Exploring ethics in contemporary business - Assignment Example

Further, decisions in an organisation are taken, for instance, to mitigate risks or brainstorm for the best alternatives to move an organisation to the next level (Guest & Woodrow, 2012) . In a hierarchical organisational structure, decisions are made in boardrooms by the top management without involving other employees. Consequently, the style of leadership in a hierarchical organisational structure tends to be authoritative, where the decision made by the top management is final (Ahmed, Bwisa, & Karanja, 2014).

In such a case where decisions go wrong, the management should be held accountable for poor decision-making. On the contrary, while a flatter organisational structure allows other employees to take part in the decision-making process, the management still has the last word regarding the ideal decision to be implemented (Michaelson, 2010). In this sense, ethical issues arise whether it is appropriate to hold an employee accountable for poor decision-making in an organisation. In an organisation, decision-making entails a process of tackling a problem by looking for a solution that will bring about value for an organisation’s stakeholders.

In essence, decisions in an organisation can be programmed or non-programmed. In the former, decisions are normally repetitive and routine while, in the latter process, decisions tend to be novel and unstructured (Ahmed, Bwisa, & Karanja, 2014). Some of the models in the literature that can be associated with organisational decision-making include the Rational, Carnegie, Incrementalist, Unstructured and the Garbage Can models (Glockner & Betsch, 2011). With regard to the rational model, the process of making decisions is straightforward and involves a three-step process.

The three steps encompass identifying the problem, brainstorming for an ideal alternative and selecting the best among others to implement. In most organisational setups, the rational model is the most common