Managers' Moral Decisions: Assessing Implications of Ethical Values

Good managers will still find themselves in positions of conflict when it comes to making decisions of business interests in case of a dilemma. Moral, ethical values have more of the social science approach than the empirical aspects. For this reason, ethical decision making involves a process assessing the said morals and their implications of course of action informed by those decisions. Besides, ethics in this context are the moral principles guiding the behavior of an individual while they are making decisions to take action. Essentially, any decision has either a moral or ethical dimension for the reason that is to say they have some effects on others. Therefore, managers must remember that their moral and ethical beliefs have an impact on others so that they can refer to those morals and ethical beliefs when they face difficult situations. For that reason, researchers are giving insights into the application of ethics in decision making, and this essay refers to Kohlberg's and Trevino's decision-making models in ethical decision making.

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Trevino's model, which is proposing person-situation interaction, suggests that managers can make ethical decisions (Anderson & Burchell, 2019). The model uses Kohlberg's stages of developing morals in the cognition stage to provide a unique basis, which can later be useful in examining the situational and individual factors that affect the decision-making process. Notably, the proposed cognitive stages help individuals to react to specific ethical situations creating a personal step of moral development. Kohlberg also provides that each scene be the basis from which one can think about what is wrong and what is right. Generally, Kohlberg believed that reasons used to justify ethical decisions became more complicated with development in life. Therefore, it is evident that ethical choices can involve several determinations. From the beginning, individuals react to the sage cognitive development of morals in a dilemma with the identified cognitions determined by the stage of cognitive events. Moreover, this stage determines how an individual thinks about their ethical challenges while deciding on the wrong or right (Anderson & Burchell, 2019). However, learning of what is wrong and what is right is not enough to convince anyone or predict ethical decision- making behavior. Besides, there are situational and individual which interact with the cognitive elements to determine how an individual should behave in a moral dilemma.

The three individual variables observed are field dependence, ego, and strength in combination with the locus of power, should be influencing the likelihood that individuals (Anderson & Burchell, 2019). Moreover, the possibility predicted in this context is for a person's actions in the cognition of what is truly wrong or right. On the contrary, the situational variable that may arise from the immediate context of the job and the broader culture of any organization should also moderate the behavior or the cognition relationship. Examples include the normative structure of an organization, obedience to authority, referent others, reinforcement contingencies, responsibilities for consequences, and any other form of pressure. Also, most ethical decisions in unclear circumstances referred to as the grey area. That is to say, there is no clear cut or obvious conclusion that the involved parties can determine through analysis based on the quantitative approach or by considering any objective data or information. Analysts believe that ethical decision making requires interpretation and judgment and the application of a particular set of values, perceptions, and estimates of consequences of the action. Similarly, other scholars believe that ethical decisions may involve not only choosing between good or bad but also between good and better or worse and worse.

On the other hand, ethical decision making involves the choice of who should be part of the process and how these players should make decisions. For instance, if a decision made in a particular scenario will have an impact on the locality of the decision-maker, leaders may feel obliged to invite someone who would, in turn, represent the locality in the discussion. Equally, decisions with severe ethical impacts or dimensions may benefit from formation out of consensus rather than by the fiat process. This formation would, in turn, demonstrate that the choice on the decision made is consistent with the objectives of the values of the parties involved in the decision-making process. Besides, most organizations use ethics and compliance programs to reinforce and demonstrate their commitment to ethical requirements in various business operations. Furthermore, most of these organizations implement ethical and compliance programs to help them in guiding the decision-making process and code of conduct of their employees. The agreement that has regulatory requirements and the policies of the organizations are acting as the critical components to active management risks within the organizations. For this reason, it is essential to observe that maintaining compliance through monitoring does not just apply to make the regulators happy. Besides, it is also one of the vital means for an organization to sustain its ethical health and promotes and preserves its values. Additionally, the maintenance of compelling compliance organization to observe morals and ethical practices also support the long term prosperity of businesses.

In conclusion, managers indeed go through a lot of difficulties to ethically manage organizations making the process of decision making a challenging one. The most challenging part is the arguments of Trevino and Kohlberg that talk of the cognitive nature of the person-situation life of decision making. Ethical decision making requires an analysis of the situation and duty oriented, making it difficult for managers to make decisions based on ethical requirements or compliance. Both compliance and ethical programs support the objectives of the business by identifying the ethical and legal boundaries and establishing a system that alerts the management on boundary intrusion. Therefore, the administration has a difficult time once there is an issue detected; they have to prepare to respond as fast as possible and appropriately to minimize the impact on the business. The more significant challenge comes due to the significance of both ethical practices and compliance in business activities. Noticeably, the presence of both ethics and compliance programs demonstrates that an organization or a business commits to creating a work environment that any staff involved will have a sense of belonging. Furthermore, it creates a corporate culture that values the right and just thing.

Question 6: Ethical Consumerism and Ethical Businesses

It is clear that ethics and business is becoming a mainstream concept; there is a backlash on the developing story against the idea that consumers might be effecting change in the market through their marketing behavior (Mathews & Nair, 2020). Notably, this marketing notion stems basically from the lower levels of ethical brands. The major is the issue surrounding this notion would be "if consumers had some care in moral matters, then brands and companies that had that knew the right thing to do would have a more significant share of the market. Therefore it is right to assume that people must not care about these issues, so ethical consumerism is out rightly going to fail because no one will ever shop to their better world.

On the other hand, ethical consumerism gives companies give the idea that companies should not pursue moral grounds because consumers do not reward them for doing it. Besides, it is worrying that consumers might give up on trying effecting the changes by exploring other means of purchasing because they believe that the hope of consumerism is hopeless. On the other side, morally, it is welcoming to imagine that the market fixing team works hard to provide an antidote to the usual idea that the consumers and the market place are a moral ground, and they solely move by profit (Mathews & Nair, 2020). On the contrary, the hopeless nature of consumerism echoes in all aspects of business undertakings. Interestingly, even some learners go against studying moral issues in the business framework as required by their curriculum needs. In terms of responsibility, the argument comes out clear that while some companies are trying to do well in the market by practicing the moral values, more often they fail in the quest. As a result, doing well to society indeed means sacrificing the profits to do what they refer to corporate social responsibility or giving back to society. On the contrary, any regulation or measures that try to deter the giving back to the community concept would be a solution to unethical consumerism rather than hoping for a change in the market structure.

On the contrary, a widespread sustainability regulation may not be practical any time soon, and if it happens may have some negative repercussions even if it was practically available. Therefore, we still stick to the fact that consumers can drive the change that we all desire. Noticeably, market share for sustainable brands is not as high as we all expect, it is not proper to conclude that current sales in business are the best barometers of ethical business practices. It would be right after the markets do their best to guide ethical consumerism, and so, no one would be in an excellent position to give a definite conclusion on what market share means. People may behave ethically to sacrifice something which is commonly money for their morals. For instance, the United States citizens give our millions every year to look morally upright in the eyes of the majority but have questionable behavior behind the curtains. Clearly, without a doubt, there is some willingness in humanity that people e able to sacrifice whatever they have for decent mileage while surprisingly dealing with unethical issues behind the curtains. However, the point of contention would be this reality? And is there a justification for such acts, and are they promoting consumerism in business dealings or not?

Besides, pessimism about ethical consumerism considers the assumption that has one stable structure of utility, and the only way they implement that utility is during purchasing. However, the challenge comes in when reality dawns on people that human psychology does not operate that way. That is to say; human beings do not have a consistent and stable structure of utility. In contrast, in the treatment of new economic behavior, people are rejecting the economic the simple one-preference idea of human decisions and values for an extended period (Mathews & Nair, 2020). According to research in ethical consumerism and ethical behavior, it is evident that human beings are not only entirely rational but also selfish, and they have a noticeable stable taste. For example, in research conducted by Kristine Ehrich, it is evident that people caring about ethical issues will unexpectedly avoid finding out where the products used to make products originated. Unfortunately, when given the information about the origin of the product, they will work out to provide that information for their purchasing.

In conclusion, ethical information is cumbersome to process and consume; however, it is familiar to the consumers to remain ignorant about the whole moral issue willfully. Similarly, producers also, at some level, behave unaware of these ethical issues in business. Marketers feel it is appropriate to nudge, but why should players in the business arena use it to promote more con...