Business Ethics Exam 1

3 key features of moral rights:

1) Correlated duties 2) Free pursuit of interest 3) Basis for justifying one's actions

4 influences on the Elements of Moral Standards

1) Cultural 2) Religious 3) Economic situation 4) Social Situation

3 different management situations with varying ethical considerations

1) Ethical considerations in each situation 2) Competing forces - Financial Vs. Social Performance 3) Moral Conflicts - a person must choose between 2 equally bad conflicts or some of which that conflict with each other.

Ethics is NOT...

1) Feelings 2) Religion 3) Just following the law 4) Following culturally accepted forms 5) Technology or science

Individual cognitive factors

1) Ignorance - can be willful and intentional 2) Considering limiting alternatives 3) Simplified rule decision rules - having a simple rule to follow can be reassuring and can appear to relieve us of accountability for the decision 4) Satisficing - "good enough"

3 levels that ethical issues can occur

1) Individual level - deals with how we act as individuals in the workplace 2) Organizational/Corporate level - examines from an ethical standpoint about the company's mindset, climate, policies, culture. 3) Societal level - ethical questions as they relate to economic and political systems

"Retirement Cruise" Reading

1) Mean Jean withholding information a. harm for stakeholders; b. benefit for Ed: the ability to avoid confrontation; c. short vs. long-term time perspective; d. rights exercised - the ability to decide management style. 2) Who is Next? 3) Ed's management style - "vested power" - Jean has more power than her position actually holds. - Ignoring issues 4) Falsifying important HR documents Stakeholders include co-workers/others, HR department, ED, MJ

4 Elements of Moral Standards + define

1) Personal Goals = our expectation of outcomes; what I want. 2) Personal norms = expectations of behavior, how we expect ourselves and others to act in a given situation 3) Personal beliefs = expectations of thought, beliefs support our norms, norms lead to a person's goal 4) Personal values = ranking of priorities that a person established.

Situational factors

1) Scripts => "cruise control" - following what you did in the past. Learn from your mistakes 2) distractions => multitasking 3) Moral exclusion => if an individual or group is perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values or considerations of fairness apply

(Astric Moment) 6 Characteristics of Moral Standard

1) Serious wrongs or significant benefits. 2) Should be preferred to other values including self-interest. 3) Not established by authority figures. 4) Felt to be universal. 5) Based on impartial considerations. 6) Associated w/ special emotions and vocabulary.

Organizational factors

1) behavior of your superiors 2) behavior of your peers 3) personal financial needs 4) formal organizational policy

Motivational factors

1) easier to do the wrong thing 2) Lacked the courage - regret decisions later because they lack courage to do otherwise 3) peer pressure

3 key features of contractual rights:

1) specific agreement between specific parties 2) Needs to be specific, not applied 3) Needs to be valued/established under legal guidelines

What is moral responsibility

1. A person's moral duty or their moral obligation 2. Affixing or placing blame??

Key elements for Recognizing Moral Responsibility

1. Causality - Did the manager cause or help cause the injury or wrong or did they fail to prevent it when he or she could have/should have 2. Knowledge - Did the manager make the decision knowing what they were doing EXCEPTION - Ignorance and Failure to take steps 3. Freedom - A person is morall responsible when they have acted on his or her own free will

3 components of managerial function:

1. Impacts others & harms, benefits, rights exercised , rights denied 2. Identify stakeholders 3. Determine if we have moral responsibility

Justice

1. Procedural rights 2. Merit 3. Contractual justice- do not violate a negative injunction, respect procedural justice, fulfill contractual promises 4. Substantive rights -- what procedural rights stand to protect, about rights such as owning property, right to the truth,

Organizational views of stakeholders

1. Production - Suppliers -> Organization -> Customers 2. Managerial view - Suppliers -> Organization (employees arrow to organization) -> customers 3. Stakeholders - Organization is affected by lots of people, and lots of people are affected by the organization

What biddle likes about Hill describing justice:

1. Provides order to human relationships - not about a single perspective, its relational Involves give and take by different parties, give and take of rights and duties 2. Doesn't just take place in a court room or vacuum, rather it takes place in community

Characteristics of Holiness

Accountability, Humility, Purity, Zeal for God

Stakeholders

Any individual or group who can impact or affect the organization or be effected by the organization Concerned with moral impacts

Hill's 3 elements

Barstool : justice, love, holiness

Corporate responsibility

Corporation and individuals have responsibility

Components of love

Empathy, mercy, and self-sacrifice

Theocentric approach and foundations

God as central interest and ultimate concern 1. Ethics logically follows theology, study of God's character 2. When we behave in a manner consistent with God's character, we are ethical 3. Value is placed on the life that seeks to emulate God's ethical characteristics

Ethical Duty Model

Holiness = Purity Justice = Rights Love = Relationships

Kohlberg's stages of moral development: Level 1

Level One = Pre-conventional level (focuses on SELF) Stage 1 = reaction to punishment (avioding punishment) Stage 2 = seeking of rewards

Kohlberg's stages of moral development: Level 3

Level Three = Post-conventional level (focus is on humankind) many of us won't reach this level Stage 5 = social contract orientation Stage 6 = universal moral principles orientation.

Kohlberg's stages of moral development: Level 2

Level Two = Conventional level (from "self" to others") Stage 3 = "good boy/nice girl morality" - living up to family/peers expectations of us Stage 4 = Law and Order orientation - people become aware of the laws of society

Moral development based on GENDER

Males - more impartial or impersonal when dealing with ethical decisions. Females - more caring and personal; hold ethical decisions in higher esteem.

Subordinate responsibility

Moral responsibility on boss and employee

Justice

Provides order to human relationships by laying out reciprocal sets of duties and rights for those living in the context of communities

Moral responsibility

Recognition of ethical dilemmas or issues

Mitigating factors (2 factors)

Reduce the level of moral responsibility 1. Degree of contribution/participation - more people involved, less responsibility 2. Difficulty due to duress - pressure placed on you to perform an action

Moral Right

Rights that all humans everywhere possess to an equal extent simply by virtue of being a human being Not dependant on legal system

What is ethics?

The discipline that examines a person's moral standards or the moral standards of a society to evaluate their applicability and reasonability to the situation in an individuals life.

Love

all about relationships, creates and deals with bonds and relationships between people

Amoral person

an individual who does not stop to think about the rightness of fairness of his/her decisions, but instead concentrates upon profits for their employer and personal benefits for themselves.

Business ethics is about how we _____ and about ______

behave and relationships

Distributed justice

concerned with the fair distribution of society's benefits

Procedural rights

deals with fair processes in decision-making ○ Need 2 things: due process and equal protection ○ Components of due process: § Impartial, no conflict of interest § Collect sufficient information before making a decision Allow other party to tell their side of story

A person's cultural traditions, religious traditions, economic situation, and social situation can shape their _______ , ________ , _____, and _______

goals, norms, values, and beliefs

Key managerial function is to recognize that you

have moral responsibility

Legal Right

legal claim to be treated in a certain way or to have a particular right protected

Holiness is NOT

legalism, judgmental-ism, withdrawl from society

Contractual rights and duties

limited rights and correlative duties that arise when...

Hill: Christian merit

permits disparity in the distribution of wealth and accolades, as long as procedural rights, contractual rights, and substantive rights are met

Retributive justice

pertains to situations where a penalty is just and appropriate for wrongdoing

Moral impact

relative outcomes that people think about once they first consider a moral issue.

Compensatory justice

requires fairly restoring to a person what he/she lost when he/she was harmed by someone else

One's person's ______ become another person's ________

rights, duties TENSION

Relative outcomes

rights, harms that stakeholders experience

Self-justification

sin easily clouds our moral vision, permitting selfishness to be rationalized (as you get promoted, you're given more authority).

Moral standards are ______, ________, and cause ______

subjective, variable, conflict

What is business ethics?

tells us how we as humans should act in the various situations we experience.

Ethical Relativism

the theory that there are NOT ethical/moral standards that are absolutely true or can be applied universally.

Affirmative duties

what actions we need to take against those that we may not have harmed or have a relationship with

Ethical continuum

wicked or angelic : most are in between