Ethical Decision Making in China - Essay Example

Ethical Decision Making in China Ethical Decision Making in China Ethics in business is vital as they determine the success of the organization. This is because ethics determines the relationship of the organization with its employees, customers and the society that surrounds the organization. Ethics also promote better working conditions and good internal business culture that are good for a healthy business performance. Ethics is the principles that define the behavior as fair and proper and are concerned with how a moral person should behave on ethical decision making process. Thus, ethical decision making by the management of an organization is crucial as it determines the success of the organization by setting in an environment as described. Ethical decision making activities involve deciding on and evaluating the competition as the organization does not exist in the industry alone. This means that these decisions must promote fair play. The other ethical decision that might impact on the performance of the organization is the decision whether to lay off workers to improve profits or to decline the quality of the product so as to reduce the production cost (Poznak Law Firm, 2003). The management might decide to do this to earn more revenues, but the adverse effects of these decisions will haunt the success of the business in the future. This is because it damages the environment for working. This highlights the importance of ethical decision making for the better good of the organizations. The article, Managers: Train your brain for ethical decisions, that was written on BBC on 8th October 2013, outlines the essence of having to make the ethical decisions and the implication of ethical decision on the success of the organizations and for the business continuity (Eric, 2013). The article also addresses the dynamism of ethics and applies them in the Chinese industry. It asserts that there are countries that have codified many ethical issues into law. This helps to mandatory establish a business environment that is healthy for business success and conducive for other business in the industry. The article says that unethical decisions should not be justified because they lead to undesirable effects like the bad relations, and unfavorable working conditions for employees and competition. Unethical decision making has the potential to stop the existence of the business as well as damaging the external environment. The unethical decision making in the Union Carbide Company led to the Bhopal disaster that went to history as the worst industrial accident. The company made a decision to continue with production despite the awful hazard posed by the standards of their operation. The management decided to continue producing while paying little attention to the repairs and replacement of worn out parts of their systems. Though this did cut down on the immediate cost, it did not assure continued profitability because worn out resources do not produce at their capacity (PMC, 2012). The loss that was experienced after the disaster could not be compared to the amount they saved. This decision was not profitable, and it resulted to the harming of the surrounding environment as many of people livestock, and wildlife lost their lives and the remaining people were forced to flee their homes. Every decision making has pros and cons; however, the decision making should be aimed at producing a decision that is productive for the business, and that is mindful of the external environment and the internal environment of the business. What makes up ethical behavior and the way ethical decisions should be made forms a complex topic. This is because the decision makers must consider the ethics behind every decision they make. There are four approaches that can help in ethical decision making and to analyze the ethical dilemma. These four approaches are; moral rights approach that is concerned with moral principles notwithstanding the consequences. The utilitarian approach that focuses on taking action that will yield the greater good for the majority people. The Universalist approaches where decision makers determine whether they should have the will to have another person apply the law to them. Finally, the costs benefit approach that brings about the balance between the costs as well as the benefits of deciding to implement or not to implement a certain decision. Unfortunately, not all these approaches can be enacted because the business finances might not permit honoring the approaches. For example, a business may be forced to hire low wage employees because their financial muscle power is not sufficient to compensate the employees as ethics would allow. However, the ethicality can be approached by cutting costs in other areas of production to ensure that the employees are compensated ethically. The writer of the article writes that if you have pressure to make money, you are going to have workers who are ethical at home, but do things at work knowing that they should not do them (Eric, 2013). By this, he means that unethical decisions that are based on greed to maximize profit end up giving workers an environment that they know is not conducive for them. These decisions deny workers the motivation that they require so that they can be productive optimally. The result of these kinds of unethical decisions is the reduced productivity because the workers are not motivated, and brain drain as the workers migrates to other employers whose decisions serves the interests of the employees better (Harriet, 1987, 31). The writer says that employees who find themselves working for an employer with murky values aims to save up some “walk-away-money”, and they constantly ask themselves whether that is the organization that they want to work for. This shows the importance of ethical decision making to the motivation of the employees. Failure to make decisions which motivates workers result to undesirable results. Additionally, workers become unproductive, and workers are lost to rival organizations. Other than focusing on the importance of organizational ethics, the ethical decision making makes the requirement that we foresee and be sensitive to the consequences of choice, the ability to evaluate the complexity and incompleteness of facts and to evaluate the skills to achieve the required goals behind the decision that is being made (Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2002). The management should have higher and moral decision making abilities and be able to foresee the consequences. Each person has the power and right to make decisions and responsible by morals for the consequences of his or her choice. However, the process of ethical decision making requires the decision maker to be committed. They should have the willingness to do what is right with no regard to the cost involved. Ethical decision making also requires competence and awareness of consistent actions. Good decisions are ethical, acquire and maintain trust, and demonstrate fairness and responsibility (Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2002). Ethical decision making also helps to establish a foundation for ethical decision making by creating a set up for ground rules for behaviors. The dynamism in decision making process is also a key factor in the article. Some behaviors or acts that are considered ethical in one place of the continent might be viewed as ethical in a different country. This is because the ethical decisions are tied up to the accepted codes of conduct and the business culture and the external culture of the business. For example, in Japan, in the business meeting the participants are treated with gifts and such niceties while, in the United States, this might be viewed as bribing of the participants, and it is thus forbidden in most ethical practices policies. Today the investment bank might get to bet against the customers, and at the same time it invests for them. Thus, this requires decision makers to be in a position to analyze the current emerging trends in the industries and ethics before they chose to make and implement a decision. The writer addresses the need to create muscle memory (Eric, 2013). The advantage of the muscle memory is that it makes the decision maker consider what will happen when the decision that he made will get implemented. He suggests that one should have the feeling of the voice to the values that will be set by the decision making. An ethical decision making should work to improve on the values already existing in the business environment. This ought to be the main objective of every ethical decision making (Richard, 2008, 18). In this case, the decision made should be based on the improvement of working conditions for the employees, satisfaction of the customers, maintenance of good corporate social responsibility and improving on the financial value of the organization. If all the above aspects of value addition are not addressed after evaluation of the decision making process, then the decision is not ethical. This decision should not be implemented before being amended, or it deserves to do away with altogether. If the above aspects are not addressed, then the voice to the values should be louder to tell decision makers that the decision made was not ethical. The Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2002, suggests that there are six pillars of characters that guarantee value to ethics and ethical decision making process. The pillars are termed as the fundamental rules to the ethical decision making process. These pillars are respect, trustworthiness, responsibility, fairness, citizenship, and caring. These should form the basis of the voice of the values of ethical decision making. These values relate to one another, and they form the opinions among the society or both the external and internal business environment. In decision making process, the decision makers should respect the individuals who are affected by the decision. They must be responsible over their decisions and activities; they must be fair; they must recognize patriotism and citizenship, and they must care for the customers and the stockholders. The customers too should feel trusted and should trust the decision makers for the decision making process to be termed ethical. If any of the above pillars is not addressed, then the whole process becomes unethical. If the decision making process applies honesty, integrity, loyalty and reliability, the whole process yields trustworthiness (Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2002). The respect aspect of ethical decision making rules out violence, exploitation of stuffs, humiliation and other unethical activities. The responsibility shows that one has the decision, and can respond to the expectation by being accountable and the pursuit of excellence. The fair decision making process shows devotion to a balanced standard of justice without one’s own feelings being forced into the way. Caring shows that the entire decision making process had the heart, of ethics, and it was concerned with the welfare of others. The decisions that foster good relations with other people that are compassionate are generous to the people shows that the process was caring. Decision making that considers the citizenship commits the organization to the community in a selfless manner and also it understands the laws and the importance of the duties. Thus, if the above pillars are borrowed in the decision making process, the whole decision making process will be ethical (Cham, 2003). The muscle memory also builds on the brevity of the decision makers and the employers entirely. The decision makers should be brave enough to get what they have decided on if they think it is right. This means that the act of ethical decision making should not just plot the answer to the ethical issue, but should also plot the solution. For example, one might be required to lie about impending lay off by the bosses. In this situation, for ethical decision making, the affected individual should be able to make the sound decision of whether to lie or not. If a person thinks that it is right and ethical to talk the truth, the truth. Then he or she should know the way to expose it and plan a solution to this case. The writer asserts that ethical decision making is not about the principles, but it is all about the guts (Eric, 2013). It is the courage to do what an individual knows is right. In the case of the Union Carbide company that was described above had the company’s decision makers had the guts to do what was imminently right; they would have saved the entire situation (PMC, 2012). The case just shows one case example of how ethical decision making is complex. It is not just getting the idea of what ethical decision making was, but also getting the guts to shun unethical decisions and get the decisions that one know are right implemented notwithstanding the financial implication of the implementation of such a decision (Burna, 2002, 12). In conclusion, the entire decision making process is a multi-faceted process that is delicate for an organization not to mind. Thus, the whole process ought to be ethical for an organization to thrive, to be successful, and to satisfy the customers. An unethical decision making process serves a fatal blow to the survival of the company as from what is discussed, unethical decision makes the productivity reduce, reduced returns, brain drain of the experienced employees, lack of customers among other adverse impacts to the organization. Thus, it is important to ensure that decision making process is ethical. To ensure that the decision making process is ethical; there are pillars that form the basis of ethical decision making. These pillars when borrowed, the entire process becomes ethical. Reference List Eric, B. A. (2013). Mnagers: Train your brain for ethical decisions (Online). 8 October 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20131007-the-morality-muscle Josephson Institute of Ethics. 2002. "Making Sense of Ethics" (Online). Available at http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MED-1makingsense.htm Poznak Law Firm. 2003. "Approaches to Ethical Decision Making" (Online). Available at http://www.poznaklaw.com/articles/bizethics.htm Richard, A. M. (2008). The Fundamentals of Ethical Decision Making. Ontario: Best Books Publishers. Burna, C. C. (2002). Ethics in Organization Management. New York: Pearson Publishers. Cham, A. M. (2003). Business Ethics as a factor of Country Competitiveness. Country Competitiveness Report. Arvidson, E. D. (2002). The Wage Wrangle. Fresh Cup Magazine. Richard, H. G. (1986). Environmental Integrity and Corporate Responsibility. Journal Of Business Ethics 5 409-415. New York. D. Reidel Publishing Company. Harriet, R. A. (1987). The Kitchen and the Multinational Corporation: An analysis of the Links between the household and Global Corporations. Journal of Business Ethics 6 (1987) 194. New York. D. Reidel Publishing Company. PMC.(2012). The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142333/ Read More