Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Individual in The Organisation: Thinking and Managing Ethically
The Individual in The Organisation: Thinking and Managing Ethically
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Employee's main moral duty is to work toward the goals of the firm. This view is called "the law of agency," which specifies the legal duties of employees toward their employer. The employee, must pursue the firm's goals and do nothing that conflicts with them while working for the firm.
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Computer Theft
More recent forms of theft involve forms of information and company computers. Copying a company's software or data, or using a company computer for personal business (unless explicitly allowed) are examples of unethical forms of theft.
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Trade Secrets
Propriety information or "trade secrets" is information that the company owns concerning its activities, which it explicitly indicates that it does not want others to have. Sharing such information is also unethical.
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Insider Trading
Information can lead to other types of unethical behavior. Insider trading, the act of buying or selling company stock on the basis of confidential or proprietary information, is illegal and unethical. Some argue that insider trading is actually ethical and socially beneficial; it does not harm anyone and helps the stock price reflect its true value, they maintain. These arguments ignore basic facts about insider trading: the information being proprietary, does not belong to the trader (stolen property). Research shows that insider trading violates people's rights, based on unjust advantage, harms overall utility of society.
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Both issues are aspects of the compensation employees receive from their service and relate to the question of whether the employee contracted to take a job freely and knowingly
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Wages
Setting a fair wage is both important and difficult, so employers will need to consider these factors:
What is the going wage in the industry and the area? What are the firm's capabilities? What is the nature of the job? What are the minimum wage laws? What are the other salaries in the firm? Were wage negotiations fair? What are the local costs of living?
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Working conditions are equally important. Ten percent of the U.S. job force suffers a job related injury or illness each year. More attention needed on worker safety due to rising occupational accident rates
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Highly specialized work presents a problem of justice Narrowly specialized forms of work are those that require the least skills (specialization means dispense with need for training) Research shows that excessive job specialization can be detrimental to efficiency.
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These dimensions suggest deepening most jobs vertically and expanding them horizontally 19
Rational model of organisation accounts for much of the behavior of an organization A great deal of organizational behavior is neither goal directed, efficient, or rational. A different model: the firm as a political organization is needed to understand this behavior
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If power is the main organizational reality, then the primary ethical problems in an organization are connected with acquiring and exercising power. The two main questions become:
What are the moral limits to the power managers acquire and exercise over their subordinates? What are the moral limits to the power employees acquire and exercise on each other?
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Observers hold that this power is comparable that moral limits placed on governmental officials must extend to managers as well. As government must respect the civil rights of citizens, managers must respect the moral rights of employees: the rights to privacy, consent, and freedom of speech, among others.
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Freedom of Conscience
Workers may think they have freedom of conscience, If they found their firm doing something that harms society, few legal options available if management does nothing Company has legal right to punish employee who informs against the firm with firing or blacklisting. May have a clear violation of an individual's right to freedom of conscience, the law states that employee's duty is to maintain loyalty and confidentiality towards employer
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Whistleblowing
Whistle blowing - attempt by employee to disclose wrongdoing in an organization, Take two forms:
Internal - reported only to management within organization. External - reported to others (such as governmental agencies or the media).
Management theorists urged managers urge to adopt participatory leadership style assumed:
employees want responsibility; can develop the capacity to accept responsibility, are ready to support organizational goals, can determine the best means of achieving them.
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Leadership ranges from absence of trust to complete mutual trust; from no employee involvement to full employee involvement If such management styles are more effective/productive, then on utilitarian grounds firms ought to adopt them. However, research on this issue is not yet conclusive.
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As plant closings become common, the rights of employees need to be considered. Plant closings impose high costs on workers, so when plant closings are inevitable, workers' moral rights should continue to be respected. Utilitarian principles suggest that the harm caused by layoffs should be minimized, which means that the costs of plant closings should be borne by those best able to bear them namely the company.
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Organizational Politics
Organizational politics is defined as the process by which individuals or groups within an organization use nonformally sanctioned tactics (political tactics) to advance their own aims Such aims are not necessarily in conflict with the best interests of the organization. Because organizational politics aim to advance the interests of an individual or group, political individuals tend to be covert, which means that they can easily become deceptive or manipulative.
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Some of the most frequent political tactics encountered in business organizations are:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Blaming or attacking others. Controlling information. Developing a base of support for one's ideas. Image building. Ingratiation. Associating with the influential. Forming power coalitions and developing strong allies. Creating obligations.
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Perhaps the best way to approach them is to test them against the four standards of ethics:
the utilitarian question (are the goals of the tactics socially beneficial?); the rights question (do the tactics treat others consistently with their moral rights?); the justice question (will the tactics lead to an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens?); the caring question (what impact will the tactics have on the web of relationships within the organization?).
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The Caring Organization is a network of connected individuals all concerned with each other. The primary goal of the organization is not profit, but caring for those individuals who make up the organization and with whom the organization interacts Some theorists believe that organizations in such relationships exhibit better performance.
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