Ethics as an Aspect of Management - Essay Example

Ethics management School Affiliation Introduction Management ethics refers to one of the main aspects of the wider management discipline or practice that seeks to align this discipline, or practice, with the society’s ethical expectations. In trying to achieve the outlined objectives, a manager should make sure that an organization, its practices, and members, all conform to the widely accepted norms, practices and set of behaviors considered as ethical. Therefore, management ethics has been defined in a more specific manner as the adoption of an ethical modus operandi in all aspects of operations as they affect the stockholders, stakeholders, and the society in which operations are based. That said, the main aim of this paper should be to investigate and discuss the ways that an organization can manage ethical behavior within its structure and pertinent to the larger body of stakeholders. There are types of methods or means of managing ethical behavior within an organization and its stakeholder circles. Categorized as formal and informal means, these form the mainstay of a manager’s, or management teams’ effort at introducing and managing ethical behavior within the organization (Phillips & Margolis 1999). The first or formal means of managing ethical behavior in an organization entails the results of years of research and widespread trials in the industry. These include; the core value statement, the mission statement, the code of ethics, compliance manuals, and ethics standards and indices. The second or informal means of managing ethical behavior in the organization and its wider stakeholders setting are more or less the result of years of experience in the industry and a distillate of the vast pool of experience in optimizing organizational performance through ethics. These means are; manager concern/role-modeling, candid ethical communication, ethics as a topic of employee conversation, reward and penalty systems, and communication of stories (Schnebel & Bienert 2004). In addition to the means of managing ethical behavior, the paper shall venture into other issues that are relevant to this topic. Since management ethics is a wide topic, the process might venture into issues such as codes of conduct and codes of ethics, workplace ethics theories, training and its role in the management of workplace ethics, the impact of new technology on ethical behavior, and corporate social responsibility (Solomon 2004). Formal methods of managing ethical behavior in organizations Formal methods of managing ethical behavior pertain to the methods individuals or organizational teams strive to improve their employees’ ethical score while in the organization utilizing scientifically proven methods. As a result of empirical studies, these methods are the most efficient way of ensuring the organization adopts and sustains ethical behavior within its operational environment. The main methods through which it is achieved include; The core value statement This is a laid down statement of the organization’s core values, beliefs, and priories as they relate to its main objectives. Research shows that the most successful organizations lay down their core values, beliefs, and priorities and inculcate these into the organizational culture. The benefits of such arrangements do not end on the financial benefits, but penetrate into other aspects of the firm (Anderson 2011). A good example of such is the ethical score where industry-based data shows significant improvement in the ability of management personnel to manage their employees if there is a laid down, and emphasized core value statement. This means of managing ethical behavior in the organization has far-reaching consequences on the overall management of human resources. Not only does it serve as a guide for the workforce, but it is a yardstick with which the organization’s performances can be gauged as a strategy of establishing punitive action (Murphy 2005). With the core vale statement, an organization easily identifies slackers within its ranks and roots them out after unheeded warnings. This is an important aspect of ethics management within an organization, as the employees have to be made to understand the importance maintaining a certain standard in terms of ethics as part of the overall organization’s strategy at achieving its goals. The mission statement Strictly speaking, the organization’s mission statement is part of a larger organizational management tool that states and outlines its core values and philosophy. Not to be confused with the mission statement, which states the organizational ambitions, this tool also, serves a role in establishing and managing ethical behavior among the firms’ members. By stating the organizational values, it assists management manage the ethical aspects of the firm by introducing to, and constantly reminding, the members about its values (Williams 2008). That kind of consistency reduces their propensity for unethical practices since going against the entire organization is shunned (Green Jr & Medlin 2003). In addition to outlining the organization’s values, the mission statement also outlines its philosophy. Since an organization’s philosophy is the collection of its distinctive and enduring principles that in guiding the employees, it follows then that, they have a bearing on the management’s intention on managing ethical behavior. With the philosophy outlines on the organization’s mission statement, the employees are less likely to act in any way that contradicts it thus maintaining a certain level of ethics within the organization and beyond to its stakeholders (Glasrud 2001). Therefore, the mission statement forms an important guidance and correction tool in the organization’s management processes, especially in terms of ethical behavior. The code of ethics Every group of people with like minds, some skills and facilitation in terms of resources that come together need a set of rules that are widely accepted and used to rebuke or reprimand anyone in the group with wayward tendencies. This is the case even in the global business and management scene, where organizations use a group of commonly agreed upon rules and ethics to guide the operations of their outfit. The set of rules and acceptable behaviors forms the yardstick with which an organization stipulates its acceptable, and unacceptable range of behaviors (Vitell & Hidalgo 2006). Industry heavyweights such as IMB and General Electric have for decades demonstrated the effectiveness of codes of ethics in measuring and managing organizational ethics and managing the related behavior. With a code of ethics, the manager is easily able to set the best example as outlined on the important management tool, and also identify unethical behaviors since they are spelt out on the same code of ethics (Helin & Sandstrom 2010). Therefore, it is easy to see why the code of ethics has been instrumental in keeping the two heavy weights off the tabloids due to there being minimal cases of unethical behavior in their organizational structures. Business ethics standards and indices Not only should there be sets of ethical standards and rules, but a measure of the extent to which the organization aligns its operations to these rules and standards. As organizations are used to competing with each other, the institution of another set of desirable levels and empirical goals makes this a good tool to assist management in controlling all aspects of the organization’s ethical behavior (Ardichvili et al. 2009). Such resources would be important in ensuring that the organization aligns its operations with the most ethical behavior. Over the last few decades, the management profession in trying to improve the ethical aspects of the discipline has come up with some standards and measures of enumerating an organization’s performance in terms of its ethical behavior. In conjunction with the indices attributed to this performance, these tools have tremendously improved the process of managing ethical behavior (Valentine & Fleischman 2008). These standards and indices have created a sort of competition among the industry players due to the benefits accrued from being referred to as the most ethically sound organization. Such benefit and the attached systems constitute another means that has come up as a method of managing ethical behavior. Compliance manuals Research into the field of management has identified a trend where organizations use manuals in communicating the desired range of behaviors that its employees should exhibit. Such resource has been identified as an integral part of the current, most effective, means of managing ethical behavior. The fact that the employee and employer are both on the same page, in that they share the same source of ethical wisdom, makes this more useful as a management tool. Informal means of managing ethical behavior in organizations The informal means of managing ethical behavior in organizations refer to the non-standard practices that organizations and their heads use to instill and control their team members’ ethical practices. As mentioned earlier, there is a need to measure and manage an organization’s ethical behavior since this has a direct bearing on the organization’s performance and ability to achieve its long-term goals. The informal means or methods of managing ethical behavior are; Manager concern/Role-modeling A manager is an individual who is tasked with the process of overseeing an organization aim to achieving its goals is optimized. In order to achieve these goals, the individual needs some resources (Falkenberg & Herremans 1995). These are; financial and other resources, skilled manpower, a set of objectives, and the set of ethics and guidelines within which operations are to run. Industrial examples have for a long time demonstrated how good managers have learnt to keenly follow the organization’s ethical values. In addition, these individuals have a keen understanding of the need to provide good examples to their sub-ordinates as part of an integrated performance boosting strategy (Spicker 2011). Therefore, the rest of the employees emulate their manager and uplift the whole organization’s ethical standpoint. This forms the first of a line of informal means of managing ethical behavior that cannot necessarily be attributed to any conclusive research, rather, are the result of vast experience and experimentation on the field. Candid ethical communication Communication within the organization takes a variety of forms and achieves varying degrees of success in relation to the very essence of this human aspect. With regards to the need to manage the ethical characteristics of an organization, communication can play a crucial role especially if it comes from above and trickled down the organizational human resources structure. Managers have the responsibility not only to act in ethically upright manners, but also to communicate the importance of this critical component of success to their subordinates. The effects of managers’ communication candidly about ethical behavior have not been deeply studied, but the results on the industrial fronts seem to speak for themselves. Manager who openly discuss ethical issues with their subordinates and fellow managers have been observed to reduce the numbers, and variation, in unethical behavior once again providing another informal means of managing an organization’s ethics. Fortunately, the processes involved in this method are fairly straightforward since most managers are good in communication as both a practice and art (Brown et al. 2005). Therefore, the effects of candidly communicating to the other members of an organization about ethical behavior are bound to be more pronounced than most other means. Ethics as a topic of conversation among employees Just like many other human forms of conversation, employees’ talk sometimes takes on a very informal characteristic. In so doing, many employees find themselves talking more freely about some things they would ordinarily not even consider mentioning in the office and work environment. Employees discuss many things in the course of their interaction hence sometimes come across issues that are pertinent to ethical behavior ( Beckett 2003). The management should consider encouraging workers to discuss issues related to ethical behavior in a bid to raise any problems associated with ethical behavior. This is another informal method of managing ethical behavior since the employees discuss and sort any problems associated with unethical practices among themselves. Reward and penalty systems A business is a process within the trade system that invests resources and expects returns based on the level of skill and manpower. As a process that involved the investment of resources, business is prone to a myriad of unethical practices as many try to cut corners and gain unfair advantages. However, to shun these practices, many organizations have put in place measures aim at directing punitive action on offenders. Such can also be viewed from the ethical behavior management perspective as another means of managing the same. The employees are made aware of the existence of rewards for good ethical behavior, and some form of harsh retribution for unethical practices. Pertinent issues in management of ethical behavior in organizations and stakeholder groups Other than the various means used to manage the ethical behavior of organizational members and those among the stakeholders, there are other issues that pertain to ethics and its impact on the organization that share the same platform. Issues such as the codes of ethics, code of conduct, personal ethics theories, the role of training in an ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, and the impact of new technology have great repercussions on the ethics and ethical practices in an organization. Code of conduct and code of ethics These tools form part of the yardstick that manager use to measure and adjust their organizational ethical performance. While they might easily be confused, these two are very different. The code of conduct is an outline of the organization’s acceptable and unacceptable range of behaviors as a matter of employment. On the other hand, the code of ethics merely comprises a document issued to the managerial figures and outlining the set of principles that affect decision making within the organization. Straight away, it is clear that the first difference between the code of conduct and code of ethics is in the areas they affect. The code of conduct affects the behavior, while the code of ethics affects the principles (Davidson & Stevens 2013). The second difference between these two is that the code of conduct is hardly ever a written or printed document as is the case with the code of ethics. Third, it is common that with the code of conduct, there is little in the way of judgment and deliberation since they are straightforward. Failure to heed to rules leads to incurring some fine or punitive action. On the other hand, that is not the case with code of ethics since they require more deliberation because of their heavy impact on organizational performance and success. Role of training in business ethics From the perspective of business ethics and its management, it is clear that there an implicit need to train the employees on all matter that pertain to them and the business in an ethical sense. Therefore, the question of why one should train their employees in these issues comes up. The main advantages associated with training, are; the creation of a better, more conducive environment, acquisition and improvement on the sense of self responsibility, the creation of teamwork and unity that boosts performance (Ritter 2006). Organizations that train their personnel in the right approaches to handling ethics and its management have been reported to experience less cases of malpractice and other cases of misbehavior. In addition, these same employees are better equipped to handle the crisis that has formed the modern day life corporate world. Interestingly, those that are complacent in training on issues pertaining to ethical behavior lack the skills to manage harmful situation, and misinterpreted the warning signs that accompany unethical practices by members of their own organization (Brinkmann 2002). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is the organization’s way of making sure the benefits it creates and shares not only stick with the stockholders and those entitled to dividend payouts, but the entire stakeholder group. As operatives in the society, the organization prides itself in juggling the many variable and overcoming the many hurdles in order to achieve success. These spoils are then shared among all in accordance with ethical requirements. CSR, therefore, makes sure the benefits accrued from successful operation trickle down the chain of beneficiaries to society. While it is virtually impossible to pay out the stakeholder of an organization, the same can be replaced with projects that will benefit them in other, non-fiscal, manners (Christensen et al. 2007). The importance of maintaining good relation with the organization’s stakeholders is one of the motivation behind the whole idea of CSR. However, some critiques have termed the practice as unethical since the majority of organizations give back to the community far smaller portion than they have actually reaped (Pomering & Dolnicar 2009). The impact of new technology on ethical behavior management New technology is coming up that enhances, as well as threatens, the process of managing ethical behavior. The emergence of social media has complemented many aspects of business and ethical behavior management is an example. Through social media, many unethical practices have been brought to light, as the same platforms serve as a distraction and avenue of information, and identity, theft. Globalization has led to the inclusion of ethical perspectives in global approach, taking consideration into multicultural business environment. Conclusion To sum it up, managers in any organization have a vital role of ensuring success at all times. However, as illustrated above, success of any organization is dependent on how well an organization ensures an adherence of its values. In order to ensure employees remain ethical, organizations have core values, ethical values, and mission statement. Core value statement reminds the employees on the organization’s expectations on their part. Mission statement helps in making employees understand the organization’s philosophy. Lately, organizations have created ethical standard indices where employees’ ethics are closely monitored. Normally, this happens though manuals all aimed at maintaining high standards of ethics. Other informal methods are employed in ethics management where managers are seen as role models. Additionally, candid conversations are used as well in various organization as an alternative to the formal way of ethics observation. In addition, reward and penalty systems are normally used in organizations where offenders are punished while those who adhere to the regulations are awarded. Irrespective of which method an organization chooses to employ pertinent issues do arise. These include code of ethics, code of conduct, personal theories, and the role of training. It has been noted that organizations that dedicate its resources to training employees in issues pertaining to ethics, only a few cases of malpractices are witnessed. CSR activities also come in handy where key stakeholders of an organization are rewarded. Normally, the major beneficiaries of this initiative is the society where an organization sets aside a considerable amount of its resources to improving that which is beneficial to the large society. Reference list Beckett, R., 2003. 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