ETHICS

ASSESSMENT
ETHICAL DILEMMA AT WORK

Pareena Naggea Sharma

Student ID: 1261883

Ethics dilemma:
Select an incident from your own business/work experience when you faced an ethical dilemma in which you
were personally involved and analyse/discuss it using the ethical frameworks you have learned in class.

Date: 25th April 2021

Word count: 1497

Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3

The Ethical Dilemma .......................................................................................................... 3

Consequentialism .............................................................................................................. 4

Deontology ......................................................................................................................... 5

Virtue of ethics ................................................................................................................... 5

Reflection ........................................................................................................................... 6

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 6

References ......................................................................................................................... 7

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INTRODUCTION

As individuals, we are all faced by ethical dilemmas on a daily basis whether it be in our
personal or professional lives. As defined by Wicks, Freeman, Wahine and Martin (2010),
ethics refers to “our efforts to figure out what we should do and how we should live” but most
importantly it involves “the challenge of figuring out how to justify our behaviour - both to
ourselves and to others”. Ethical dilemmas are inevitable in the workplace and we are most
likely to come across them throughout our career. In a business environment, ethics is not
something that only managers have to deal with but it should apply to each and every
individual in the organisation.

In this assignment, I will be analysing an ethical dilemma in which I was personally involved
from my own work experience. This incident will be analysed using the three ethical
frameworks which are consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. To analyse the moral
dimensions of this situation, decision guides which are practical tools for analysis “that have
been developed from the three traditions of ethics” will also be used (Wicks et al., 2010).

THE ETHICAL DILEMMA

The incident at my work when I was faced with an ethical dilemma was when I was working
for a training organisation providing practical accounting training to graduates. Michelle, the
Training Director and one of my colleagues was pregnant and was going to go on maternity
leave in five months’ time. During a one-on-one friendly lunch catch-up with Michelle, we
were discussing about her plans during her maternity leave when she mentioned that she is
planning to start her own accounting firm as a side-hustle. She also mentioned that her
husband and her are planning to buy a new house before the arrival of the baby and that
she would be working until two weeks before the due date so she can save enough. She
asked me to keep her side-hustle project confidential and that there should not be any
conflict of interest as she would mainly be looking at opening an accounting practice and
not a training organisation.

A week after our catch-up, I noticed that Michelle was doing longer hours staying back in
the office after everyone had left. One day before leaving I went to her desk asking about

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her pregnancy and telling her that she should not be stressing too much about work. This is
when I noticed that there were training files being copied to her personal USB. I thought
maybe she was just taking work back home to finish. On another instance, I had to stay back
at work as we were running a free workshop for prospective clients and noticed that Michelle
was printing all our training materials and taking them home. This is when I became
suspicious of her intentions and found myself in the dilemma of mentioning this to our Human
Resources Manager or not. If I would do so, Michelle could be fired and if I would not, I
would feel guilty that I did not report something suspicious at work that I was a witness of.

CONSEQUENTIALISM

From a consequentialism perspective which focuses on “the moral importance of the ends
we seek or goals we set, and the need to try to achieve them through our actions”, it is
important to base our decision making on promoting overall “happiness” and least possible
pain or “harms in achieving one’s purposes” (Wicks et al., 2010). By using this framework,
we are mainly focussing on the future impacts of the possible consequences of our action
whilst considering the people who will be affected, directly or indirectly. In this case, we have
to identify who the relevant stakeholders are and how they will be affected, if the
consequences are anticipated or considered and if the ends justify the means. The key
stakeholders in this case would be Michelle, the HR Manager, the organisation, the clients
and myself. The consequences of me reporting this incident to HR is that Michelle could be
fired and as for the company, we would lose an experienced and talented training director
who helped in creating the programs. Furthermore, if Michelle is fired, we could easily find
another employee to replace her but it might take a long time to find the right candidate and
the cost to the company might be more. It looks like it might be a better idea to not report
the incident and “promote overall happiness”, however, I would have to ask myself if this
decision would be “morally compelling” and I also need to prioritise among my objectives -
on one side I would not want my colleague to be fired and on the other, I need to consider
if I would be able to justify myself if I get asked whether I knew or noticed what was
happening. Whilst not reporting this incident would provide an “overall happiness”, it cannot
be defended as ethically sound.

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DEONTOLOGY

The second approach to assessing this ethical dilemma is using the deontology framework
by Immanuel Kant. From a deontology perspective, our actions are determined by
“fundamental universal principles” and should be based on whether our actions are right or
wrong, irrespective of the consequences of the actions (Burgh et al., 2006). The core
concept of this framework is all about understanding our obligations and duties and acting
accordingly when faced with an ethical situation. Using the Standard of Conduct decision
guide, the first step is to consider how the organisation will see the situation. In this case,
what Michelle has been doing is wrong and is indeed violating a standard of conduct.
Furthermore, the principles of integrity and honesty are also relevant and I would need to
ask myself if I am violating any of the company rules if I do not report this “wrongdoing”. As
an employee, it is my duty to report any misconduct or wrongdoing which may impact the
company. This is also included in our employment contract. I will also need to consider how
the management and the organisation would view my choices if they discover that I knew
about this situation but did not report it. In this case, it will highly impact me personally as I
will be seen as someone who did not perform her duty as an employee and covering for
someone who is doing something unethical.

VIRTUE OF ETHICS

The virtue framework focuses on the individual and it looks at “what kind of person we should
be” as well as how our actions determine our character. As an individual, I have been
developing virtues like integrity, courage and trustworthiness that determine who I am. In
this situation, considering virtue ethics, character traits and relationships, I would need to
consider the kind of person I could become by not reporting this wrongdoing. Personally, it
would impact me greatly as I would not see myself as a virtuous person anymore. Moreover,
if the company comes to know that I was aware of this incident, I would be seen as someone
untrustworthy, my personal integrity would be questioned and this might put my relationship
with the company at risk (Wicks et al., 2010).

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REFLECTION

The three frameworks discussed above provide us with moral insights and more clarity in
regards to tackling ethical decision making. However, each has its limitations that we need
to consider when making ethical decisions. Moreover, these frameworks should be
considered together as they are often connected. In regards to this scenario and under these
three frameworks, it is clear that the best “ethical” action for me to take would be to report
the incident to the management. However, I personally believe that using these frameworks
will not always give us the “right” action to undertake as some situations might have
uncertainties and areas of ambiguity and this might make it harder to reach a moral
conclusion. In this scenario, using the consequentialism framework made it a bit harder as
it would be creating more “harm” than “happiness” but not reporting the incident would not
be considered as “morally sound”. When this incident happened four years ago, I actually
did report it but it was a tough decision which took me a while as I did not want Michelle to
be losing her job and did not want us to be losing an experienced trainer. Doing this
assignment and using these frameworks have made the decision-making very clear and
provided moral reasoning behind it.

CONCLUSION
Ethics plays an essential role in our lives, be it at work or in the role we play in society. It is
all about being able to justify our actions whilst being accountable to ourselves but also to
the larger community (Wick et al., 2010). Using these three frameworks in our ethical
decision-making process will not always give us clear guidance but they would allow us to
better choose the most effective courses of action whilst adhering to ethical principles and
maintaining our core beliefs and values.

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References:
Wicks, A.C, Freeman R.E, Werhane, P.H and Martin, K.E. (2010). Business Ethics: A
Managerial Approach. Prentice Hall, Chapter 1, 1-21.

Elliott, D. (2007). Getting Mill right. Journal of Mass Media Ethics.

Fitzpatrick, K., & Bronstein, C. (Eds.). (2006). Ethics in public relations: Responsible
advocacy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burgh, Gilbert; Field, Terri & Freakley, Mark (2006). Ethics and the Community of Inquiry:
Education for deliberative democracy. South Melbourne: Cengage/Thomson.