Ethics and Social Responsibility Flashcards
Define ethics and ethical behavior
Ethics are sets of moral principles or values that defines the right and wrong for a persom or group.
Ethical behavior is particular actions that conforms to society’d accpeted principles of right and wrong.
What is workplace deviance and what forms can it take?
Workplace deviance describes unethical actions and attitudes that harm the performance company. Workplace deviance will fall under two main categories, each with two forms of deviance:
• Organisational:
o Property Deviance: When a company’s material resources are abused (e.g. stealing company resources and sabotaging equipment).
o Production Deviance: When the efficiency of the workforce is reduced due to a lack of dedication, resulting in less production (e.g. employees leave work early or take excessive breaks).
• Interpersonal:
o Personal aggression: Inappropriate behaviour and emotions that lead to physical abuse, such as sexual harassment and the endangerment of co-workers.
o Political Deviance: This is where differing opinions and misunderstandings can lead to emotion abuse, such as gossiping and showing favouritism to certain workers.
Define ethical intensity and identify the compiennts that affect ethcial intensity.
Ethical Intensity is the degree of concern people have about an ethical issue.
Six factors must be taken into account when determining the ethical intensity of an action. These include:
- Magnitude of consequences - The total harm or benefit derived from an ethical decision.
- Social consensus - Agreement on whether behavior is bad or good.
- Probability of effect - The chnace that something will happen and then harm others.
- Temporal Immediacy - The time between an act and the consquences the act produces.
- Proximity of effect - The social, psychological, cultural, or physical distance between a decision maker and those affected by his or her decision.
- Concentration of effect - The total harm or benefit that an act produces on the average person.
Explain the different levels of moral development.
Preconventional level:
The first level of moral development, in which people make decisions based on selfish reasons.
Conventional level:
The second level of moral development, in which people make decisions that conform to societal expectations.
Postconventional level:
The third level of moral development, in which people male decisions based on internalized principles.
What are the principles of ethical decision making?
Principle of long-term self-steem:
Principle of personal virtue:
Principle of religious injunctions:
Principle of government requirements:
Principle of utilitarian benefits:
Principle of individual rights:
Principle of distributive justice:
identify the practical steps managers can take to improve ethical decision making.
Employers can increase their
chances of hiring ethical employees by testing all job applicants. Most large companies now have
corporate codes of ethics. In addition to offering general rules, ethics codes must also provide specific,
practical advice. Ethics training seeks to increase employees’ awareness of ethical issues, make ethics a
serious, credible factor in organizational decisions, and teach employees a practical model of ethical
decision-making. The most important factors in creating an ethical business climate are the personal
examples set by company managers, involvement of management in the company ethics program, a
reporting system that encourages whistleblowersto report potential ethics violations, and fair but
consistent punishment of violators.
Define ethical training and the four factors that affect it
Ethical training is when managers must sponsor and be involved in ethics and compilance training in order to create an ethical company culture. Reseachers developed a series of four decision-making factors that are used to help employees determine how they should respond to problems and eithical situations, even when the problems were not of their own doing. These principles are:
- Need - When the need is greater, you have a greater responsibility to act.
- Proximity - How close are you to the problem? Proximity is not just physical; it can also apply to relationships.
- Capability - You can be expected to intervene only insofar as you are able.
- Last resort - If no one else is able to help, it becomes much more important for you to intervene.
What is Social Responsibility and how can a company be socially responsible?
Social Responsibility: A business’s obligations to pursue politics, make decisions, and take actions that benefit society.
When a company chooses to be socially responsible, the business will typically choose between the shareholder or stakeholder model.
The shareholder model is when the company’s view of social responsibility is based only towards the companies overriding goal of maximizing profits for the benefit of shareholders.
Stakeholder model is the theory of corporate responsibility that holds that management’s most important responsibility, long-term survival, is achieved by satisfying the interests of multiple corporate stakeholders.
Identify the components of beign socially responsible
Economic responsinility: a company’s social responsibility to make a profit by producing a valued product or service.
Legal responsibility: a company’s social responsibility to obey society’s laws and regulations.
Ethical responsibility: A company’s social responsibility not to violate accepted principles of right and wrong when conducting its business.
Discretionary responsibility: The social roles that a company fulfills beyond its economic, legal, and ethical responsibility.
identify and describe the different strategies that a company uses in responce to social responsiblility issues.
To resolve social responsibility issues, a company can respond using one of four different techniques:
• Reactive: When a company only deals with issues as they occur, typically doing far less than required to solve this issue or denning responsibility for the issue.
• Defensive: When a company acknowledges there is an issue but still does little to solve it. This would be done to make the company appear proactive publicly, when it isn’t
• Accommodative: This strategy is when a company directly deals with the issues, taking full responsibility for them and putting in measure to prevent them in the future.
• Proactive: Where a company anticipates what issues might occur and puts in measures to prevent them. a company using this method will likely do more than is expected of them by society but do so for the benefit of stakeholders.
Companies that put in little effort will likely only wish to see the issue dealt with or ignored, using a defensive or reactive strategy, whereas company’s who realise the benefit of maintaining a good social responsibility will use a proactive or accommodative strategy.
Discuss the link between social responsibility and economic performance.
Does it pay to be socially responsible? Sometimes it costs, and sometimes it pays. Overall, there is
no clear relationship between social responsibility and economic performance. Consequently,
managers should not expect an economic return from socially responsible corporate activities. If your
company chooses to practice a proactive or accommodative social responsibility strategy, it should
do so to better society and not to improve its financial performance.
