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ch03.pptETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND ACTION
BA 354
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
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The Relationship between Ethical
Awareness, Judgment, and Action
Ethical Judgment
Ethical Awareness
Ethical Action
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Case
You’ve just started a new job in the financial services industry. One afternoon, your manager tells you that he has to leave early to attend his son’s softball game, and he asks you to be on the lookout for an important check that his boss wants signed before the end of the day. He tells you to do him a favor—simply sign his name and forward the check to his boss.
Is this an ethical issue?
What might influence whether you see this as an ethical issue or not?
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Cognitive Moral Development
Level I (Preconventional)
Stage 1 – Obedience and Punishment Orientation
Stage 2 – Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
Level II (Conventional)
Stage 3 - Interpersonal Accord - Conformity – Mutual Expectations
Stage 4 – System Maintenance - Upholding duties, laws
Level III (Postconventional or Principled)
Stage 5 – Social contract and individual rights
Stage 6 - Theoretical stage only
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Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
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Let’s Look at a Case:
Evelyn worked for an automotive steel casting company. She was part of a small group asked to investigate the cause of an operating problem that had developed in the wheel castings of a new luxury automobile and to make recommendations for its improvement. The problem did not directly create an unsafe condition, but it did lead to irritating sounds. The vice-president of engineering told the group that he was certain that the problem was due to tensile stress in the castings. Evelyn and a lab technician conducted tests and found conclusive evidence that the problem was not tensile stress. As Evelyn began work on other possible explanations of the problem, she was told that the problem had been solved. A report prepared by Evelyn’s boss strongly supported the tensile stress hypothesis. All of the data points from Evelyn’s experiments had been changed to fit the curves, and some of the points that were far from where the theory would predict had been omitted. The report “proved” that tensile stress was responsible for the problem.
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What should Evelyn do in each stage?
- Level I (Preconventional)
- Stage 1 – Obedience and Punishment Orientation
- Stage 2 – Instrumental Purpose and Exchange - Rewards
- Level II (Conventional)
- Stage 3 - Interpersonal Accord - Conformity – Mutual Expectations – Pleasing Others
- Stage 4 – System Maintenance - Upholding rules, duties, laws
- Level III (Postconventional or Principled)
- Stage 5 – Social order and harmony
- Stage 6 - Theoretical stage –Universal moral principles that a person adopts
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60 Minutes: Origins of Morality
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What did you learn from the 60 Minutes video about the development of morality and ethics?
- Babies come “hard-wired” with certain values: justice, fairness, etc.
- They show a tendency to prefer others who are more similar to them.
- When young they show strong tendencies toward the self, but with age they learn to cooperate with others.
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Mental shortcuts
- Heuristics
- Mental Models
- Scripts
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Understanding mental scripts
Type 1 Thinking
Type 2 Thinking
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PSYCHOLOGICAL BIASES
- Over-confidence bias
- Confirmation bias
- Reduction of consequences
- Self bias
- Optimism bias
- Illusion of control
- Escalation of commitment
- Illusion of morality or superiority
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Individual factors the contribute to our ethical judgment and action:
- Decision-making style: idealism vs. relativism
- Locus of control
- Machiavellianism
- Moral disengagement
- Our embedded learning about the value of our natural environment may be eroding as much of modern life is spent in isolation from the natural world.
- Disconnection from our natural world may be contributing to our planet’s destruction.5,6,7
5=Howard, 1997
6=Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004
7=Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2009
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The Cost to Society of Dying in a Pinto
(in 1971 dollars) equals…
$200,000
The benefit and cost of an $11 safety improvement would have been:
benefit = $49.5 million
cost = $137.5 million
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Milton Friedman: The value of a human life debate
How do you feel about the way Ford assigned monetary value to human life?
What explanation did Prof. Gioia give for his failure to act on his values?
“I had not internalized a script for applying my values in a pragmatic business context.”
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Advice from Prof. Gioia
-Develop your ethical base now!
-Recognize that you are a victim of your own cognitive structuring.
-Learn to recognize ethical dilemmas.
-Be aware of how strongly and subtly your job context influences you.
-Be prepared for responsibility early on.
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Getting to work on the
Personal Ethical Action Plan:
Story One:
Recall a time in your work experience when your values conflicted with what you were asked to do regarding a non trivial management decision and you spoke up and tried to resolve the conflict in a way that was consistent to your values.
Describe the situation briefly and then answer the following questions:
- What did you do and what was the impact?
- What motivated you to speak up and act?
- How satisfied are you ?How would you like to have responded?
- What would have made it easier for you to speak and act? Things within your control? Things within the control of others?
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Story Two:
Recall a time in your work experience when your values conflicted with what you were asked to do regarding a non trivial management decision and you did not speak up and did not try to resolve the conflict in a way that was consistent to your values.
Describe the situation briefly and then answer the questions:
What happened?
Why didn’t you speak up and act? What would have motivated you to do so?
How satisfied are you? How would you like to have responded?
What would have made it easier for you to speak and act?
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