Ethics in Decision Making

Introduction:
To fully understand how ethics might be applied
to decision making we must !rst cover the
basics. The words morals and ethics, which have
their origins in Latin at their core mean ‘good’ or
‘right’, play an important role in decision making.
Whilst these words are often interchanged
within the context of decision making there are
distinct di”erences.
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ANUSHA CLOASGUOLUAT 10
distinct di”erences.
Morrallss;; Internal values and judgements
often used to make individual decisions,
how a person behaves
Etthiiccss:: theoretical construct that dictates
group behaviours and decisions, how a
person should behave
Using this understanding, we can determine an
individual’s morals are not the same as their
ethics. All decisions can bene!t from the
questioning of predetermined assumptions and
biases by making use of ethical principles.
Society is currently grappling with possible
solutions to the many problems confronting
21st century work and life. From Big Data, the
longer-term implications of the Internet of
Things to future impacts of technology on jobs,
negative climate impacts on business, making
use of ethics and ethical decision making is
becoming an important and pressing
consideration. An understanding of ethics can
be reached through observations of individual’s
behavior, guided largely by their personal
beliefs and their environment. Within the
context of a business or organizational behavior
ethical decision making loosely involves
Organisations providing direction for people
through value sets, codes of practice, standards
of behavior, prescribed ways of working, values
training, directions on dress and behavior in
attempts at establishing and operating sets of
ethical standards and norms of behavior
expected of individuals and teams.
Businesses, in their striving to manage the
ethical dimensions of their managers’ decisionmaking
will need to reduce uncertainty among
those managers of what constitutes
appropriate, ethical and unethical behavior.
While organisations strive to de!ne their social
and ethical responsibilities, stakeholders and
the community at large continue to pressure
business to accept their ethical responsibilities
in decision making. Meanwhile, laws cover some
aspects of the ethical dimension of decision
making at work but many aspects of the ethical
dimension of decision making remain less
certain. Some success has been gained by
countries regulating business managers’
behavior particularly in relation to bribery,
corruption, and relationships between
businesses and their agents. Many aspects of
ethical decision making for businesses
operating internationally, tend however to
remain unclear.
It has been argued that current frameworks
describing ethical behavior in decision-making
do not seem robust enough to explain the
complexity of the human ethical decisionmaking
process. Surprisingly traditional
research into the individual factors a”ecting
ethical behavior has ignored qualities or habits
of individuals. Clearly, a better bridge needs to
be constructed between research laboratory
and business world. Questions continue
however, to surround the costs of ‘goodness’, or
expected value relative to the costs for
organisations in establishing standards of
managerial behavior, developing codes of
managerial behavior, developing codes of
practice conduct or investing in ethical training.
Question: Will a business’s investment in ethical
practices, or the business doing’ good (ethical)
things, help the business do well in growing and
improving their bottom line performance?
Essential Resources:
Morales-Sa´nchez, R. & Cabello-
Medina, C. (2013). The Role of
Four Universal Moral
Competencies in Ethical Decision Making. J
Bus Ethics (2013) 116:717–734.
This paper argues that the consideration
of moral competencies, understood as
moral virtues in the workplace, can
enhance our understanding of why moral
character contributes to ethical decisionmaking.
After discussing the universal
nature of four moral competencies
(prudence, justice, fortitude and
temperance), their influence on the
various stages of the ethical decisionmaking
process are discussed.
Decision Innovation. (n.d.).
Addressing Ethics in decision
Making. Retrieved from
https://www.decision-makingsolutions.
com/ethics_in_decision_making.html
The paper reserves the term “moral” for
use in a perrssonall decciissiion makkiing
use in a perrssonall decciissiion makkiing
context and using the term “moral” when
dealing with personal or life decisions with
a focus on “right conduct” as the result of
a personal choice. Ethical decision making
is reserved for use in a grroup decciissiion
makkiing context and will address ethical
decision making in business as providing
the guiding requirements or goals for
right conduct.
Eisenbess, S.S., Knippenberg,
D,V., & Fahrbach, C.M. (2015).
Doing Well by Doing Good:
Analysing the relationship between CEO
Ethical Leadership and Firm Performance.
Journal of Business Ethics, 128, 635-
651.Springer.
Business ethics and firm economic
performance have traditionally been
regarded as mutually exclusive ends. This
reading challenge this ‘‘either-or’’ belief
and analyses when and how ethical firm
leadership and firm performance may
harmonize well. In an extension of earlier
research on ethical leadership and
performance, the paper studies the
context–dependency of the organization
level relationship between CEO ethical
leadership and firm performance.
Porter, B. (2017). Steps to Ethical
Decision Making. YouTube.
Retrieved from
Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LzD1R4XrrTs
This video provides eight steps to
e”ective, ethical decision making in
business. Outlines the uncertainty and
ambiguity surrounding the challenges of
gathering of data and information in
making ethical decisions and devotes time
to the initial care needed in gathering the
facts.
Intergrating Ethics: From
Thought to Action. (2015).
Integrating Ethics: Ethical
Decision Making. YouTube. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwKCshmH7M
Video explores the importance of
understanding the individual and the role
of the individual, or the self in adopting an
ethical stance (rights of the individual to
take illicit drugs). The more communal
view needs a very di”erent set of ethical
set of approaches to be taken in
considering the impact of the ethical
decision on the wider group or
community and the broader implications
of ethical decision making.
Learning Activities
Learning activities are not part of
summative/graded assessment; however, they
summative/graded assessment; however, they
are designed to prepare you for incremental
graded assessment and expand your learning.
These activities encourage a community
learning experience between peers, and provide
opportunities for facilitators to o”er formative
feedback, throughout a module, to the student
cohort. Students should spend 1-2 hours per
module on learning activities.
LLearrniing Accttiivviittyy 4.. 4:: Etthiiccss
After reviewing the essential
resources on please answer the
following questions in the module 4
discussion forum

1. Identify the essential di”erences
   between Morals and Ethics in
   decision making
2. Describe how your business
   organization communicates socially
   acceptable, ethical behavior across
   the organization to team members?
   Between the organisation and
   stakeholders?
3. In your business, how are the
   business owners’, or business
   managers’ core values expressed
   and made known to team
   members, stakeholders?
4. In terms of your organisation’s
   employee behaviour, would
   expectations of ‘doing no harm’
   provide a su#ciently useful ethical
   decisional framework on which
   managerial decisions could be
   based? Comments?
5. Describe the degree to which your
   organization’s ethical framework
   supports the organisation’s
   objectives, managers’ decision
   making
6. Describe the nature of ethical codes
   or standards of practice in your
   organization supporting managers’
   decision making and having positive
   implications for the organisation,
   their stakeholders and on the
   community at large
7. To what extent is ethics, ethical
   training seen as a cost? Or as a
   bene!t to your organisations’
   functioning?
8. To what extent is training in ethics,
   morality available to sta”?
9. Would descriptions of major
   decisions made by managers in
   your organisation generally attract
   positive headlines in the press, less
   positive ones? How to improve?
10. Do managers’ decisions generally
    re$ect the vison and values of your
    enterprise?
11. Describe the qualities of the
    ethically competent managerdecision
    maker in your organization
    The recommended word count is 300 –
    400 words total. You may like to use
    images and diagrams. You are also
    welcoming to include factors that may not
    be explicitly stated but which you believe
    !t within the context of the subject and
    are worthy of inclusion.
    are worthy of inclusion.
    To participate in the Discussion
    Forum, click here to scroll to the
    bottom of this page then click on the