Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ethics and Diversity
Ethics and Diversity
Ethics and Diversity
diversity
Prof TN Krishnan
Fiduciary duties towards
• Share holders because of
– Risk of financial investment
– Managers make important strategic decisions
which bears risk to the investment of the
investors
– Managers are agents of share holders
The case for fiduciary duties
towards employees and others
• Share holders have certain rights: To decide on
Directors and voting rights on major decisions
• Share holders are also free market agents – they can
with little effort dispose off disappointing stocks
• Share holders can distribute their risk by properly
creating a portfolio whereas employees hardly have
such opportunities for de‐risking of employment
portfolio
• Employees can change employers often with great
difficulty
The case for fiduciary duties
towards employees and others
• While wealth maximization of the share
holders are important objectives to protect
for the managers, there could be other
important concerns which indirectly influence
this objective (wealth maximization)
– Being viewed as a responsible corporate is
important
• Making ethically sound decisions
• Making environmentally sound decisions
• Safe and conducive work environment for employees
The case for fiduciary duties
towards employees and others
• Enhancing trust and confidence amongst
different stake holders helps the organization
to be viewed as
– “Legitimate” organization (Institutional theory)
– Get the resources and support the organization
needs (resource dependence theory)
– Economics/costs in running the business (say level
of monitoring involved, need for accreditation,
legal hassles etc.) (transaction cost)
Increasing need for building trust
and confidence in organizations
• Increasing clout of businesses ‐ Some of the world’s
largest economic entities are businesses
• Trust and confidence could get affected by various things
(some examples)
– Corporate Scandals
– Pay differentials
– Insensitivities of the corporate heads to benefit
themselves especially in the times of crisis.
– Being viewed as a ‘unfair’ employer
Increasing need for building trust
and confidence in organizations
• Role of civil society
– E.g. ‐ Pesticide issue in the colas, More hygienic food options
– Role of NGOs on labour rights, human rights,
environment etc
• Role of media
– Increasing watch on corporate activities
– However increasing concern whether media is
truly independent or viewed as another ‘business’
• Rise of social media
Increasing need for building trust
and confidence in organizations
• Greater consumer awareness – risk to
corporate brand
*
Why do we need to care for these
fiduciary responsibilities?
• Legitimacy could be impacted by perceptions held by
– Civil society
– Media
– Consumers
– Suppliers
– Potential employees
• Many of these are also resource providers to the
organization
• Violation of duties also incurs additional costs to the
organization
Stake holder concerns – from a
fairness perspective
• Values driven (founder/managements’ beliefs
of trusteeship)*
* "Under it, all wealth is a social trust and every individual the
employer, the engineer or even the ordinary mistry — is a
trustee, entitled to its proper utilisation for the common
good. True to the ideals of its founder, the House of Tata
always promoted the concept," said Jayaprakash Narayan.
(from Tata website)
In summary ‐ Need to look at stake
holder concerns
• ‘Social License’ to operate
• Building credibility and trust with customers
and employees
• Need to do the ‘right’ or ‘fair’ thing (values
driven)
Fiduciary responsibilities
• Ethical decision making
• Stakeholder concerns rather than just
shareholder concern
• Sustainability
* Source: cipd.org
Fiduciary responsibilities
• For it to be strategic it should affect the way
company operates
• Compliance (legal) is just the base – to
motivate behaviours that share the
perspective of stakeholders, ethics and
sustainability should be the aim
Responsibilities towards
employees
• Framework that effect employees’ choice making
and behaviour
– Legal compliance
– Culture
– HR Practices
• All practices right from hiring affect (diversity, compliance etc) the
kind of employee selected and the behaviour nurtured in the
organization
• Performance standards (non‐financial) of corporates
– Lesser focus on harder to focus but equally important (if not more)
measures
• Rewards directed towards performing actions benefiting
stake holders apart from share holders
Responsibilities towards
employees
– Trust and confidence building between management and
employees
• Policies that help promote employee participation
• Formal and freewheeling communication between
management and employees
• Sensing the employee concerns/issues (grievance
mechanism, participative mechanisms etc)
– Code of conduct – ethical framework
– Policies that promote contribution back to society
• Eg. Pay roll giving, volunteering, partnership with civil
society organizations etc
• Enhancing trust and confidence in the organization
is the key responsibilities directed towards
employees
Employee diversity
What is diversity?
• Diversity refers to human qualities that are
different from our own and those of groups to
which we belong; but that are manifested in
other individuals and groups.
– Outer
– Inner: Thinking patterns, assumptions, beliefs etc
Implications of diversity for
organizations
• Positives
– New ideas, perspectives
– Catering to unaddressed market places
– Pressure for change / change from status quo
– Fairness considerations
• Negatives
– Can instigate conflicts within team/organizational
members
• The key question: How to promote the positive
effects of diversity without bringing up its negatives?
Is diversity always beneficial?
• Benefits of Diversity
– Depends on the beliefs that individuals hold about
diversity (not beliefs about ‘different other
individuals’)
– Pro‐diversity beliefs and pro‐similarity beliefs
Gender diversity
Gender diversity
• Inspiration/mentorship from role models
– Women leaders (from outside) could come to (Good
example ICICI bank)
– Internal role models
• Flexible workplaces
• Flexible timings
• Maternity care
• Providing for career breaks
• Having a fair and robust performance/potential
appraisal system