1. What are the dimensions of moral intensity?

2. Does emotion play a role in the process?

emotions are clearly important in ethical decision making, and continuing research will
help us more fully understand the process. It seems clear that emotions can aid us in
doing the right thing when they alert us to ethical concerns, cause us to act to help others
in need, or keep us from violent reactions (because of sympathy for another, pangs of
guilt, or automatically triggered negative feelings).62 Feelings of betrayal or moral
outrage can also cause people to act in the interest of fairness.63 For example, people
may be more willing to speak up about the unfair
 Clearly, anger and other emotions can influence thoughts and actions. Whether that is
good or bad depends on whether the emotion leads to “right” or “wrong” action. If
empathy or guilt lead you to recognize an ethical issue or think about the consequences of
your actions for others, that’s a good thing. If moral outrage leads you to seek justice,
that’s good as well. But moral outrage can also lead to a desire for revenge, and that may
be the time to bring cooler heads to the decision to determine whether action based on
revenge is a good ethical (and business) decision.
3. How can you use Kant’s categorical imperative, Rawl’s veil of ignorance, and the
golden rule to make decisions?
Kant’s categorical imperative : Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy
will a universal law of nature.” This rule asks you to consider whether the rationale for
your action is suitable to become a universal law or principle for everyone to follow. For
example, if you break a promise, the categorical imperative asks, “Is promise breaking a
principle everyone should follow?” The answer is no; if everyone did this, promises
would become meaningless. In fact, they would cease to exist.
veil of ignorance : exercise to arrive at fundamental principles of justice that should
guide ethical decision making. In his approach, imaginary people come together behind a
hypothetical veil of ignorance. These imaginary people do not know anything about
themselves, their identities, or their status. They don’t know if they (or others involved in
the situation) are male or female, young or old, rich or poor, black or white, a CEO or a
janitor, intelligent or mentally retarded, physically fit or disabled, sick or healthy, patient
or doctor. According to Rawls, rational people who use this of ignorance principle will be
more likely to develop ethical rules that do not unfairly advantage or disadvantage any
particular group.
Golden Rule, a basic moral rule found in every major religion, is familiar to most of us
and provides an important deontological guide: The most familiar version tells us to “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In our layoff situation, the Golden
Rule would suggest that Pat should tell her friend what she knows because she would
want her friend to do the same for her if the situation were reversed. But note that the
Golden Rule leads you to the best decision only if both parties are highly ethical.
4. How can you avoid severe penalties under the US Sentencing Guidelines?
5. How are fines calculated for companies that break the rules?
Factors That Can Increase or Decrease Culpability Scores

Aggravating Factors: Result in an increase to the base level of 5

The size of the organization coupled with the degree of participation, tolerance, or
disregard for the criminal conduct by “high‐level personnel” or “substantial authority
personnel.” In a firm with greater than 5,000 employees, this factor can result in an
increase of as much as 5 points.
Prior history: Organizations that have been either civilly or criminally adjudicated to have
committed similar conduct within the past five years can have up to 2 points added.
Obstructing, impeding, (or attempting to obstruct or impede) an investigation, a
prosecution, and so on can result in 3 points added.

Mitigating Factors: Result in decreases from the base level of 5

Having an effective program to prevent and detect violations of the law can result in a
downward departure of 3 points.
Self‐reporting, cooperating, and accepting responsibility for the criminal conduct can
result in a downward departure of 5 points.

6. How can you effectively administer punishment?

According to social learning theory, people learn from observing the rewards and
punishments of others. Imagine if we had to touch a hot stove to learn that we’ll get
burned if we do so! Luckily, we can observe others to learn most of what we need to
know about what works and what doesn’t in life and at work. So, workers’ behavior is
influenced even when they don’t experience a reward or punishment themselves. If they
see that others get away with lying, cheating, or stealing—or worse yet, if they see those
individuals getting promotions or big bonuses—they’re much more likely to try such
 behaviors themselves. On the other hand, if they see that someone is quickly dismissed
for lying to a customer, they learn that such behavior is unacceptable.

7. What are the challenges associated with each of the prescriptive methods of making
ethical decisions?

8. What are consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics approaches to ethical

decision making?
9. What can you do to change the formal and informal cultural systems to encourage
ethical behavior?
It is a long term process, that will need combined efforts from the leadership as well as
the employees. Formal can be changed by working on the code of conduct, the formal
ethical training that new employees receive before starting the job, increase ethical talk
 inside the organization, highlight the values and the mission of the company, recurrent
evaluation and rewarding the ethical behavior.
On the other hand, the non formal system which is highly affected by the people
language, norm and rituals, it is affected by subgroups and how the leadership react to
these behaviors. For example, if the company’s heroes are unethical people or the stories
that discussed inside the organization for people who got recognized with their unethical
behaviors, the unethical message will be delivered even if the formal culture is against
that.
The change will need internal and external efforts, auditing is on the ways to evaluate the
culture and diagnose the gaps that need to intervene in to change the culture into an
ethical one.
Punishment and reward systems should also be aligned with that desired change, the
leadership should publicly recognize the ethical employees and discipline unethical ones.

10. What are the components of moral disengagement?

A mechanism in this category is the use of euphemistic language (discussed earlier in

relation to ethical awareness). Another is called moral justification, whereby unethical
behavior is thought to be okay because it contributes to some socially valued outcome.
advantageous comparison, whereby people compare their own behavior to more
reprehensible behavior and thus make their own behavior seem more okay.
A second category of moral disengagement mechanisms has to do with distorting
consequences or reducing personal responsibility for bad outcomes. For example, with
 displacement of responsibility, individuals will reduce personal accountability by
thinking of their actions as resulting from an authority figure’s dictates (“My boss made
me do it”).
The third category of moral disengagement mechanisms reduces the person’s
identification with the victims of unethical behavior. With dehumanization.

11. What are good soldiers, loose cannons, and grenades, and how do you handle them?

12. What are pragmatic, ethical, and strategic reasons for engaging in CSR?

13. What are the differences between people in preconventional, conventional, and
principled levels of moral development?
 14. How do we make mistakes when gathering facts or thinking about consequences?

However, a challenge involved in using a strictly consequentialist approach is that it is often

difficult to obtain the information required to evaluate all of the consequences for all
stakeholders who may be directly or indirectly affected by an action or decision. In business (or
in life for that matter), when do you have all of the facts? Could Deep Throat have known what
the outcomes of his decision would be? And even if you have all of the information, it can be
extremely cumbersome to calculate all of the harms and benefits every time you encounter a new
ethical dilemma. Try it. Can you list all of the potential harms and benefits for everyone who
may be directly or indirectly involved in the layoff situation described above? It’s relatively easy
for Pat to list the potential harms and benefits to herself and those close to her. But can you
envision all of the potential harms and benefits to all of the other people who may be involved?
If you don’t have a crystal ball that allows you to foretell the future (and most of us don’t),
you’re unlikely to arrive at a completely accurate assessment of all future consequences.
Nevertheless, with this approach, it’s important to do your best to accurately assess the potential
consequences. You have a responsibility to gather and use the best, most up‐to‐date information
available. Remember, according to this approach, the most ethical decision maximizes benefits
and minimizes harm to society. The challenge of making the best ethical decision is to step
outside of oneself and think as broadly as possible about all of the consequences for all of those
affected. Taking this step is guaranteed to widen your decision‐making lens and allow you to
take into account consequences that you otherwise might not consider.
Another difficulty with this type of approach is that the rights of a minority group can easily be
sacrificed for the benefit of the majority. For example, slaveholders in the Old South argued that
the greatest good for the greatest number would be served by maintaining the system of slavery.
But hopefully we all agree that such a system did not respect the civil or human rights of the
people who were enslaved (a deontological perspective we discuss next).

15. What are the differences between hypocritical, ethical, unethical, and ethically
neutral leaders?

Ethical: As a moral person, the executive is seen first as demonstrating certain individual
traits (integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness). For example, one executive described
ethical leaders as “squeaky clean.” But probably more important are visible behaviors.
Unethical leaders: can just as strongly influence the development of an unethical
culture. In terms of our matrix, unethical leaders have reputations as weak moral persons
and weak moral managers.
Hypocrite leaders : leader who talks incessantly about integrity and ethical values but
then engages in unethical conduct, encourages others to do so either explicitly or
implicitly, rewards only bottom‐line results, and fails to discipline misconduct. This
 leader is strong on the communication aspect of moral management but clearly isn’t an
ethical person.
Ethical natural: many top managers are not strong leaders either ethically or unethically.
They fall into what employees perceive to be an ethically “neutral” or ethically “silent”
leadership zone. They simply don’t provide explicit leadership in the crucial area of
ethics.

16. What are the different types of CSR?

Philanthropic responsibilities center on the corporation’s participation in activities that promote

human welfare or goodwill, generally through donations of time and money or products and
services.