Adapting Kohlberg to Enhance the Assessment of Managers Moral Reasoning - Book Report/Review Example

This review seeks to analyze how the author achieves an efficient moral assessment tool of moral reasoning at the work place and the shortcomings of the article, especially in the six stages of moral reasoning. From a personal perspective, the theories of moral judgment interviews and the standard issue scoring method have significantly changed, and may be inapplicable in some instances. Background Information The article was an effort by James Weber to highlight the importance and methods of assessing manager’s moral reasoning.

The article aims at enhancing the awareness of moral reasoning of managers and its influence in decision making regarding ethical situations and moral dilemmas. The ultimate understanding and predictability of organization and managerial ethical behavior will successfully help in designing an appropriate guides and incentives that will assist managers in decision-making that regards organizational moral and ethical issues. Summary Moral and ethical issues are a common feature in organizations.

However, there are no precise methods available for managers to base their decision-making processes concerning ethical and moral conflicts. There have been efforts to design a model that is applicable to all ethical and moral conflicts, notably the Moral judgment Interview (MJI) and the Standard Issues Scoring method, by Lawrence Kohlberg (Weber 295). The two theories try to lay the foundation for assessing moral situations and the consequent decision making process. Nonetheless, Kohlberg assessment method has a specific design of assessing individuals from childhood to adulthood, thus Weber proposes a few key changes that will counter the unnecessary characteristics.

The modification concentrates on four areas. One, mixing dilemmas that are more familiar and with less familiar dilemmas in an organizational environment, then, a follow-up in form of interview questions that analyze the moral reasoning of managers with regards to organizational values. Thirdly, it considers the flexibility of using a written or oral interview, and lastly, a simple, reliable formula that assesses manager’s responses while identifying their moral reasoning stage. Weber then moves to analyze Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning with adequate details of each level and stage.

According to Kohlberg, individuals develop moral reasoning in three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Each of the three levels has two stages, making the moral reasoning model to have six stages in total (Weber 296). At the pre-conventional level, an individual responds to “wrongs” and “rights” by consequential actions like punishment and rewards, or through imposition of power by the makers of the rules. In the first stage (Obedience and Punishment Orientation), consequential physical actions determine the badness or goodness.

The second stage (Instrumental Relativist Orientation) defines a right action as the one that satisfies an individual’s needs. Equality and fairness elements interpretation are in terms of pragmatic or physical consequences directed towards the decision maker. At the second level, aligning to the expectations of the society or family is valuable. Stage three (“Good Boy Nice Girl”), place emphasis on behavior that helps others and is approved by them. Individuals conform to personalities that exhibit the “natural” behavior or the stereotypical majority image.

In stage four (Law and Order Orientation), individuals make their decision as members of a society (Weber 296). The foundation of this perception is the societal setup,