Cultural Values

CULTURAL VALUES AND PERSONAL ETHICS PAPER

Cultural Values and Personal Ethics Paper

Nipa Khatlawala

University of Phoenix

Cultural Values and Personal Ethics Paper

Personal, organizational, and cultural values are the basis of an individual's personal and professional decision-making style. These values are the key ingredients that make up our core beliefs. Values are ideas that are actions which could be right or wrong, good or bad that are the basis of human action (Tosi 2000). Personal values might also be called morality, since they reflect general expectations of any person in any society, acting in any capacity. These are the principles we try to instill in our children, and expect of one another without needing to articulate the expectation or formalize the process in any way. Family is the first school for a child where the seeds of cultural values are sown (Jain para 6). Cultural values are the beliefs of a human group that one can identify. Cultural value is the newest terminology which is used in literature on international relationships and economics. Individuals acting in an organization take on an additional burden of ethical responsibility. For example, organizations have codes of ethics that prescribe required behavior within the context of a professional practice such as medicine, law, accounting, or engineering. These written codes provide rules of conduct and standards of behavior based on the principles of Professional Ethics (Colero para15).

Personal Values

My personal values include hard work, honesty, achieving success in life, being flexible and helping others. My values evolve around leading a fulfilling lifestyle that allows me to be a supportive, loving and contributing member of my family and community. A clear picture of our personal values allows us to rank the tasks on our "to do" lists according to how closely each task is associated with what's truly important to us. Finally, having a clear set of personal values helps us build the credibility and trust that facilitate leadership. My personal value is to treat everyone with respect. In fact, a person's environment and life experiences shape their values. Moreover, social systems such as business organizations influence their members' values. (Soin Para 8).

Organizational Values

Each organization has values which are based on how employees conduct their day-to-day operations. The professional organization that I work for values patient care as the top most priority. As a software quality engineer (SQE) I am constantly thinking how the application at hand will help provide patient care quickly and effectively. The department I work for sometimes proposes software applications that are very fancy with latest software technologies. As SQE I am enthusiastic to work on the application but when I find these applications complicated, hard to use I am left with a decision to make whether I should raise this as an issue because our focus is patient care. These organizational values provide the big picture which needs to be kept in perspective when making decisions at hand. Respecting others roles, accepting diversity and other's views act as input into our cultural values.

Cultural Values

Culture is a systematic way of thinking, reacting and feeling that is characteristic of a human group which accounts for differences between cultures(Miao-Ling 2006). Cultural values play a substantial role in providing human beings with mental, moral and economic equipment for life. My cultural values are defined as cooperation, group emphasis, patient, sharing, respect elders, value tradition, holistic problem-solving and happiness through spiritual harmony. Family is just not the nuclear family but also the extended family. Since I have been married, my in-laws come every year to stay with us for the summer. My colleagues at work find that very interesting because I am assertive and make eye to eye contact when communicating which are not part of Indian cultural values. I believe that although my thoughts have been shaped by the American culture, my cultural values are still Indian. I would be described as a cappuccino frothy on top-meaning adaptable to the surrounding but yet traditional on the inside.(Bhayana 2006)) My cultural value of cooperation and emphasis on group has made me a good team member in a professional setting. Professionally one's success is measured in tasks one has accomplished which conflicts with my cultural values of emphasis on group because I believe in "we" accomplished the work instead of "I" did it. But my personal value of adapting to change has helped me in making the transition where I am able to list my accomplishments along with group's success. When one's cultural, personal and organization value start conflicting with the decision-making process one faces ethical dilemma.

Ethical Dilemmas

Ethics is a systematic application of values. Individuals face ethical dilemmas all the time. Same ethical dilemma can be perceived differently. For example one may think that reporting misconduct outside the chain of command is an unethical act because its disrespectful to the immediate superior but some believe that this individual act which benefits the group and is not in violation of code of ethics. So classifying and understanding an ethical dilemma is necessary before starting the decision-making process. After understanding ethical dilemma, one starts engaging in evaluating the perceived approach and its outcome. However, a morally right judgment will not lead to moral behavior. For example, individuals might know that they should not be sharing company secrets but decide to do it out of self interest (Miao-Ling 2006). Many organizations with ethics programs have developed a code of conduct aimed at supporting