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Ethical Decision Making in a Business Context
- Overview
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There is no one set text, but a good overview of
most important themes can be found in: Chryssides G. D. and Kaler J. H. (1993 / 2001) An
Introduction to Business Ethics, Thomson Learning, London |
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I also recommend: Velasquez G. (2001) Business Ethics: Concepts
and Cases, 5e, Prentice Hall, London (this has a companion website:
www.prenhall.com/velasquez) |
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Further Reading:
Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, Trans D.
Ross, 1980, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Legge K. ‘The Place of Ethics in HRM’ in J.
Storey Ed. (2001) Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, 2e, ITP,
London
MacIntyre (1985 / 2002) After Virtue: a study in
moral theory, 2e, Duckworth, London
Nussbaum M. (2001) The Fragility of Goodness:
luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy, 2e, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge
Vardy P. and Grosch P. The Puzzle of Ethics,
2e, HarperCollins, London |
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It will help to think of the four sessions as each answering a pressing
question. |
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What is Ethics?
How do People Make Decisions?
What is different about ‘Business’ Decisions?
What Use is learning about these things?
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Detail of content for each session is shown below. The programme is based on the idea that ethics is a
particular form of problem solving – and hence a practical activity. However,
because everyone engages in ethical problem solving on a daily basis, to
critically examine this process, it helps to remember Kurt Lewin’s phrase, ‘There
is nothing so practical as a good theory’. |
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Session 1: Ethics
We start with a sketch of two of the main approaches to solving ethical
problems. This introduction forms the backdrop for two less commonly known
perspectives on ethical problems. One – the ethics of ‘care’ - is
contemporary, the other – ‘virtue ethics’ – dates back thousands of
years. I argue that both are influential ways of understanding how we can
negotiate day-to-day ethical complexities in business. We will then try to apply
and evaluate virtue ethics by analysing some cases. |
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Session 2: Decision Making
To do good, or to do bad, a person’s actions must result from their having
exercised choice - in other words when they have made a decision. This choice
could be thought of as ‘informed’, ‘considered’, ‘unduly influenced’,
‘principled’, ‘constricted’ or a host of other things, but what precedes
the decision (‘the reasoning behind it’) is commonly what we assess when we
assign praise or blame. This applies equally when we evaluate our own decisions.
In this session, we examine two constructions of the decision making process:
rational choice theory and Image Theory. |
Session 3: The Business Context
To understand what makes business different, we will focus on three levels of
analysis: the macro-economic (the ‘Global’ business context); the
micro-economic (what happens in a firm); the individual (what happens to people
in business). Another way to express this is that we will move between different
perspectives - structural, organizational, personal. We then try to recreate
some features of the business environment by playing a simple game. |
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Session 4: Synthesis
We will conclude by reviewing what we have learned. We will then examine some
real-life examples or ‘cases’ in business ethics. |
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