this is an ethics powerpoint

1. 1. How do we make good ethical decisions?
2. Where do we go wrong when we make an
ethical decision improperly?
3. Who are managers and businesses
responsible to?

3.  Step 1: Determine the facts  Step 5: Compare and weight
the alternatives
 Step 2: Identify the ethical
issue(s) involved You should be able to explain, defend,
and justify your decision to the entire
range of stakeholders involved as
 Step 3: Identify and consider all something that reflects on who you are
of the people affected by a and that you are willing to stand behind
decision (“stakeholders”)
 Step 6: Make a decision
 Step 4: Consider the available
alternatives  Step 7: Monitor and learn from
the outcomes

4. 1. Ignorance (though one can be
negligent or reckless in one’s
5. The path of least resistance
ignorance, and one can also
may make it easier to do the
choose to be ignorant)
wrong thing
2. Failure to consider non-obvious
6. A lack of courage to do what’s
alternatives
right and deal with the
consequences
3. Using oversimplified decision
rules that are inappropriate in
7. Peer pressure / organizational
more complex circumstances
culture distorts our moral
perception or reasoning
4. Settling for an option people can
live with, even if it’s not the best
option.

5. Sales Expense:
The purchasing manager for a
large company agrees to give you
an order (their first), expecting
you agree to make a $200
donation to his favorite charity, a
local youth sports team.
How do you respond?
- Jim Balassone (208)

6. AWARENESS BALANCE COURAGE
• issues • Ideals • intention to act
• stakeholders • Obligations • skillful action
• stakes • Utilities
• options

7. Character
Affective state
situation context Engagement
Biases
person
AWARENESS BALANCE COURAGE
• issues • Ideals • intention to act
• stakeholders • Obligations • skillful action
• stakes • Utilities
• options
7

8. Issue intensity
Obedience to authority
Peer pressure situation context
Slippery slopes
Sunk costs
person
AWARENESS BALANCE COURAGE
• issues • Ideals • intention to act
• stakeholders • Obligations • skillful action
• stakes • Utilities
• options
8

9. Certain contextual factors tend to bias our moral intuitions
1. social consensus – the degree of 4. probability of effect – a joint of
social agreement that about the function of the probability that the
moral value (e.g. evil) of a act in question will actually take
place and that it will actually cause
proposed act. the harms/benefits predicted
2. magnitude of consequences – 5. temporal immediacy – the length of
the sum of the benefits/harms time between the present and the
done to victims/beneficiaries of onset of consequences of the moral
the moral act in question. act in question.
6. proximity – the feeling of nearness
3. concentration of effect – how (social, cultural, psychological, or
spread out or concentrated are physical) that the moral agent has
the harms/benefits of the for the victims/beneficiaries of the
proposed action. evil/good act in question.
- Jones, 1991

10. Law
Organizational
policies and norms
Professional duties
Culture
situation context
person
AWARENESS BALANCE COURAGE
• issues • Ideals • intention to act
• stakeholders • Obligations • skillful action
• stakes • Utilities
• options

11. Issue intensity Law
Obedience to authority Organizational
Peer pressure policies and norms
Slippery slopes Professional duties
Sunk costs Culture
situation context metacognition
Character
Affective state
person
learning
AWARENESS BALANCE COURAGE
• issues • Ideals • intention to act
• stakeholders • Obligations • skillful action
• stakes • Utilities
• options

13.  Once in a lifetime trip to the Himalayas.
Travel a well used trail
 Found a half naked holy man in the snow
 Do you take him back to a village? Do you
care for him? (Both options would cause
you to loose the opportunity to make your
once in a life time climb.)
by Bowen H. McCoy

14. The Parable of the Sadhu
QUESTIONS RAISED AUTHOR’S OBSERVATIONS
 Is no single person responsible
 Organizations without a history of
when there is a group?
mutually accepted shared values
tend to come apart during stress.
 Do we make decisions based on
ethnic considerations?
 People in touch with core values
can deal with change, ambiguity,
 Can a superordinate goal allow for
stress, and tough times.
moral slippage?
 People tend avoid the ambiguous
 Is their an institutional or group
yet that is what tends to be the
ethic strong than an individual
most rewarding
ethic?
 Individuals need organizational
 How much effort is enough to
support to act morally.
satisfy your moral obligation?
- Jerry Estenson

15. What is a business? What are its aims and
obligations?

16. Shareholder view A shareholder mission statement:
 Capitalism is primarily a Coca-Cola:
system of competition
We exist to create value for our
 Businesses should be share owners on a long term basis
by building a business that
managed solely for the
enhances the Coca-Cola
benefit of shareholders company’s trademark. This is also
our ultimate commitment.
 Executive benefit often tied to
shareholder benefit

17. 1. Not practical in today’s
world
1. Legally out of date
1. Unethical

18. “Business is a set of relationships among groups which
have a stake in the activities that make up the
business. Business is about how customers, suppliers
employees, financiers, communities and managers
interact and create value. To understand a business is
to know how these relationships work. And the
executive’s or entrepreneur’s job is to manage and
shape these relationships…”
- Edward Freeman

19. Stakeholder view Zappos’ Core Values statement:
 Capitalism is primarily a 1. Deliver WOW Through Service
system of social cooperation 2. Embrace and Drive Change
and collaboration 3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and
Open-Minded
 Primary responsibility of 5. Pursue Growth and Learning
executive – create as uch 6. Build Open and Honest
value for stakeholders as Relationships With
possible Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family
 No stakeholder interest is Spirit
viable in isolation of the other 8. Do More With Less
stakeholders. 9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

20.  Their stake: stocks,
bonds, equity, etc.
 Expectations:
• Return On Investment
(ROI)
• Other expectations?

21.  Their stake:
• jobs, livelihood, career,
human capital
investments
 Their expectation:
• decent wages, security,
benefits and meaningful
work

22.  Their stake:
• need products and
services
 Their expectation:
• quality products, fair
pricing, and honest
dealings.

23.  Their stake:
• need income from their
goods and services
 Their expectation:
• Expect to be treated fairly
and honestly in a mutually
prosperous relationship

24.  Their stake:
• the environment, taxes,
payroll, infrastructure
improvements
 Their expectation:
• Provides company with
local resources and in
return expects the firm to
be a good citizen

25.  Shareholder view
• Do whatever will maximize
shareholder interest
 The stakeholder view
• Treat all stakeholders equally?
• If not how do you decide which
stakeholder interest gets priority
when stakeholder interests
conflict? Milton Friedman

26. “Where stakeholder interests
conflict, the executive must find a
way to rethink he problems so that
these interests can go together, so
have to be made, as often happens
in the real world, then the executive
must figure out how to make the
tradeoffs, and immediately begin Can you serve the long term
improving the tradeoffs for all sides” interests of the shareholders
without paying attention to
the others?

27. Utilitarian - It will lead to the best consequences
Deontological - It respects the rights of
stakeholders and the duty of the firm to them
Virtue Ethics - It reflects well on the
character and nature of the executive and
firm
Business is about collaboration: “The spirit of capitalism is the spirit of
individual achievement together with the spirit of accomplishing great tasks
in collaboration with others.” (Freeman)