B.E.C.

G Assignment

Sources Of Ethical Problems

 • Introduction to ethical problems
• Ethical dilemma are a self inflicted situation that arises due to
various contradictions between ones moral perceptions and
imperatives, conflicts of ideologies between people, differences in
value systems, diversity of culture, and skill of moral reasoning of
an individual, putting the ethical principles at risk.

• An ethical dilemma puts the decision maker into a conflicting

situation that might jeopardise the quality of ethical decision not
because of failing to choose between right or wrong, but between
the ‘right and right.’
• Business example:- Mr. Pollard is a regional sales manager at a company
called synthetic fabrics co. He currently overseas 10 different states within
US, supervising more than 50 sales representatives. He travels very
frequently to visit of states to meet with clients help representatives to close
deals. As part these assignments he receives sum of money for all of his
expenses. He has to report his actual expenses after the trip has ended and he
has to send back the remaining amount of money to the company.

• Some of his colleagues, other regional managers n tell him about they cheat
the system to keep the remaining money.

• This is considered illegal for Mr. Pollard this is an ethical issue that he
address.

• He Could do what his peers do and make some extra cash or he could be
ethical about it and send back what is left.

• Using the code of conduct as reference, Mr Pollard decided to make the

ethical decision of reporting the right amount. Therefore, avoiding future
conflicts that may arise because of issue.
 Points

• Failure Of Personal character.

• Conflict of personal values and organizational goals.
• Organizational goals versus social values.
• Personal beliefs versus organizational practices.
• Production and Sale of Hazardous but Popular
Products.
• Other Ethical Challenges.
 Failure Of Personal character
• Personal character traits consist of attitudes you have towards your
activities and the challenges they present.

• People whose personal values are not desirable may

– Steal supplies from the company.
– Paid expense accounts.
– Take unjustified leaves.
– Shirk obligations to follow workers.
– Take bribes for favouring supplies use inside information for
their personal benefits.
• People in business come across several ethical problems that cause
ethical dilemmas. The main reasons of failure of personal character
is business fails to meet stakeholder’s expectations.

• Does not create an environment in which workers can act in ways

consistent with their values
• Conflict of personal values and organizational goals
• Another source of conflict that gives rise to an ethical dilemma is when the
company use methods of pursues goals. Unacceptable to the manager or an
executive.

• Schwartz and Blisky defined personal values as “concepts or beliefs about

desirable end states or behaviours that transcend specific situations, guide
selections or evaluation of behaviour and events are ordered by relative
importance” values are considered as the characteristics of both individuals and
organizations.

• Added another typical example was that of George Couto, a marketing executive
of the pharmaceutical giant, Bayer AG in 2003, the company hatched a
conspiracy to over change the American Medicaid programme the antibiotic
cipro.

• So, the company uses methods or pursues goals unacceptable to the manager.
• In the Couto’s effort to let the country of the conspiracy, Bayer AG
pleaded quality to the criminal charge and paid fine of $257 million
when Couto’s exposure brought to the knowledge of public
authorities that Bayer AG used to relabel cipro. So, here Couto’s
personal value conflicted with the goals of buyer which was to profit
by over changing the medical programme by during this authorities.

• Conversely an individual with low level work of related interests

and attributes may posses personal values that are incongruent with
the value system of the organization.
  Organizational goals versus social values

 Activities of a company may be considered unethical by the stakeholders,

due to changing social scenario or milieu. In a fast-changing situation, a
company may find itself at odds against changing social values. For
instance, the social and cultural mores that prevailed in India before 1991
when the economy was shackled by controls and licenses, were very
orthodox and conservative.

• Organizations followed a hierarchical set up. Senior executives could be

addressed only as ‘Sirs. Hours of work were generally fixed from 9 am to 5
pm. Employees were expected to come to office well dressed. Men and
women employees rarely mixed, kept a respectable distance from one
another. Women rarely, if ever, worked during nights. But can we visualize
such a situation today in many of our modern offices? The situation has
now totally changed and if any organization managed by archconservatives
insists on a model dress code, 9 to 5 working hours, expects juniors to
address senior executives as ‘Sirs’, resorts to moral policing, etc. there will
be a virtual riot in its premises!  
• Examples of effective organizational goals may include steps taken
to  cut down on the time taken to improve and process online orders
for  customers, keeping software up to date by applying security
patches when  needed or improving customer service interactions by
streamlining call centre productivity.
 
• Examples of social value might be the value we experience from
 increasing our confidence, or from living next to a community park.
 o Personal beliefs versus organizational
practices
o A belief is an idea that a person holds as being true. A person can
base a belief upon certainties, probabilities or matters of faith.

o A belief can come from different sources of person’s own

experiences or experiment.

o The phenomenon of the transactional transfer of strategic

organizational practices within multinational companies.
o Ethical dilemmas in organizations arise when they employ multi
racial and multi religious employees.

o Personal belief variables to explore the contractual and individual

variation in hotel employees environmental behavior hotel
environmental policies and employee personal environmental
beliefs.

o Intent to remain employed in child welfare human caring, self

efficiency beliefs and professional organizational culture were
developed and administrated.
 • Production and Sale of Hazardous but
Popular Products
• In our society, there are a number of harmful products that is
produced and  sold to their users notwithstanding the fact that a vast
majority of people is  aware of their harmful effects.

• People know that smoking cigarettes causes  cancer, excessive

drinking causes accidents and liver problems, use of drugs  causes
both psychological and mental problems, and yet these products
are being produced and consumed.
• Ethicists may pose a very relevant question: Those who defend sale
of many harmful and obnoxious products argue that in a free society
consumers use these products on their own volition, without any
outside compulsion.

•  Producers only cater to the consumers’ demands. If due to ethical

 considerations, these products are banned, it will create a black
market  leading to adulteration, profiteering and several undesirable
consequences.  Additionally, it will cause unemployment and loss of
incomes to families.
 • Other Ethical Challenges
• There are other unethical practices that are too many to enumerate.
Some of the sample practices are:
– Price fixing and profiteering due to monopoly, and often
artificially created scarcity;
– Shifting unfair shares to the producer stakeholders and
employees;
– Discriminatory wage structure;
– Using up scare and irreplenishable industrial resources and raw
materials;
– Shifting or locating business at the cost of society;
– Overworking women and children.
• Example like ITC Ltd. that produces cigarettes, and United
Breweries Ltd.  that manufactures and sells liquor are to be closed,
will it not throw  thousands of its employees out of their jobs? What,
then, happens to their  families? On the other hand, there are others
who argue that allowing  business people to produce these harmful
products increase social costs  through higher health and insurance
costs. Therefore, it calls for strong  social controls on businesses that
produce and sell these risk items such as  alcohol, cigarettes and
harmful drugs.
 • Conclusion
• In conclusions ethical dilemmas will always be there in practice since there
are different views, theories, principles, opinions and policies. It is
important though to ensure that the choice of course of action is not merely
based on a opinion but well informed and calculated evaluations of a
situations and possible outcomes.

• Example:- Bhishma is about his fighting war of Mahabharata from the side
of Kauravas while he always wanted the victory of his opponents Pandavas.
This ethical dilemma shows how even a very powerful and highly
acknowledgeable person like Bhishma do fall in ethical trap and are not
able to make out clearly that which of the decisions are better to go with.

• By analysing the character of Bhishma, we can conclude that though his

intentions for serving his king were good but he made a mistake by blindly
following it without reflecting on his decision from time to time.