What is ethical behaviour?
Ethics can be defined as a code of moral principles that sets standards of good or bad, and right or wrong.
Ethics provides guidance for people to make right or smart decisions. It would make sense if someone said that
following the legal law means you are making an ethically right decision. This in many cases is not true. There
have been many laws in the past that allowed unethical practices. For instance slavery was once legal in the
United States and at one point only men were allowed to vote. Yes, these were legal, yet it does not make them
ethical practices. Making decisions strictly according to the law does not mean the ethically right decision is
being made. Also many decisions not involving the law, has its own ethical and unethical behaviour. For instance
if some is to call in sick to work so they can take a day of leisure, it does not go against any laws. That does not
mean that it is ethical. Most ethical problems that arise in the workplace are a result of someone being told to do
something when it goes against their personal beliefs.
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Utilitarian view - Does a decision or behaviour do the greatest good for the most people?
Behaviour that would be considered ethical from the utilitarian view delivers the greatest good to the greatest
number of people. An example of an utilitarian decision would be to cut 30% of a plants workforce in order keep
the plant profitable and save the remaining jobs.
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Individualism view – Does a decision or behaviour show fairness and impartiality?
Based on the belief that one’s primary commitment is a long-term advancement of self-interest. When an
individual is committed long term they become self-regulated in pursuing their goal. In the case of the individualism
view, lying and cheating for short-term gain would not be tolerated. Overall the individualism view is supposed to
promote honesty and integrity.
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Moral-rights view – Does a decision or behaviour maintain the fundamental rights of all human beings?
Behaviour under the moral-rights view is that which respects and protects the fundamental rights of people.
In the context of a company this would ensure that all employees are treated fair and have a right to free speech.
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Justice view – Does a decision or behaviour show fairness and impartiality?
Is the moral behaviour based on the belief that ethical decisions treat people impartially and fairly according
to legal rules and standards.
 Procedural Justice – involves the degree to which policies and rules are fairly administrated
 Distributive Justice - involves the degree to which outcomes are allocated without respect to individual
characteristics based on ethnicity, race, gender, age or other particular criteria.
 Interactional Justice – involves the degree to which others are treated with dignity and respect.
Ethical behaviour is increasingly at issue in this time of globalization. There are three different aspects of
business ethics:
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Cultural relativism: which suggests there is no one right way to behave; ethical behaviour is determined by
its cultural context. For example, a Canadian international business executive would argue that the use of
child labour is okay in another country if it is consistent with local laws and customs.
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Universalism: This suggests that ethical standards apply across all cultures. In the example of the child
labour, the Canadian business executive would refuse to do business with the company that partakes in child
labour because it isn’t accepted in Canadian law.
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Ethical imperialism: is an attempt to impose ones ethical standards on other cultures. In this example the
Canadian business executive would ensure that any children working in a factory under contract to his or her
business would be provided schooling as well as employment.
An ethical dilemma is described as a situation that requires a choice regarding possible course of action that,
although offering potential for personal or organizational benefit, may be considered unethical. It is often a situation in
which action must be taken but for which there is no clear consensus on what is “right” or “wrong”. More often than
not managers make unethical decisions in areas such as:
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Discrimination – Eg. Denying promotion or appointment to a job candidate because of the candidate’s race,
religion, gender, age or any other non-job-relevant criterion.
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Sexual Harassment- Eg. Making a co-worker feel uncomfortable through inappropriate ate comments or
actions regarding sexuality.
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Conflicts of interest – Eg. Taking a bribe or kickback or extraordinary gift in return for making a decision
favourable to the gift giver.
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Customer Confidence- Eg. Giving another party privileged information regarding the activities of a customer.
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Organizational Resources- Eg. Using official stationary or a company email account to communicate
personal opinions or make requests from community organization.
Many of these issues are not properly dealt with in large corporations. Consider the possibility of being
asked to place a bid for a business contract using insider information, paying bribes to obtain foreign business,
falsifying expense account bills, and so on. “How,” you should be asking, “do people explain doing things like
this?” There are at least four common rationalizations that may be used to justify misconduct in these and other
ethical dilemmas.
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Convincing yourself that the behaviour is not really illegal.
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Convincing yourself that the behaviour is in everyone’s best interests.
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Convincing yourself that nobody will ever find out what you’ve done.
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Convincing yourself that the organization will ‘protect’ you.
After doing something that might be considered unethical, a rationaliser says, “it’s not really illegal.” This
expresses a mistaken belief that one’s behaviour is acceptable, especially in ambiguous situations. When dealing with
shady or borderline situations in which you are having a hard time precisely determining right from wrong, the advice
is quite simple: when in doubt about a decision to be made or an action to be taken, ask yourself a few questions;
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Does this action make sense?
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Is this action or decision compatible with my concept of myself at my best?
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Do I think this action is right primarily because someone with appropriate authority says it is right?
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If you answer “No” to the first two questions and “Yes” to the last would indicate that you should not do it.
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The Person: Family influences, religious values, personal standards, personal needs, and financials, will help
determine a person’s ethical conduct in any given circumstance. Managers who lack a strong and clear set of
personal ethics will find that their decisions vary from situation to situation as they strive to maximize selfinterests. Those with solid ethical frameworks, personal rules or strategies for ethical decision-making, will
be more consistent and confident.
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The Organization: The organization is another important influence on ethics in the workplace. Bosses can
have a major impact on their subordinate’s behaviours. Just exactly what a supervisor requests, and which
actions are rewarded or punished, can certainly affect an individual’s decisions and actions. The expectations
and reinforcement provided by peers and group norms are likely to have a similar impact.
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The Environment: Organizations operate in competitive environments influenced by government law,
regulations, social norms and values. Laws interpret social values to define appropriate behaviours for
organizations and their members. Regulations help governments monitor these behaviours and keep them
within acceptable standards.
This code helps set guidelines on how to act in certain situations that may be susceptible to ethical dilemmas.
They identify expected behaviour in an organization in many areas; some of these areas are general citizenship,
avoidance of illegal/improper acts, and good relationships with the customers. Codes of conduct are becoming more
prevalent in international business for manufactures and contractors. The value of ethical conducts/codes cannot
guarantee that they will be used in the workforce, only the human resources of an organization can ensure that they are
enforced. Organizational stakeholders are the persons, groups, and other organizations that are affected by the
behaviour of the organization and that are holding a stake in the organizations performance. Organizations have the
responsibility to serve the interests of its stakeholders, examples of this are;
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1. Employees-Work for the organization
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2. Customers-Purchase the organizations goods/services
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3. Suppliers-Providers of information, material, and financial resources
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4. Owners- Stockholders, investors and creditors (claim on profits/assets)
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5. Competitors-Other Organizations
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6. Regulators-local provincial and federal government agencies enforcing laws and regulations
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7. Interest Group- Community groups
Ethics training can be defined as seeking to help people understand the ethical aspects of decision making and to
incorporate high ethical standards into their daily behaviour. Ethics has recently been introduced into the university and
college curriculum due to the high demand.
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A whistle blower exposes the misdeeds of others in organizations. In order to preserve their ethical standards,
whistle blowers:
* protect against harmful acts
* Wasteful acts
* Illegal acts
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Some organizational barriers to whistle-blowing include a strict chain of command that makes it hard to
bypass the boss. Whistle blowers face the risks of impaired career progress and other forms or organizational
retaliation, up to and including termination.
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Top managers, in both large and small enterprises have the power to shape the organizations policies and set
its moral tone. They must have high ethical conduct, they are expected to create ethical cultures and
communicate similar expectations throughout the organization. All managers must act as ethical role models.
They are expected to set the tone to the organization and be an influence the ethical behaviour of the people
who work for and around them