Organisational Behavior Trends
Organisational Behavior Trends
Ethics and decision making can many times get in the way of one another. In a business environment it is imperative that the business customers are assured that strong moral decisions are made by said business. In order to understand the ethical decision making the three types of moral character in reference to managers must be addressed. The three types will be outlined in the next few paragraphs.
Management scholar Archie B. Carroll draws a distinction between the three management types when it comes to morality (Organizational Behavior, 9E). The first is the immoral manager. The immoral manager is simply looking out for their best interest. The immoral manager will not let anything stand in between their own prescribed end result. A good example of this type of manager would be any number of upper echelon managers that worked at ENRON. These managers kept stretching the truth further and further for their own best interest, with the end result being thousands of employees and shareholders losing everything they had vested in the company when the company folded after it was found out that upper management was moving money around illegally, and giving false reports of the companies success. When we speak of ethics in business this is not want we want to become. Immoral managers may win a few battle, but the war will be lost.
The second type of manager in reference to morality is the amoral manager. The amoral manager makes decisions with their gut. Sometimes they make the proper ethical decision and other times they make unethical decisions, but in contrast to the immoral manager the amoral manager does not make any unethical decisions intentionally. Because a amoral manager does not particularly investigate their decisions they have a considerable chance to make a mistake. Without saying there is a good unethical decision, it is a little easier to understand a amoral managers unethical decisions because they are just using what they know. Unfortunately most people are amoral managers. There can be many reasons as to why, but the most fitting would be that people think from a young age that they are raised in a proper way, and that their morals or intentions should not be in question. The most important question though is if someone group up a barbarian would it be ethical to act that way in mainstream America. The answer of course is no.
The third type of manager is the moral manager. The moral manager strives to make every decision a proper moral decision. This is not always easy, it can be time consuming because of research and it may not always be the most popular decision. The moral manager is not just looking to make an impression within the organization they are looking to make society comfortable with their decisions. Being a moral manager or citizen is what we should all strive for.
When we are faced with ethical dilemmas in the workplace we can often trick ourselves into believing we are making the proper decision, but knowing in our subconscious that it is wrong. If ever faced with a ethical dilemma a employee can find it can be a very stressful period of time. Sometimes employees must make some decisions that could possibly have a negative effect on the employees career. What should the employee do in this situation? The employee must make the “right” decision. In today’s work environment more and more responsibilities are being put on the employee to help save the company money in staffing. It is extremely