Literature review
Discuss About The Women On Boards Firm Financial Performance.
Ethics are considered to be the moral principles that guide the behaviour of a person. These morals are formed and are shaped by the cultural practices, religious influences and the various social norms that prevail. The process of ethical decision making is regarded as the process of assessing all the moral implications of a course of action (Pearson, 2017). Each of these decisions have moral or ethical dimension for a simple reason, i.e., they have an influence on the others. The managers must therefore need to be well aware of their own moral and ethical beliefs in order to draw them while they face any difficult decisions. This primary purpose of this paper is to assess the role of ethical decision making in becoming an effective manager. It would analyse the relationship in between the management thinking and the practise of management in the contemporary organisations and would further evaluate the organisational process that could enhance the performance of the organisation. It would provide a brief understanding of the concept of ethical decision making and its relationship to the effective managerial practices. Furthermore, the paper would also shed light on the skills and capabilities that are required to promote a good ethical decision making and would present a small discussion of how personality would relate good ethical decision making. The paper would also provide short questionnaires as well.
Concept of ethical decision making: As described by Dane and Sonenshein (2015), ethical decision making is a cognitive process that takes into accounts the various ethical principles, virtues and rules or the maintenance of the relationships in order to judge or guide the individual or intended actions or any group discussions.
The ethical issue intensity can be described as the importance or the relevance of an ethical issue in the eyes of an individual or work group. It reflects the ethical sensitivity of the person or the work group which faces the process of ethical decision making. The individual factors here are the gender, nationality, education, age, locus of control and work experience. It has been identified by Post and Byron (2015) in their study that women are more ethical as compare to men. They understand their managerial roles and duties more than any man does (Wittmer, 2016). With the same, it has been stated that culture of a person too appears to be significant in affect of the ethical decision making process. The education and the work experience of an individual is also one of the individual factors that affect his overall performance as a manager. Shapiro (2016) in this context has stated that the more educated or the work experienced an individual is, the better will he or she be in the process of ethical decision making. Furthermore, age is also considered to be as an influencing factor in this process. Spelman (2017) has stated that the older a man is the more ethical will he be in every aspect. The locus of control refers to the perception of an individual of how much control he has over a particular control. It is divided into external control and internal control (Shepherd, Williams & Patzelt, 2015). Through internal control, an individual believes that he or she can control the event in their life by their own skills and efforts, while through external control, he or she considers themselves as going with the flow as because of the fact that that is all that they can do (Hoefer & Green, 2016). Furthermore, the values of the organisations often have the most influence on the decisions and even more than that of the individual’s own values. In this context, Ferrell (2015) has stated that the more ethical the manager perceive the culture of an organisation to be, the less likely he is to make an unethical decisions. Lastly, the opportunities describe the situations and conditions prevailing in an organisation that limit the ethical and unethical behaviour (Vitell, Singhapakdi & Nishihara, 2015). Opportunities results from the conditions that could either provide rewards (either internal or external) or fail to erect the challenges and barriers against the unethical behaviour (Lehnert, Park & Singh, 2015).
Framework of ethical decision making
- Identifying the existing ethical problem
- Collecting relevant information regarding the problem
- Evaluating the information gathered
- Considering the alternatives
- Making a decision
- Acting or implementing the plan
- Reviewing the action.
The process of ethical decision making process applies three significant predominant ethics theories and they are of the Utilitarian perspective, Justice Perspective and Rights Perspective (Amartya, 2017). The utilitarian perspective focuses on where the managers consider the outcomes of the actions and seeks to increase the greatest good for the greatest number of those affected by the decision. On the other hand, the Justice Perspective focuses on either the maintenance of the standards and the rules (procedural justice) or on the equitable distribution of the advantages and costs that are resulting from the employee layoffs and plant closing (distributive justice) (Shestack, 2017). Lastly, a decision maker or a manger who take into account the rights perspective would consider the entitlements of the ones who are affected by the decision.
Capabilities and skills are necessary to promote good ethical decision making: Managers need to build up skills and capabilities in order to promote good ethical decision making (Sparrow & Makram, 2015). He must build ethical action in the workplace. He must create an environment which supports ethics in the business operation. He must include the same in the mission and vision statement of the organisation as well. Managers need to demonstrate through their actions that they do not condone the unethical behaviour and that they do not tolerate the actions that are unethical and are illegal like that of workplace harassment and theft (Helfat & Peteraf, 2015). An adherence to the ethical business practices should be demonstrated by him through the junior level staffs. Hence, it is to state that the managers must have the skill to inspire others to be ethical in the workplace. Secondly he must possess the capability to always be available on the stage. He must communicate with other with care and must seek the ideas and thoughts of every individual present in the process of decision making. Furthermore, it is also to mention that ethical decision making skills also need to involve a set of related abilities such as of applying different framework of ethical evaluation to the values and facts that are relevant to make a decision on a course of action and of imagining the different possible courses of actions and different perspectives (Evans, Lee & Thompson, 2016).
Relation of personality to good ethical decision making: The personalities of the decision makers are related to the good ethical decision making process. Personalities such as relying upon to see that the work that needs to be done is done in an organised way, the readiness to support the good suggestion that helps to resolve the problem all aids to a good ethical decision making. Managers in an organisation come in every shape and size with personalities ranging from supportive to assertive (Caliskan & Isik, 2016). However, the personality of the mangers does not influence the work values or ethics. Maintaining a positive work ethic which supports the admirable values is a choice, rather than the result of personality types. Some of the managers choose to use their personality strengths in order to uphold and foster ethical values while some lose sight of their original goals and allow ethical leadership to fall by the wayside.
Capabilities and skills necessary for good ethical decision making
Literature review: As stated by Den Hond, de Bakker & Neergaard (2016), managers are highly responsible for upholding the ethical standards in their own decisions and actions. He argued that managers feel obligated to follow a distinct professional code of ethics based in their responsibilities and roles and the training process. Many managers have the responsibility to interact with the external stakeholders of the companies like for example, the customers, government, community representatives or officials (Yin & Jamali, 2016). In these cases, managers might be called for explaining a decision or a well planned action in context to the ethical considerations. Kraakman & Hansmann (2017) further has elaborated his view in this context explaining that the managers might also be responsible for creating and implementing the changes to the ethical codes and guideline of an organisation. He said that these changes are responsible to an internal determination depending on the employees’ experiences. According to Bandura (2014), ethical decisions could involve different determinations. He has described that the field of ethics that is also known as the moral philosophy portrays that there are several ways of defending, recommending and systematizing concepts of the ethical and unethical conduct.
- Evaluation of the questionnaires
- The big five inventory (BFI)
After evaluating the result of appendix 1, I can conclude that I have the quality of agreeableness within me. There were several characteristics upon which I was asked to put points depending on the level of disagreeability and agreeability. I assessed that I am a very talkative person as of the fact that I was mentioned about this characteristics of mine several times before. I tend to find fault with the others. While I was in my school and college I used to find out faults in my mates and used to try to make them see that. Also, I does a thorough job on everything and often I come up with new ideas. Some of my other positive characteristics that I strongly agree with are that of the fact that I am helpful and unselfish with others, is always full of energy and has the potential to generate a lot of enthusiasm as well. I make plans and give my best to follow through with them. Furthermore, I am also considerate and kind to everyone I met. I also have a very strong forgiving nature and I forgive almost everyone. With the same, one of my biggest negative aspect is that I worry a lot about everything and has a very few artistic interests. All these are the aspects of mine that I strongly agree with. To note the characteristic of mine that I strongly disagrees with is that I am ingenious and a deep thinker. I don’t think deep actually, I just think about things a lot. With the same, I am also unsociable and I get depressed very often and also I do not tend to be lazy always, in fact I am a very active person and do all my works very actively and affectively.
- In the second questionnaires provided to me, I identified that I am action and people oriented person. I have an aptitude for organising people and could be relied upon to see that the work that needs to be done is organised. I also analyse the ideas of other people objectively for both their merits and failings. I am also concerned to help my subordinates with their problems and I always try to keep a watching eye on the areas where difficult might arise. I also tend to help everyone whenever I can and being busy gives me satisfaction in true terms. Furthermore, I am keen to see there is nothing vague about my task and objectives as well and I often find my imagination frustrated by working in a group. I have also mentioned that My feelings seldom interfere with my judgements and I usually know someone whose specialist knowledge is particularly apt. There are also several characteristics that have a little trace within me and that are of the fat that I can work with people who vary widely in their personal outlook and qualities and I find my personal skill particularly appropriate in achieving agreement. I also have a quiet interest in getting to know people better. It is also to note that I seem to develop a natural sense of urgency and I find absolutely no difficulties while working with people who vary widely in their personal outlook and qualities. Furthermore, the thing I am lacking in include that I am not reluctant to emphasise my own point of view in meetings and I cannot work with all sorts of people provided that they have got something worthwhile to contribute. Also I cannot usually find the argument to refute unsound propositions and I cannot make a point of following up interesting ideas and or people. Also, I do not strive to build up an effective structure. I have also realised that I feel it is sometimes worth incurring some temporary unpopularity if one is to succeed in getting one’s views across in a group.
Relation of personality to good ethical decision making
SMART goal one- During my managerial role in the xyz company I would send out the weekly reports to the stakeholders of the project which include a detailed update on the status of the project and make sure that my project is on the right track 95 percent of the time depending on the metrics that would be set by my client. It is a specific goal as it specified how I am going to make sure that their project would be managed successfully and how often it would be on the track. This goal shall also be measured by the weekly reports and the set metrics that which would indicate whether or not the project is on the right track. It is achievable and is relevant to the project as well and the outcome of this will be a successful project. It is time bound as it states that it would happen when I would get a chance for working in the xyz company.
SMART goal one – As I was suffered from jaundice last year, my physical health has been down since then and this is also acting as a barrier to my professional career. Therefore, I need to improve my health. I would do that by drinking 2 litres of water and by eating 60gms of protein each day. I would lose about 3 kg of weight by 31st October by increasing healthy intake and reducing the calorie intake. I would then gradually reduce the consumption of sugar intake every passing week and would finally eliminate the consumption. I would also try to improve my life style by making conscious and healthy food decisions during every mean and would focus on the vegetables and protein amounts. I think I would attain my ideal weight by the end of 31st December. This goal of mine is a SMART goal as it has all the characteristics of a SMART goal i.e., is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Conclusion
To conclude, it can be said that this paper has successfully analysed the relationship in between the management thinking and the practise of management in a contemporary organisation. From the analysis it is proved that there is a strong relationship in between this two. Management is all about organising the resources and the employees’ productivity. It is a process that enables the organisations to set and achieve the organisational objectives through controlling, organising and planning comprising of the achievement of commitment of the employees trough motivating them. The paper has described the role of ethical decision making in making the managers to play the part of effective managers in the work place. It has provided an understanding of the relationship in between these two as well along with providing a discussion on the influence of personality on the whole process. It has also presented an evaluation of several questionnaires based on the tests like best five personality instrument and the Belbin test.
References:
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