Ethics Awareness Inventory and Professional Workplace Dilemma - Essay Example

Running Head: Ethics Awareness Inventory Ethics Awareness Inventory and Professional Workplace Dilemma (Style: APA) ID 19714 OrderNo. 250540 11 November 2008 Abstract Every individual has own beliefs in terms of what is right or wrong which is driven by the internal conscience. An ancient ethical theory by Aristotle suggests that Moral Psychology drives the Character which in turn is the most important factor for justifying decision making provided the decisions are taken based on adequate reasons. This theory in modern context doesn't justify the ethical aspect of decision making because the reasons that are "adequate" in the perspective of one person may be "inadequate" in another person's perspective. If Aristotle's theory of Ethics is to be accepted then even the serial killers, terrorists, extortionists and political assassinators would be able to justify their actions based on the "adequate reasoning" which unfortunately has no set standard in the world (Striker, Gisela. 1987. pp192-193). In the modern context, an individual's decision would be accepted as ethical if the person has taken all impacting factors into account and considered all those people who would be impacted by the decision. Given the modern complexity of organizational & social systems, it is practically impossible to take a decision that doesn't impact anyone negatively. Hence, all such decisions that are taken in the favor of the larger part of the mass are normally treated as ethical. Overall, the Ethical Decision making orientation of an individual can be judged by the Ethics Awareness Inventory Profile that requires answering a series of questions by assigning the "level of agreement" that are useful in identifying the inclination of an individual towards the four measurable parameters of Ethical Decision Making - Character, Obligation, Results and Equity. In this paper, I present a brief on these four parameters, my own Ethics Awareness Inventory and an ethical challenge that I faced in the past at my workplace. [The Williams Institute for Ethics and Management - EAI. (2008)] Table of Contents: Introduction: The Ethics Awareness Inventory takes into account the Ethical orientation of an individual towards four measurable parameters - Character, Obligation, Results and Equity (CORE). The measurements are carried out through a questionnaire that asks the individual to vote at a certain level of agreement against the questions asked - ranging between the extremes of strong disagreement to strong agreement. The orientation against the four parameters is defined as below: Ethics Orientation towards Character - An individual who gives high value to excellent moral principles, integrity, honesty and behavior Ethics Orientation towards Obligation - An individual who gives high value to loyalty towards an individual or organization by demonstrating high levels of responsibility Ethics Orientation towards Results - An individual who gives high value to the results of a decision and hence thinks through every aspect of the impact of the decision on everyone involved Ethics Orientation towards Equity - An individual who gives high value to his/her equity in a decision and believe that beliefs of right or wrong should be changed based on circumstances in order to extract the best benefits out of them. [The Williams Institute for Ethics and Management - EAI. (2008)] My Ethics Awareness Inventory: My Ethics Awareness Inventory assessed against the on-line questions at the portal of Williams Institute of Ethics and Management reveals that my Ethics Awareness profile is more aligned towards Character & Obligation and Least aligned towards Results & Equity. When I map the results with my own thought process, I realize that I have been giving highest emphasis to moral excellence and loyalty to my employer against results & equity. I have never bothered about the results of my decision as long as I was convinced that the decision was based on Moral Grounds and is a "Good Gesture" from my perspective. At times, I have not bothered about harm to me or anyone else due to my own decision given the strong belief in the "Moral Excellence" of the decision. This belief of mine have enabled me to think beyond written moral guidelines, moral principles or code of ethics whereby I tend to question certain aspects of them that do not match with my belief. The first thing that comes in my mind is a perception about the character of the people who might have been involved in documenting them given that a number of points appear conflicting to me. For example, I am not able to digest the act of lay-offs of people by an organization that miserably fails to justify the terminations but claims to be people friendly. I do believe that moral & ethics management in organizations are in wrong hands given that they drive these principles towards an artificial outlook targeted towards fulfillment of business objectives and not people's interest; such people should get their Ethics Inventory tested before taking decisions that impact thousands. They believe that the person whose head is being chopped off should feel grateful and say "thank you" before getting killed. However, on the other hand, I am frustrated due to substantial inequalities of moral principles in people and thus believe that a common framework governing ethics & values should be present in organizations provided the same is governed by good people. If someone asks me who do I regard as good people, I will express my strong belief in Honesty, Moral Values, Integrity, Principles, etc. I am uncomfortable in ethical discussions given the inequalities of beliefs in people and the artificial gestures of commitment to Integrity. I am quite amazed to see the way this Ethical Inventory analysis has surfaced my real self. However, in this process I have learned about my own weaknesses that might end up branding me as an unethical person in future causing an emotional setback to me. I no longer wish to live in an artificial "feel good" mode by virtue of my own beliefs whereby the world thinks exactly the opposite about me. I have learned that while I keep my belief in Moral Excellence intact, I should invest substantial time in analyzing the perspectives of all others who would be impacted due to my own decisions. My analysis should keep in account short term impacts as well as long term impacts and should take into account the viewpoints of all stake holders even if they possess lesser powers than me. I must evaluate a variety of decisions, should map them with the CORE beliefs and should collect enough objective evidence to justify my decision. I should be consciously aware of some kind of a pressure that I might be undergoing, apparent or hidden, that might be driving me towards some pre-conceived output - which may be driven by my own greed, pressure from higher power centers, threats or unclear facts. In the next section, I hereby present an event that happened with me in my past assignment forcing me towards a decision as per my thought process at that time. I hereby present what was my thought process then and what will be my thought process now after achieving this knowledge. Dilemma at Workplace due to an Ethical Issue: The Experience: In the past, I used to work for a large corporate in the systems department. My job was in a department where I was assigned a task to filter outbound E-Mail traffic using an electronic system that was designed to judge and report fraudulent E-Mails and communications that might be revealing the company secrets to outside world. I had full control rights on the logs generated by the system. Every evening, I was supposed to publish a report to my boss Sam who in turn used to report the doubtful communications to the IT Security chief, Rob. The organization possesses a zero tolerance policy against unauthorized information disclosure whereby the least disciplinary action was termination of employment and the toughest action might even invoke a legal case against the individual. I was at the center of this entire system and hence was "powerful". The E-Mail users were aware of this control and hence the smart folks never used this channel to send information out (obviously, there were other channels available to send information out - security was not that great). Overall, only the new comers or innocent people not knowing about the implications were getting caught by this system. Due to this reason, I never liked the system in which I was working but was compelled to continue because it was a "high paid" job. One morning, I came across a communication by a girl Lisa who sent out the entire Quality Manual of the company to another girl named Kathy on her hotmail account. I was surprised to see this communication because the Quality Manual is supposed to be highly confidential and controlled document. As per the company policy, it was the case of immediate termination. I could neither recognize Lisa nor did I get any clue who was Kathy. The Ethical Dilemma: Somehow, my conscience didn't allow me to trust the girl because I couldn't get to a justification why on earth an employee would need to send the entire quality manual of the company to an external person. Well, I do understand now that somehow my inclination towards Moral Excellence did not allow me to think out of the box. I took it as a case of social engineering whereby the ethics in question were Character & Obligation and the values that I perceived to be in question were honesty, loyalty & integrity. I was definitely well placed to taken an action because I had the power of information with me. Against this result, I was sure to get a strong appreciation that would enhance my career in the organization. Not only me but my boss Sam and the security chief Rob also were well placed to get appreciation once this thing gets escalated to the board. Lisa was however all set to face a nightmare - a long session of closed room questioning and finally a termination. A legal case against her and the other girl Kathy was also on the anvil. Now, there were two options - (1) I do not report, delete the log and go ahead to issue a warning to Lisa on a one to one basis. (2) I report and let the system take care of Lisa; I sit back and enjoy my brownie points. The Outcome: I chose the second option (unfortunately). I thought that in this process I have caught a dishonest thief red handed who would be rightfully punished by the system. This is exactly what happened - Sam and I got appreciation letters and Rob enjoyed an enhanced relationship with the board. Lisa was interrogated and later on fired but no case was filed against her. This somewhat occurred strange to me knowing the system. I thought of getting to the facts that were taken out from her during the interrogations. I contacted Rob's second in line Bill to know the fact. To my surprise, Bill was extremely annoyed with me. He revealed the fact that Kathy was Lisa's younger sister who was a student of Quality Management System. She needed help in her dissertation and hence Lisa forwarded her the Quality Manual such that she can take some help from the document and prepare her paper. I was stunned with red face. This was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I ruined the career of an innocent girl because of my stupid beliefs and a biased definition of Character. The company policy did state that revealing information to outsiders is a serious offence but also presented a hidden message that it is the accountability of the security observer to differentiate between malicious and innocent intents. Post escalation, the power centers at senior positions are bound to take an action given that they are slaves of the system and do not understand the difference between right or wrong (i.e., more inclined towards the ethics parameter "Equity"). After the learning from the framework of Ethics Awareness Inventory, I would handle such a situation very differently. In fact, I will prefer to choose first option - i.e., I will contact the girl and find out why she did this. After knowing the fact, I will educate her about the consequences & advise not to repeat, come back to my seat and delete the logs. On the other hand, if I do get indications of malicious intent (and I am convinced about it), I will follow the system. Conclusion: Ethics Awareness Inventory by Williams Institute is an excellent mechanism to understand the gaps in our thought process and learn to think out of the box, in a much wider spectrum, before decisions are taken. Sometimes it might take long time for an individual to take a decision because he or she might be taking a "utilitarian approach" such that the individual is a great analyzer and is considering all possible impacts before a decision is taken. It takes a lengthy analysis of causes & effects chain (Cause and Effect explanation, 2008) for the individual to arrive at a decision which projects the level of maturity that the individual possesses. (Velasquez et al. 1996. available at http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v7n1/thinking.html; MacDonald, Chris. 2002. available at http://www.ethicsweb.ca/guide/moral-decision.html) On the other hand, the people who either take a "rights approach (decision to protect the rights)", "the fairness or justice approach (decision against an unfair approach)" or a "virtue approach (decision to protect idealism)" may end up taking major decisions, abruptly after a short (or NIL) analysis of the chain of causes & effects (Cause and Effect explanation, 2008). The decision maker may treat the decision as "Moral" but from the world's perspective, such decisions are normally treated as immature or childish as the decision makers are not able to objectively justify the rationale to the rest of world Reference List: Cause and Effect explanation. (2002). Available at Step Process 8 - It is not a curriculum - it is a methodology. Cause and Effect Chain Explanation. Retrieved on 11 Nov 2008. available at http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/k12programs/ciss/8_step/dwnld/7.pdf. MacDonald, Chris. (2002). Moral Decision Making - An Analysis. Retrieved on 11 Nov 2008. available at http://www.ethicsweb.ca/guide/moral-decision.html Purdue University On-Line Writing Lab (OWL) (2008), APA Formatting and Style Guide, Retrieved November 11, 2008, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ Striker, Gisela. (1987). Greek Ethics and Morale Theory. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Stanford University. pp192-193. The Williams Institute - EAI. (2008). The Williams Institute For Ethics and Management. Ethics Awareness Inventory. Retrieved on 11 November 2008 from my personal Ethics Inventory from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/Vendors/TWI/EAI/ Velasquez, Manuel and Andre, Claire et al. (1996). Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Santa Clara University. retrieved on 11 Nov 2008. available at http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v7n1/thinking.html. End of Document Read More