Portfolio Assignment

Ethical decision making is an important aspect that needs to be embraced and cultivated by everyone, both individually and as an organization. Organizational success nowadays is attributed to the positive ethical culture. There are two approaches one can use to evaluate moral behavior, that is, Individualism approach and Communal approach.

Both approaches integrates different perspectives regarding ethical issues at workplace. Brown (2015) states that “according to individualistic approach, every person is morally responsible for his or her own behavior and any effort to change that should focus on the individual” (para 3.). Mack (n.d) concludes that “individualism considers personal benefits to be the most important factor when making a decision” (para 2.).  With Communal approach, individuals are not viewed in isolation but as a community and are responsible for the behavior of each community (Brown, 2015).

For this portfolio activity, I chose situation number six, “Family Matters”, and I would take both approached to solve this dilemma.

Firstly, I would have a conversation with the foreman about working on weekend, looking at what my conditions of work say about working on weekends and trying to make him see from my point view because family means a lot to me. If this solve the problem, well and good, if it does not, I would have a conservation with my children about this. Then a decision is made by my family whether to work on weekend or not. The decision made in either approach will affect the family in a negative or positive way.

I believe when both approaches are considered when making decisions, our understanding of ethical values increases and the options for solving a problem also increases.

REFERENCES

1. Mack, Stan. (n.d.). Individualism and Ethical Decision Making. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/individualism-ethical-decision-making-56240.html
2. Marvin Brown (2015). Ethics in Organizations. In Issues in Ethic V.2, N.1 (1989). Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/ethics-in-organizations/