Implementing Affirmative Action and

Managing Diversity
• Suggested Guidelines
1. All groups should be hired or promoted only if they reach certain minimum
levels of competency or are capable of reaching such levels in a reasonable
time.
2. If the qualifications of disadvantaged candidates are only slightly less (or equal
to or higher) than those of advantaged, then the minority should be given
preference.
3. If both the disadvantaged and advantaged candidates are adequately qualified
for a position but the advantaged candidate is much more qualified, then:
a. If performance in the job directly affects the lives and safety of people or if the
performance on the lob has a substantial and critical effect on the entire firm’s efficiency,
then the more qualified advantaged should be given preference; but
b. If the position does not directly involve safety and does not have a substantial and highly
critical effect on a firm’s efficiency, then the disadvantaged person should be given
preference.
4. Preference should be extended to disadvantaged candidates only so long as
their representation throughout the various levels of the firm is not
proportional to their availability.
Conclusions : AAP
• Valuing and managing a diverse work force is more
than ethically and morally correct.
• It’s also a business necessity.
• Companies that fail to do an excellent job of
recruiting, retaining, developing and promoting
women and minorities simply will be unable to meet
their staffing needs.
Business Ethics
The Individual in Organization
The Individual in the Organization
• Problematic ethical issues business organizations create:
• Alienated workers doing repetitive jobs
• Feeling of oppression created by the exercise of authority
• Heavy responsibilities heaped on the shoulders of managers
• Power tactic employed by managers anxious to advance their career ambitions
• Pressure placed on subordinates and superiors as they both try to get their jobs
done
• Health problems created by unsafe working conditions, Conflicts of interest
created by an employees allegiance to other causes, absence of due process for
nonunionized employees, and invasion of privacy by management’s legitimate
concern to know its own workers.
The Rational Model of a Business
Organization
• Defines organization as a structure of formal relationships, which are designed to achieve the organization’s
goals efficiently.
An organization is the rational coordination of the activities of a number of people for the achievement of some common explicit purpose or goal
through a division of labor and function and through a hierarchy of authority and responsibility.
E. H. Schein

• Formal hierarchies of authority identified in the organizational chart that represents the various official
positions and lines of authority are the firm’s fundamental realities. “operating layer”, “middle managers”
and “top management”.
• Most information rises from the bottom of the organization to the top. Decisions of top management are
designed to achieve some known and common economic goals like efficiency, profits, maximum ROI etc.
• Contracts obligate the employee to loyally pursue the organization’s goals, accept organization’s formal
authority and the employer to provide a just wage and just working conditions.
• Organizations seek to coordinate the activities of members so as to achieve their goals with maximum
efficiency.
Moral Obligations
• Two moral obligations
• The obligation of employee to obey organizational superiors, pursue the
organizational goals, and avoid any activities that might threaten that goal.
• The obligation of the employer to provide the employee with a fair wage
and fair working condition.

This view has made its way into what is called "the law of agency," which specifies the
legal duties of employees toward their "principles," or employer. The employee must
solely pursue the firm's goals and do nothing that conflict with them while working for
the firm.
Conflict of Interest
• Necessary Conditions for a Conflict of Interest to Arise
• Employee or officer is engaged in carrying out a certain task for his or her
employer.
• Employee has an interest that gives him or her an incentive to do the task in a
way that serves that interest.
• The employee has an obligation to do the task in a way that serves the
interests of his or her employer free of any incentive to serve another
interest.
Conflict of Interest- Situations
• When conflicts of interest involve a financial relationship, it is called an objective conflict of
interest. When it involves an emotional tie or other kind of relationship, it is sometimes called a
subjective conflict of interest.
• Conflicts of interest can also arise when employees of a company hold another job or consulting
position in an outside firm with which there own company deals or competes.
• A potential conflict of interest occurs when an employee has an interest that could influence what
he does for his company if the employee were performing a certain task for his company, but he
has not yet been given the task. If that employee is actually given the task to perform under the
same conditions, an actual conflict of interest would exist.
• Unethical because they are contrary to the implied agreement that a worker freely makes when
taking a job; also on utilitarian grounds.
• An apparent conflict of interest would exist if an employee has no actual conflict of interest but
other people might view the situation and wrongly believe that there is an actual conflict of
interest.
Conflict of Interest
• Avoiding or Eliminating a Conflict of Interest
• Removing oneself from the task in which the conflict of interest
arises.
• Eliminating the interest that creates the conflict of interest.
• Eliminating or changing the obligation of serving the employer’s
interests and remaining free of any incentive to serve another
interest while serving the employer.

• Two situations and activities demand further attention: bribes

and gifts.