Managing Business Ethics Chapter 2

   
Managing Business Ethics

Chapter 2

Treviño & Nelson – 5th Edition


Chapter 2 Overview

◼ Ethical Dilemmas
◼ Prescriptive Approaches
◼ Focus on consequences (consequentialist theories)
◼ Focus on duties, obligations, principles (deontological theories)
◼ Focus on integrity (virtue ethics)
◼ Eight steps to making sound ethical decisions
◼ Practical preventive medicine


What is an Ethical Dilemma?
◼ A situation where values are in conflict
◼ Two or more values you hold dear - or –
◼ Personal value conflicts with organizational value



Value Value
The Layoff

You’re the plant manager in one of ABC Company’s five plants. You’ve worked for the company for 15 years, working your way up from the factory floor after the company sent you to college. Your boss just told you in complete confidence that the company will have to lay off 200 workers. Luckily, your job won’t be affected. But a rumor is circulating in the plant, and one of your workers (an old friend who now works for you) asks the question. “Well, Pat, what’s the word? Is the plant closing?
Am I going to lose my job? The closing on our new house is
scheduled for next week. I need to know.”

What will you say?


Prescriptive Approaches
◼ Focus on consequences (consequentialist theories)
◼ Focus on duties, obligations, principles
(deontological theories)
◼ Focus on integrity (virtue ethics)



Focus on Consequences
(Consequentialist Theories)

Utilitarianism - best known consequentialist theory
◼ Identify alternative actions and consequences to stakeholders
◼ Best decision yields greatest net benefits to society
◼ Worst decision yields greatest net
harms to society



Focus on consequences – classic Trolley example

A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward 5 people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course.You can save these 5 by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only 1 person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed.

Question: Should you turn the trolley to
preVENt 5 deaths at the cost of 1?



Consequentialist Questions

◼ Can I indentify all the stakeholders?
◼ Immediate, distant?
◼ What are the potential actions I could take?
◼ What are the harms and benefits for stakeholders
given potential decisions/actions?
◼ What decision will produce the most benefit (and least harm) for the greatest number of people, and for society at large?


Consequentialist Analysis

Stakeholder Option 1
- Costs Option 1 - Benefits Option 2- Costs Option 2 - Benefits
#1
#2
#3
#4
….etc.


Focus on Consequences
(Consequentialist Theories)
◼ Advantages
◼ Practical
◼ Already underlies business thinking
◼ Challenges
◼ Difficult to evaluate all consequences
◼ Rights of minorities can be sacrificed


Focus on Duties, Obligations, Principles (Deontological Theories)
◼ Decisions based upon abstract universal principles: honesty, promise-keeping, fairness, rights, justice, respect
◼ Focus on doing what’s “right” (consistent with these principles) rather than doing what will maximize societal welfare (as in utilitarianism)


Ethical rules (simplified)
◼ Kant’s categorical imperative
◼ “What kind of world would it be if everyone behaved this way?” “Would I want to live in that world?”
◼ Rawls’ veil of ignorance – for deciding what’s fair
◼ “What would decision be if decision makers knew nothing
about their identities or status?”
◼ Golden Rule
◼ “Treat others as you would have them treat you” (Assumption is that both parties are ETHICAL! An ethical person wouldn’t expect someone else to be unethical for him/her.)


Deontological Questions

 Which values or principles apply?
 Which are most important and why?
 What are my ethical duties, obligations?
 Have I treated others as I would want to be treated? (Golden Rule)
 Have I assumed that the other(s) is ethical and responsible?
 If everyone behaved this way, would that be acceptable?
 Would I want to live in that world? (Kant’s categorical
imperative)
 What would be a fair action if identities were
unknown? (Rawls’ veil of ignorance)


Focus on Duties, Obligations, Principles (Deontological Theories)
◼ Advantages
◼ Rights approach found in public policy debates (e.g., abortion)
◼ Challenges
◼ Determining rule, principle, or right to follow: Golden
rule, Kant’s maxim
◼ Deciding which takes precedence
◼ Reconciling deontological and consequentialist approaches when they conflict


Focus on Integrity
(Virtue Ethics)
◼ Focus on integrity of moral actor rather than the act
◼ Considers character, motivations, intentions
◼ Character defined by one’s community
◼ Need to identify relevant community
◼ Disclosure rule


Virtue Ethics Questions

 What does it mean to be a person of integrity in this situation, profession, etc.?
 What ethical community would hold me to the highest ethical standards?
 Do carefully developed community standards exist?
 What would the broader community think if this were disclosed? New York Times test?
 What would my “harshest moral critic” expect me
to do?
 What would my “ethical role model” expect?
 What do I want my professional reputation to be?


Virtue Ethics –
Management as a Profession
◼ The proposed “Hippocratic Oath”
◼ Managers as agents of society – serve public interest, enhance
long-term value for society
◼ Enterprise well-being over self-interest
◼ Obedience to letter/spirit of law and other contracts
◼ Behavior of integrity – self and others
◼ Accuracy and transparency in reporting outcomes & processes
◼ Treat others with respect/fairness re: others, the powerless
◼ Knowledge/fact-based decision making
◼ Accept responsibility as a professional manager


Focus on Integrity
(Virtue Ethics)
◼ Advantages
◼ Can rely upon community standards

◼ Challenges
◼ Limited agreement about community standards
◼ Many communities haven’t done this kind of
thinking
◼ Community may be wrong


Eight Steps to Sound Ethical Decision Making
1. Gather the facts
2. Define the ethical issues
3. Identify the affected parties
4. Identify the consequences
5. Identify the obligations
6. Consider your character and integrity
7. Think creatively about potential actions
8. Check your gut


Practical Preventive Medicine
(When Asked to Make a Snap Decision)
◼ Pay attention to your gut
◼ Ask for time
◼ Find out about organizational policy
◼ Ask manager or peers for advice
◼ Use New York Times test (disclosure rule)


The Cost to Society of Dying in a Pinto
(in 1971 dollars) equals…
$200,725

The benefit and cost of an $11 safety improvement
would have been:
benefit = $49.5 million cost = $137 million