Unethical Decision Making - Coursework Example

Unethical Decision Making Name Course Tutor Date Introduction Ethical standards are set of values resulting from social beliefs, to decide the good and the bad, what need to be done and not to be done and to choose between right and wrong. The set of standards are in line with the social values that help to prosper within a society. The behavioral values that are viewed as instantly essential for the presence. The values are demonstrated as a standard for the future moral corporate decision making. There has been rampant increase in unethical practices picked up essentially for being into moral practices. A moral choice making ought to be in such a manner to the point that it is legitimately and ethically satisfactory to the Workers and the Shareholders. Maybe a moral choice doesn't generally guide to moral conduct, though a moral conduct dependably precedes a moral choice making. Therefore, this paper will discuss how the individual’s choices are the major contributor in making unethical decisions as opposed to the work environment. Unethical decision making When a person makes unethical or a bad decision either at the workplace or not, the basic question that most people ask is why? Maybe the answer to that question is imperative since it assist people to make sense of behavior together with assisting individuals to make sure it never happens again in the future. In their research, Schurr et al., (2012) in an attempt to answer this question found out that individuals make unethical decisions from an individual perspective. The result showed that there is always an incentive for a person to make unethical decisions. Good decision making by the employees and the management is paramount in the day to day running of a business. A good decision is defined as one that facilitates the business in moving closer to accomplishing its goals. The question that one asks himself is how the managers make sure that they are making decisions that will help the organization accomplish its goals? In a move to meet these objectives, organizations should analyze the way in which the decisions are made and put into consideration the information that the managers require to provide in a move to make confident and quick decisions. For the organization to accomplish its goals, there is a need to make ethical decisions within the organization either by the management or the employees (Weisbrod, 2009). Unethical behavior in decision making happens in bits and finally turns out to be a big elephant in the house regardless of the work environment. The individual making the decision may not behave in this manner all of a sudden. The person turns out to be more tolerant with time as the behavior is segmented into a sequence of immoral activities (Weisbrod, 2009). The process of decision making is influenced by a number of factors like cognitive biases, age plus individual differences, increase in commitment, past experiences and belief in individual relevance. All the above factors influence the choices that individuals make and it is important to understand them (West, Toplak and Stanovich, 2008). Both in private and public sector, there have been experience of unethical behaviors almost daily. Therefore, it is a huge problem to manage the unethical behaviors. This calls for greater understanding of the factors which contribute to this behavior in the organizations so that it can be managed in a proper manner (Stanovich and West, 2008). Decision making is also influenced by various cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are founded on generalization and observation which lead to inaccurate judgments, faulty logic and memory errors. These biases include, however are not constrained to: belief predisposition- the over reliance on earlier learning in decision making process, hindsight inclination- individuals have a tendency to promptly clarify an occasion as inescapable after it has occurred, omission predisposition - for the most part, individuals have a penchant to discard data thought to be dangerous, and affirmation predisposition - in which individuals look at what they imagine in perceptions (Stanovich and West, 2008). In the process of decision making, individuals are influenced by cognitive biases. This causes them to heavily rely or put more emphasize on the observation which are expected and their earlier understanding while disregarding observations and information regarded as tentative. This influence has led to poor and unethical decision making (West, Toplak and Stanovich, 2008). One of the primary drivers of unethical conduct is voracity. An individual regularly decides to act improperly or dishonestly for individual money related addition. There are various open doors in business for representatives and head honchos to make unethical decisions. For instance, a representative who deals with a client is possibly eager to provide for them a rebate in return for a kickback. A boss may have a chance to offer the organization's stock when he has inside data around a drop in benefit (Schurr et al., 2012). Research by Schurr et al. (2012) has shown that unethical moral is pervasive partially since individuals mainly tend to take up a narrow perspective. Individuals have a tendency of considering every decision they make in detachment, autonomous of all different decisions (Schurr et al., 2012). On account of this, people are not mindful of the amassed ramifications of their repetitive exploitative acts. As of this contention, it likewise shows that people are less inclined to act insincerely when they consider their decisions in total from an expansive point of view (Robbins, Odendaal and Roodt, 2003). Individual perspective is a significant determinant of unethical decision making as discussed above. In the first place, in accordance with the hypothesis of self-concept maintenance, individuals who implement a narrow perspective, taking into account every choice in detachment, are more prone to persistent reset their ethical evaluation towards oneself appraisal (West, Toplak and Stanovich, 2008). Thus, assessments of their personal unethical decisions are unrealistic to surpass the self-acknowledged standards of unethical decisions. Second, in accordance with the hypothesis of bounded ethicality, a wide point of view may elevate the remarkable quality of dishonest conduct by attracting consideration regarding the total of one's unethical decisions (Chugh, Bazerman & Banaji, 2005). According to Robbins, Odendaal and Roodt (2003), People behave in a certain way not according to their external surroundings, but rather on what they perceive or what they see it to be. Organizations may use millions of money to create a conducive working environment for their employees. Nevertheless, not considering those expenditures by the employer, when a worker has the perception that he has a lousy job, it is evident that he will behave in such a manner. The behavior of the employee is based on their own perception (Mazar, Amir and Ariely, 2008). For instance, if an employee has the perception that his supervisor is a big brother who keeps monitoring him and another employee considers the same as a one who helps him perform a better job, they will have different behavioral responses. The differences in their response are not determined by the supervisor but rather their varying perceptions (Robbins, Odendaal and Roodt, 2003) Research has shown that the perception of the employees on their job mostly has an impact on their productivity as opposed to the work environment. It does not matter whether the job is challenging or interesting or whether the manager organizes and plans successfully his employees work to help them work effectively and efficiently. This does not matter to the employees, but what matters most is the perception (Mazar, Amir and Ariely, 2008). Unethical decision making is issue dependent which means that it is an attribute of the moral issue. Moral intensity is an imperative factor in determination of unethical behavior and decision making. Spontaneously individuals have the tendency to make decisions having in mind, people that they are close to (Robbins, Odendaal and Roodt, 2003). People also react strongly to unethical behaviors which affect people who they have a close relation with rather than those that affect people who they are at distant. There is also the reasoning of individuals when they are making decisions that as long as those affected are strangers, the unethical decisions do not matter. This clearly shows that making unethical decisions is a choice that one makes (Schurr et al., 2012). Conclusion In conclusion, the moral acceptability and judgments of unethical behaviors and decision making are correlated with the individual’s unethical behavior and not affected by the work environment. If the employees would stop assuming the unethical behavior is acceptable, there would be less unethical decisions that would be made by individuals. Today, there is a colossal loss of trust in corporate behavior. There is a critical necessity to work in the direction of reinstate it. In spite of the fact that morals training appear to deliver restricted confirmation of evolving practices, the dedication of administration to screen yearly morals instruction for all workers will create the craved great results. There ought to be a clear correspondence to the workers of what are noteworthy and expected practices in the association. They must keep up and hold on an obvious approach that moral techniques are the main method for working together (Weisbrod, 2009). References Chugh, D., Bazerman, M and Banaji, M 2005, Bounded ethicality as a psychological barrier to recognizing conflicts of interest, In Conflicts of Interest, edited by D. Moore, G. Loewenstein, D. Cain, and M. H. Bazerman. Cambridge University Press, p.74-95. Robbins, S., Odendaal, A and Roodt, G 2003, Organisational behavior, 1st ed., Cape Town, Pearson Education South Africa. Mazar, N., Amir, O & Ariely, D 2008, The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self concept maintenance, Journal of marketing research, Vol. 45, No. 6, pp.633-644. Schurr, A., Ritov, I., Kareev, Y. and Avrahami, J 2012, Is that the answer you had in mind? The effect of perspective on unethical behavior. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 7, No. 6, pp.679--688. Stanovich, K. and West, R 2008, On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. Journal of personality and social psychology, Vol. 94, No. 4, p.672. Weisbrod, E 2009, The role of affect and tolerance of ambiguity in ethical decision making. Advances in Accounting, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp.57--63. West, R., Toplak, M. and Stanovich, K 2008, Heuristics and biases as measures of critical thinking: Associations with cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 100, No. 4, p.930. Read More