BBA 102 ESSAY 
“Unethical decisions result from an individuals choice rather than their work environment.” Critically discuss.
Each organisation has their own code of ethics, a set of rules and guidelines that are created to assist people in the organisation, both employers and employees, on what is seen to be “right” and “wrong” in a particular social context, according to a specific moral code. These rules are implemented within organisations to guide and set examples of the expected conduct and behavior of individuals. The purpose of this essay is to discuss and explain that unethical decisions result from not only individual choices, but also from the work environment, including organizational culture and organizational structure.
Ethics are seen as a requirement within every organisation and work practice, as it serves as a tool to guide and deciding courses of action. Without these rules put into place, both employers and employees’ actions would be random and aimless, as well as not considering on what actions would be right (ethical) and what actions would be wrong (unethical)(Icheku, 2011). The three main branches of ethics are applied ethics, normative ethics, meta-ethics, as each of these are used as a potential tool for solving problems and assisting in making ethical decisions. Applied ethics is the branch of ethics that include the analysis of specific and controversial moral issues such as abortion and euthanasia and acting in the best interest of patients. Normative ethics is the study of what makes actions right or wrong, what makes situations or events good or bad and what makes people virtuous and vicious. Fieser (2008) states that it provides a “Golden Rule” of doing what we want others to do, as we would want them to do for us. Meta-ethics consists in the attempt to answer the philosophical questions about the nature of the ethical theory itself, as it investigates where ethical theories and principles come from and what they mean. The use and
Each organisation has their own code of ethics, a set of rules and guidelines that are created to assist people in the organisation, both employers and employees, on what is seen to be “right” and “wrong” in a particular social context, according to a specific moral code. These rules are implemented within organisations to guide and set examples of the expected conduct and behavior of individuals. The purpose of this essay is to discuss and explain that unethical decisions result from not only individual choices, but also from the work environment, including organizational culture and organizational structure.
Ethics are seen as a requirement within every organisation and work practice, as it serves as a tool to guide and deciding courses of action. Without these rules put into place, both employers and employees’ actions would be random and aimless, as well as not considering on what actions would be right (ethical) and what actions would be wrong (unethical)(Icheku, 2011). The three main branches of ethics are applied ethics, normative ethics, meta-ethics, as each of these are used as a potential tool for solving problems and assisting in making ethical decisions. Applied ethics is the branch of ethics that include the analysis of specific and controversial moral issues such as abortion and euthanasia and acting in the best interest of patients. Normative ethics is the study of what makes actions right or wrong, what makes situations or events good or bad and what makes people virtuous and vicious. Fieser (2008) states that it provides a “Golden Rule” of doing what we want others to do, as we would want them to do for us. Meta-ethics consists in the attempt to answer the philosophical questions about the nature of the ethical theory itself, as it investigates where ethical theories and principles come from and what they mean. The use and
References: Deshpande, R. and Webster Jr, F. (1989). Organizational culture and marketing: Defining the research agenda. The Journal of Marketing, 53(1), pp. 3-15 Giacalone, R. and Payne, S. (1995). Evaluation of employee rule violations: the impact of impression management ethics in historical context. Journal of Business Ethics, pp. 447-487 Icheku, V. (2011). Understanding ethics and ethical decision-making, pp.21 Kaptein, M. (2008). Developing and testing a measure for the ethical culture of organisations: the corporate ethics virtue model. Journal of Organizational Behavior 29(7), pp. 923-947 Pojman, L. and Fieser, J. (2008). Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, pp. 13 Sinclair, A. (1993). Approaches to organizational culture and ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 12 (1), pp. 63-73 Velasquez, M. and Rostankowski, C. (1985). Ethics, Theory and Practice, pp.13-15