Ethics And Organizational Development

Introduction

For many organizations 'ethics' is something to be defined and managed by senior executives. Consider the arguments for and against this control-oriented position. In today's world it is all too prevalent to see more and more people hungry to gain success at an ever-increasing rate. Modern culture can and indeed is labeled 'greedy' and 'thoughtless', through my extensive time spent in business, I have encountered many of these types of people. But who are they hungry for? Who benefits from their thoughtlessness, and why do they do what they do? More importantly, who is to blame when things don't go according to plan? These are all questions asked constantly in the business domain, questions that often seem to include the word 'ethics' in their answer.

Body

Whether we look to consequentialism and always consider the outcome of a particular action, or conform to a more deontological form of ethical thinking and focus on always acting in a manner that seems �right’, I believe that a person cannot always be 'ethical', all of the time. If it were that easy, ethics would be a very small area of study. So what does the word 'ethical' mean? To me, it is to take into account every aspect involved in any given situation, peoples' feelings, thoughts and well-being, both now and in the future, and act as best one can to achieve the most satisfactory outcome for all concerned. From my viewpoint, acting in an ethical manner comes from each and every individual, each having learned from the environment in which they have grown and developed. Should the judgment, therefore, always be left to the individual? This is certainly not the case, as more and more organizations in the business world develop codes of ethics that they expect each member to follow. This definition and management of ethics can be seen as a control-oriented position. This control paradigm for organizational ethics is largely concerned with extracting the best possible results for the organization as a whole. When acting within a certain environment, be it local, national or global, the organization must be seen to be 'socially acceptable'. I believe this idea of control of the organization’s self-interest together with maintaining a good standing in the public eye to be the main factor for preparing these ethical codes. Both of these can only be achieved through clearly defined codes of ethics from which individuals' roles can conform through a manner of standardization. However, through the enforcement of ethical codes, people revoke to a basic level of thinking, judgment and acting as identified in Lawrence Kohlberg's pre-conventional level. When put simply, it allows little room for individual thought or expression, only rewarding good actions and punishing those that are bad. Can it be right to control tasks that involve ethical reasoning by individuals? This is certainly much different than, say, controlling how someone operates a particular machine. Conversely, the autonomy paradigm, present in some organizations' ethical policies, is put in place to promote individual critique through their moral thought and judgment. McMahon identifies that the legitimacy of managerial authority lies within a contract or promise. An employee, therefore, willingly submits to the thoughts and ideals of the organization when they sign the contract of employment. That is, the exchange of labor for wages in which employment consists involves a promise on the part of employees to accept the directives of managers. To be sure, employees may be expected to use their own judgment in carrying out the tasks assigned to them. But if a managerial directive conflicts with an employee's judgment, the directive must take precedence. Otherwise the employee is attempting to renege on a morally binding agreement (McMahon, 1989). As I earlier identified, the organization does not want to be seen to be 'socially unacceptable' whilst simultaneously achieving the best possible results. We have moved from such times as to rule with an iron fist, we should go on from here and not regress. The term responsible is firstly, sometimes used to mean 'trustworthy' or 'dependable'…second, the term is used to mean 'obligation'. Third, responsibility is sometimes used to indicate that an action or its consequences are attributable to a certain agent (Velasquez, 1983). Can corporations have moral responsibility? This is a question that certainly needs addressing here, and one that has been previously considered by Richard De George. He focused on collective responsibility as it related to organizations, and identified two views, the organizational view and the moralistic view. The organizational view maintains that moral responsibility cannot properly be assigned either to a corporation, nor to the agents of a corporation when they act as corporate agents. As legal entities corporations can be legally restrained and can have legal responsibility. But they cannot logically be held morally responsible or have moral responsibility. In essence, it states that organizations have moral immunity, whereby an individual could be morally condemned for their actions, they could not if they were pursuing the goals of their organization.