Ethics

Ethics which is an attempt to guide human conduct should be taught to every

management enthusiast so that it can help lead a good life by applying moral principles.
Ideally ethics plays an important role in everyone’s life by regulating or controlling the
ways a person acts or thinks.
Anyway, ethics can be different for different conditions. To start with, pardon may be
conceded to a violator who submits in specific situations such as "Thou shalt not steal" is
one of the Ten Commandments. However, a mother stealing to fill her child’s stomach
may be pardoned.
This can be seen in our day to day lives business ethics where we follow three factors
which influence our business ethics. Individual standards and values, managers and
co-workers influence and Opportunities. These three contribute to business ethics
which morally tells us what’s right or wrong. The aim of ethics is to do individual good
as well as social good. It is important for a business or in fact a person to act ethically to
protect own principles and interests, to be fair, to respect others values, to meet
stockholders’ expectations, for betterment of our society, and to encourage collaborations
and team work.

Concepts from our Course

Ethos and ethics are different. Ethos deals with facts and explains them by their causes.
Ethics do not have to be facts. Ethics help us deal with standards by which we can
differentiate if a certain behaviour or act is right or wrong.

The decision-making framework consisting of Rights and Duties, Utilitarianism,

Justice and Ethics of Care
This framework helped us realise that as future managers, we must be fair in taking
decisions keeping in mind the rights and duties or obligations. Utilitarianism analysis
focuses on group benefit than individual loss unless serious this we can overcome by
putting forth the collective interest or the organisations interest over individual interest
avoids the problem of self-interest, this would be our moral responsibility towards the
company as well as towards the people working with us. Also, as future managers Justice
tells us to act in a way only when we are convinced that others would have also acted in
the same way if they were in the same position. Thus, any decision should be impartial,
ensure equality and fairness. Ethics of care suggests that one cares for people who are
closer to them than others. We can relate this to the concept of nationalism and the unjust
partial behaviour of leaders.
We can call this Moral Relativism where people might not have compatible moral
standards or views. This lays the foundation for religion, caste or creed. Parents teach their
children what they believe is moral and ethical for them. Thus, the child learns only what
he has been taught. The decisions he takes in future will largely depend upon these
learnings. So, we can say that the ethical behaviour of a person depends upon the
environment in which he was brought up in.
We can question how does organisations which largely depend on team work thrive.
This introduces us to the concept of Moral Pluralism. It expounds that there can be
conflicting views at a same place when there is mutual respect towards one another. A
team consists of different personalities with different view on things. This arises conflicts
while working on a similar goal. A business leader must be able to understand everyone’s
views and come to a conclusion which positively effects the grows of the organisation
also it shouldn’t hurt the sentiments of the team members.
There are some concepts which are widely accepted across the world. This is known as

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The norms that guide humans to maintain social relationships are known as Confucian
Ethics. This preaches five basic relationships that a person can maintain in a social
environment.
 superior and subordinate
 father and child
 husband and wife
 oldest brother and sibling
 friend and friend
these will help us behave in an appropriate manner depending upon the relationship that
we share with the person. This will optimize the benefits for both parties.
The Oneness Hypotheses tells us to have more compassion and empathy. Empathizing
and helping others will make us feel good about ourselves thus increasing self-confidence
and happiness.
The Legal-Ethical Grid suggests that our decisions must be legal as well as ethical.
Doing legal and ethical thing should be moral obligation rather than a legal obligation.
The three types of Management Ethics are
 Immoral Management
 Moral Management and
 Amoral Management
Amoral Management consists of two parts –Intentional and Unintentional

Competence Framework

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