UNIT 1

DISCUSSION FORUM
a) Business ethics refer to how a company or a business responds to circumstances that call for
moral judgments. Every day, decisions must be made and often these decisions don't call for
"right" or "wrong" considerations but instead, they call for strategic thought rather than moral
reflection. In some instances, it entails decisions that may potentially have adverse effects on
persons within or external to the business. To this end, management ethics plays a pivotal role
in the operations of a business.

Ethics is pertinent to the delivery of duties by managers and management. This is because
every decision made by a manager will resultantly affect the employees or external
stakeholders, operations of the business as well as the environment. For this reason, business
decisions made by managers have an ethical component that naturally arises from the fact that
they have an impact on stakeholders and the environment. Each time management makes a
decision that has consequences, such as a behavior or action, there are ethical considerations
involved. As a result, it is impossible to separate ethics from the managerial roles.

Management does help to shape values and ethics of an organization. According to Trevino
(2004), management involves a blend of being a moral person and being a moral manager and
being a moral person is reliant on certain key traits including integrity, honesty, and
trustworthiness. Cavanagh (2005). is of the view that sometimes managers are faced with a
moral dilemma in which circumstances managers may utilize a combination of moral
justifications based on rights, justice, utility, and care and when making decisions based on
these concepts, managers must assess a number of ethical considerations in order to make
informed decisions.

Liedtka, J. M. (1998) propounds that managers need to develop a shared sense of meaning,
vision, and purpose that binds the employees to the company as this is among the ethical
principles of successful and competitive business practices. This shows how ethics highly
influences managers in delivery of their duties and a manager’s wrong ethical conduct may
lead to the detriment of a company and a manager’s good ethical conduct will significantly
contribute to the creation and maintenance of organisational integrity.

The responsibility of considering sustainability falls on everyone. Whilst the responsibility to

demonstrate high-level commitment to sustainability might fall on management, the
responsibility to adhere to sustainability tenets falls on every single person.

b) In a particular organization I have worked for, the CEO of the Company had a strict anti-
fraternization policy and this was a good ethical behavior and policy which protected the
company from issues such as abuse of power and positions, distraction from the main
objectives of the Company. However, in a similar case, one of the top managers would go
against this policy and fraternize with women at the organization. This had a negative effect
on the company as he would promote the wrong people for a job whilst disadvantaging those
who rightly deserved the promotion. This is to show cause how a manager’s unethical
behavior may affect the company at large.
References;
1. Cavanagh, G. F. (2005). American business values with international perspectives (5th ed.).
New York: Prentice Hall.
2. Liedtka, J. M. (1998). Constructing an ethic for business practice: Competing effectively and
doing good. Business and Society vol. 37 no. (3). pp. 254–280.
3. Treviño, L. K., Brown, M. (2004). Managing to be ethical: Debunking five business ethics
myths. Academy of Management Executive vol. 18 no. (4), pp. 69–81.