Flashcards
Business Ethics Chapter 4 - Descriptive Ethics
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1Define Descriptive Ethicsseeks to describe how ethical decisions are actually made in business, and what influences the process and out come (C&M, 2010)
- 2What do ethical decision making models seek to present? (two elements)1. The different stages in decision making people go through in responding to an ethical problem in a business context
2. The different influences on that process - 3What are the four stages of ethical decision making?1. Recognize moral issue
2. Make moral judgement
3. Establish moral intent
4. Engage in moral behaviour - 4How do normative theories relate to descriptive ethics?They relate to stage 2 (Making a moral judgement) which considers rights, duty and consequences.
- 5What are the Influences on Ethical Decision Making?Individual Factors: Unique characteristics of the individual decision maker.
Situational Factors: The context that influences whether the individual will make an ethical or unethical decision. - 6What are the individual influences on ethical decision making?• Age and Gender – Mixed Evidence (Loe et al. 2000)
• National Cultural Differences – Significant effect (Hofstede, 1980)
• Education and Employment – unclear, although obvious differences evident (Loe et al. 2000)
• Psychological Factors – Significant (Kohlberg, 1969 – cognitive moral development)
o Cognitive Moral Development: different levels of reasoning that an individual can apply to ethical issues and problems.
• Personal integrity – Significant
o Personal Integrity: an adherence to moral principles or values.
• Personal Values – Likely significant influence
• Moral Imagination – New influence (Werhane and Moriarty, 2009) - 7What is moral imagination?o Ability to discover and evaluate possibilities within a particular set of circumstances by questioning and expanding one’s operative mental work.(Werhane and Moriarty, 2009)
- 8What are the two main types of situational influences of ethical decision making?Issue and context factors
- 9What are issue related factors?o Moral intensity – how important is the issue to the decision maker?
Jones (1991) proposes six factors
• Magnitude of consequences
• Social consensus
• Probability effect
• Speed of consequences
• Proximity of those effected
• Concentration of effect (few or many?)
o Moral Framing – How is that issue actually presented with the organisation
Business only wants business language
Could make decision making more difficult - 10What are the context related factors?• System of reward – commission, sales targets etc.
• Authority – get told what to do by managers
• Bureaucracy – (Weber, 1847) organisational structure with detailed rules, procedures and fixed division of labour.
• Organisational culture and norms – the way things are done round here - 11What is the alternative model for Ethical Decision making?Trevino and Nelson (2004) – Draw together stake holding, normative and descriptive ethical thinking in their model for ethical decision making.
- 12What are the 8 steps to decision making in business ethics?1. Gather the facts
2. Define the ethical issues
3. Identify the affected parties (stakeholders)
4. Identify the consequences
5. Identify the obligations
6. Consider your character and integrity
7. Think creatively about potential actions
8. Check your gut
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- Ethics Flashcards on Business Ethics Chapter 4 - Descriptive Ethics, created by bobby_coles on 28/04/2015.
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- bobby_coles · Apr 2015
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- Feb 19, 2016
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