L375 in Class Writing

Hosmer’s Six-Step Process for Ethical Decision-Making

1. Identify the Moral Issue, the Harm to a Vulnerable Party.

Male employees in PricewaterhouseCoopers have been found that they were rating the looks of some female colleagues through emails. The email widely spread and caused a series of exchanges of sexually offensive messages between male employees in PWC.  

2. Identify Additional Facts Helpful to Making the Decision.

-How many male employees participated.

-How offensive the message was at the beginning, and did it become more offensive later in exchange.

-Did male employees recognize that their behaviors are inappropriate.  

-Female employees’ reaction to the action of the male colleagues.

-Was there similar issue in the past?

What did company deal with similar issue in the past.

Did it effectively change employees' behavior and did victim satisfied with the results?

-Society’s reaction of this kind of issue. What was the impact of the ethical issue on company's reputation and stock value.

3. Identify the Alternatives Available to Apply to the Problem. (Company already made statement to take action in this ethical issue, but the problem is how far should they go)

(1)Prohibit rating, set up punishment, ethic class

(2)Not doing meaningful adjustment, only prohibit such message from being sent from corporate e-mail. 

4. Identify the Personal Impacts to the Decision-Maker 

(1)-Feel positive about himself or herself.

     -Good reputation in female employees.

     -Some male employees may feel decision-maker restrict their free to speak

     -Hard to manipulate behavior, increase cost

     -Benefit future management, easier to make decision on similar issue

(2)-Appreciated by male employees.

     -Feel guilty to female employees.

     -Bad reputation in female employees.

     -Media and society may blame decision-maker's choice negatively effect the society

     -Easy to implement

     -Fail to manage employees on similar issue, cause conflicts    

5. Apply Three Leading Contemporary Theories of Business Ethics. 

- Shareholder

(1)-Protect the reputation and value of company

     -Business runs smoothly and generate more value of equity

(2)-Lower the value of the company

    -Damage company's reputation