Four Approaches to Deciding Ethical Dilemmas Essay Example

that is provided in the text is a business that uses harmful chemical fertilizers on crops, benefiting their own financial interest, but inadvertently damaging another industry (fishing) by creating a byproduct chemical runoff.

The Moral rights approach is important and valuable to US businesses, but may not translate effectively into a global workforce. After all, the world is made up of many varied governments, each with its own set of laws, standards and rights that its citizens are subject to. The justice approach promotes fairness. I think this is a universal idea as well that could eventually grow to be more suitable and widely accepted in a multi-cultural business organization.

Determining what is fair has in the past been a regional effort, but now that our world economy is changing and evolving into a global village, I believe that we’re on the road to an eventual universal set of rights, or standards of fairness, that could be observed on a by everyone in the world, regardless of which country they reside in. I do realize that this idea may be considered Utopian, of course. Globalization is described in the text (Kinicki, A. , & Williams, B. K. (2011).

Management: A Practical Introduction (5th ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin - pg 104) as the trend of world economy toward becoming a ore interdependent system. The idea of globalizing business has become more of a reality over the recent years, due to the fact that we have been able to successfully overcome the barriers of distance and time by using emerging communications technologies. To think that we’ve evolved from the use of the

telegraph in the 1800s (which was, in its time, in absolute marvel) to the ability to send data almost instantly over fiber optic networks and even via satellite, basically from one point to another, anywhere on our planet, it truly astounding.

What once would have seemed impossible or outright fictitious just 50 years ago is now an absolute reality. That said, in moving forward, the global business model has some serious catching up to do in terms of the definition, establishment and practice of an ethical code within an organization or conglomerate. One wonders (not if, but) when a global system of ethics will be adopted. In a very interesting article on this topic, published by BusinessWeek. com in 2008, Bill George made an affecting statement “Great global organizations can be built only from a solid ethical foundation.

This is a concept that I can definitely get behind. In Bill’s article, several example scenarios (ethics driven corporate scandals) are provided, and it was interesting to try and figure out which of the four approaches outlined in our text was used, or could have been used in order to prevent these occurrences. For instance, Bill talks about a time when he was CEO of Medtronic and had to deal with numerous top executives in several different countries making deviations from the company’s established code of ethics.

These executives were made an example – they were fired for their actions. This was a way to make it very clear to other executives, managers and employees that the code of ethics was to be taken seriously and followed implicitly. This seems like an example of

using a utilitarian approach. It’s very clear to me that the bottom line to companies running a global workforce, or attempting to move into a global workforce is that good ethics lead to good business. Developing, implementing, practicing and reinforcing solid code of ethics within a company builds value, improves integrity and helps to build solid relationships within the organization.

Also, a company that holds itself to elevated ethical standards is more widely respected in the global village, and will therefore create more shareholder value, thusly setting itself apart from its competitors. As we move forward into the age of information, I believe that we will witness a fascinating evolution of the way business ethics are practiced throughout the world.