues arising from the traditional view of relationships between employers and employees, also known as At-will employment.
Issues surrounding the representation of employees and the democratization of the workplace: union busting, strike breaking.
Issues affecting the privacy of the employee: workplace surveillance, drug testing. See also: privacy.
Issues affecting the privacy of the employer: whistle-blowing.
Issues relating to the fairness of the employment contract and the balance of power between employer and employee: slavery, indentured servitude, employment law.
Occupational safety and health.
All of the above are also related to the hiring and firing of employees. A employee or future employee can not be hired or fired based on race, age, gender, religion, or any other disciminatory act.
Ethics of sales and marketing
Marketing, which goes beyond the mere provision of information about (and access to) a product, may seek to manipulate our values and behavior. To some extent society regards this as acceptable, but where is the ethical line to be drawn? Marketing ethics overlaps strongly with media ethics, because marketing makes heavy use of media. However, media ethics is a much larger topic and extends outside business ethics.
Anti-competitive practices: these include but go beyond pricing tactics to cover issues such as manipulation of loyalty and supply chains. See: anti-competitive practices, antitrust law.
Specific marketing strategies: greenwash, bait and switch, shill, viral marketing, spam (electronic), pyramid scheme, planned obsolescence.
Content of advertisements: attack ads, subliminal messages, sex in advertising, products regarded as immoral or harmful
This area of business ethics deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and production processes do not cause harm. Some of the more acute dilemmas in this area arise out of the fact that there is usually a degree of danger in any product or production process and it is difficult to define a degree of permissibility, or the degree of permissibility may depend on the changing state of preventative technologies or changing social perceptions of acceptable risk.
Defective, addictive and inherently dangerous products and services (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, weapons, motor vehicles, chemical manufacturing, bungee jumping).
Ethical relations between the company and the environment: pollution, environmental ethics, carbon emissions trading
Ethical problems arising out of new technologies: genetically modified food, mobile phone radiation and health.
Product testing ethics: animal rights and animal testing, use of economically disadvantaged groups (such as students) as test objects.
Ethics of intellectual property, knowledge and skills
Knowledge and skills are valuable but not easily "ownable" as objects. Nor is it obvious who has the greater rights to an idea: the company who trained the employee, or the employee themselves? The country in which the plant grew, or the company which discovered and developed the plant's medicinal potential? As a result, attempts to assert ownership and ethical disputes over ownership arise.
Employee raiding: the practice of attracting key employees away from a competitor to take unfair advantage of the knowledge or skills they may possess.
The practice of employing all the most talented people in a specific field, regardless of need, in order to prevent any competitors employing them.
Bioprospecting (ethical) and biopiracy (unethical). Business intelligence and industrial espionage.
Ethics and Technology The computer and the World Wide Web are two of them most significant inventions of the twentieth century. There are many ethical issues that arise from this technology. It is easy to gain access to information. This leads to data mining, workplace monitoring, and privacy invasion. Medical technology has improved as well. Pharmaceutical companies have the technology to produce life saving drugs. These drugs are protected by patents and there are no generic drugs available. This raises many ethical questions.
International business ethics and ethics of economic systems
The issues here are grouped together because they involve a much wider, global view on business ethical matters.
International business ethics
While business ethics emerged as a field in the 1970s, international business ethics did not emerge until the late 1990s, looking back on the international developments of that decade. Many new practical issues arose out of the international context of business. Theoretical issues such as cultural relativity of ethical values receive more emphasis in this field. Other, older issues can be grouped here as well. Issues and subfields include:
The search for universal values as a basis for international commercial behaviour.
Comparison of business ethical traditions in different countries.
Comparison of business ethical traditions from various religious perspectives.
Ethical issues arising out of international business transactions; e.g. bioprospecting and biopiracy in the pharmaceutical industry; the fair trade movement; transfer pricing.
Issues such as globalization and cultural imperialism. Varying global standards - e.g. the use of child labor. The way in which multinationals take advantage of
international differences, such as outsourcing production (e.g. clothes) and services (e.g. call centres) to low-wage countries.
The permissibility of international commerce with pariah states.
Foreign countries often use dumping as a competitive threat, selling products at prices lower than their normal value. This can lead to problems in domestic markets. It becomes difficult for these markets to compete with the pricing set by foreign markets. In 2009, the International Trade Commission has been researching anti-dumping laws. Dumping is often seen as an ethical issue, as larger companies are taking advantage of other less economically advanced companies.
Ethics of economic systems
This vaguely defined area, perhaps not part of but only related to business ethics, is where business ethicists venture into the fields of political economy and political philosophy, focusing on the rights and wrongs of various systems for the distribution of economic benefits. The work of John Rawls and Robert Nozick are both notable contributors.
As part of more comprehensive compliance and ethics programs, many companies have formulated internal policies pertaining to the ethical conduct of employees. These policies can be simple exhortations in broad, highly-generalized language (typically called a corporate ethics statement), or they can be more detailed policies, containing specific behavioral requirements (typically called corporate ethics codes). They are generally meant to identify the company's expectations of workers and to offer guidance on handling some of the more common ethical problems that might arise in the course of doing business. It is hoped that having such a policy will lead to greater ethical awareness, consistency in application, and the avoidance of ethical disasters.
An increasing number of companies also requires employees to attend seminars regarding business conduct, which often include discussion of the company's policies, specific case
studies, and legal requirements. Some companies even require their employees to sign agreements stating that they will abide by the company's rules of conduct.
Many companies are assessing the environmental factors that can lead employees to engage in unethical conduct. A competitive business environment may call for unethical behavior. Lying has become expected in fields such as trading. An example of this are the issues surrounding the unethical actions of the Saloman Brothers.
Not everyone supports corporate policies that govern ethical conduct. Some claim that ethical problems are better dealt with by depending upon employees to use their own judgment.
Others believe that corporate ethics policies are primarily rooted in utilitarian concerns, and that they are mainly to limit the company's legal liability, or to curry public favor by giving the appearance of being a good corporate citizen. Ideally, the company will avoid a lawsuit because its employees will follow the rules. Should a lawsuit occur, the company can claim that the problem would not have arisen if the employee had only followed the code properly.
Sometimes there is disconnection between the company's code of ethics and the company's actual practices. Thus, whether or not such conduct is explicitly sanctioned by management, at worst, this makes the policy duplicitous, and, at best, it is merely a marketing tool.
To be successful, most ethicists would suggest that an ethics policy should be:
Given the unequivocal support of top management, by both word and example.
Explained in writing and orally, with periodic reinforcement.
Doable....something employees can both understand and perform.
Monitored by top management, with routine inspections for compliance and improvement.
Backed up by clearly stated consequences in the case of disobedience.
Remain neutral and nonsexist.
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Religious views on business ethics
The historical and global importance of religious views on business ethics is sometimes underestimated in standard introductions to business ethics. Particularly in Asia and the Middle East, religious and cultural perspectives have a strong influence on the conduct of business and the creation of business values.
Examples include:
Islamic banking, associated with the avoidance of charging interest on loans.
Traditional Confucian disapproval of the profit-seeking motive.
Quaker testimony on fair dealing.
ETHICS ISSUES SPECIFIC TO PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCHAND WAY TO HADLE ETHICAL ISSUE
Deception. Although deception has been a continuing issue for the discipline over the past 40 years or more, potentially new concerns may arise under the new policy. Because of the roundabout way in which we had to reintroduce the possibility for deception through a waiver of informed consent, and delete the very clear treatment that had been in earlier drafts, there may be some difficulty with approvals of such research under the new policy. That there have been no concertos raised to date is promising; however, because of it being a continuing issue, we need to be prepared to address such problems if and when they arise.
Deception entails many kinds of activities Deceptions car range from simply giving cookies to see if it leads to greater helping behaviour to purposely leaving money to test honesty (Sieber, 1994). These many ways and varied purposes for deceptions must be examined to consider which is methodologically necessary and which is ethically problematic. Simply using the term deception to cover all such situations invites REBs and others to think simplistically about the ethics of deception in psychological research. More helpful to REBs would be Sieber's detailed analysis (1992) of the most common
deceptions (false purpose, bogus device, role deception, and false feedback about the self), each occurring in 10% or more of deception research in 1992, and a casebook illustrating their application and accompanying debriefings (see also Sieber, Iannuzzo, & Rodriguez, 1995). Tiis would guide REBs and researchers to consider the purpose served by die deceptions and of the appropriate ethical response to remove any misconceptions or emotional reactions created by the situation.
Introductory Psychology Subject-Pools. The longstanding practice of psychology departments to create subject pools of students enrolled in introductory psychology courses who are required to participate in a certain number of experiments in exchange for marks in the course is a strong rival to deception as a target for ethical criticism and challenge. The new ethics review process that broadens the mix of persons reviewing research encourages probably the first critical review of this practice in a number of years. In several universities already, the traditional structure of the subject pool has had to undergo revision. Procedures to guide these revisions are available (Chastain & Landrum, 1999). Chief criticisms are that the requirement is coercive, the alternative activity that is offered is not equivalent to research participation, or the educational rationale for the practice is inadequate to justify giving marks. Most of these criticisms can be addressed but require changes in practice and considerable work on the part of the department. I suspect that the practices in most departments will be greatly improved by this review and revision.
CIA Research Ethics Activities. The Canadian Psychological Association has a major responsibility to see that the ethics policy is appropriately administered for the discipline and its members. The purpose of this article is not to address the CPA Board; however, it is helpful for researchers to be aware of actions that can be taken on their behalf. Researchers also need to realize that effective resolution of problems that the new ethics policy and review process create can only be dealt with by a collective response of the membership, thus requiring that each researcher submit to CPA the issues, problems, and solutions to special ethics problems encountered in their personal research.
The several concrete steps CPA might undertake include: (1) Continuous monitoring of problems with the ethics review
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process; (2) Representations to SSHRC and to the Tri-Council Advisory Group on matters of ethical concern to the discipline to bring about refinements, additions or even changes to the TCPS; (3) Preparation of a casebook of ethics issues and solutions; and (4) Using CPA publications as a special forum for ethics issues. The latter two of these merit elaboration. Although the CPA Code of Ethics is an excellent document in which we all have great pride, a casebook of protocol issues and solutions is ideal for promoting consistency of ethics response by REBs with a practical issue to resolve, such as guiding approvals of deceptions that require waivers of informed consent, and in defining appropriate debriefings to accompany certain deceptions. The casebook would be particularly helpful to answer questions by community representatives and other REB members who may be unfamiliar with the range of accepted practices within psychology.
CPA publications must be used to promote proper treatment of research ethics within the discipline. A research article, review or essay on ethics in every issue or so of Canadian Psychology (CP) and a regular column on ethics in Psynopsis would help to advance ethical study design and 116 make it integral in the thinking of most researchers. The American Association of Anthropology (Gallagher, Creighton, & Gibbons, 1995) publishes anonymously submitted ethical dilemmas and decisions within its Anthropology Newsletter. Because not all editors will have the inclination or time for this, CPA should consider appointing a person specifically responsible for research ethics who would monitor the ethics scene, develop a column reporting on ethics developments and issues for Psynopsis, and solicit and review scholarly material on research ethics to be published as part of GTe Conclusions
In conclusion, ethical regulation is an element that has been permanently added to the design and conduct of psychological research. Regrettably, some researchers have been reluctant to acknowledge this fact. A number of years ago, I argued (Adair et al., 1985) for the need to give attention to research ethics in the method sections of research articles. Simply including a brief paragraph or two devoted to the special ethics problems encountered and how the study has been designed to address them seemed appropriate to accurately describe the method followed in the study and helpful to advance the ethical conduct of research. This write-up probably would be no more than a
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brief paragraph, but it would be useful to others who subsequently employed the same paradigm. Once reporting of ethics procedures becomes commonplace, we would soon no longer regard the ethics review process as simply an appendage or add-on to data collection. The ethics review process would become routine. Rather than policing or monitoring by outside regulation, more effective ethical response would be made by sensitive researchers who had internalized ethical standards and appropriate behaviours.
But before this occurs, we have to raise the profile of research ethics. The introduction of the TCPS was designed to achieve this higher profile. Federal oversight of the ethical conduct of human research is here to stay. Rather than expend our energies grumbling about the policy or opposing its implementation, our thinking and efforts should be focused on activities that improve the review process, and contribute to the satisfactory evolution and administration of the policy. We need to nurture a culture of research ethics independent of ethics committees, by educating students to have a positive view of the research ethics review process. For example, to conclude on an optimistic note, rather than regarding them as obstacles to research, researchers should look "to ethical directives as methodological challenges" to research practices that may be met by new ideas for advancing psychological science (Rosnow, 1997, p. 346). During the preparation of this article, the author's research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. An earlier version of this paper was presented as an invited address to the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, June 2000.
