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... This is a kind of vicious circle initiated by the Human resources management, which is the head office of the manipulation and control through pressures and rewards policies. There is no space for the full personal initiative, the employees become only obeying orders Business values may be ethically correct; nevertheless, members of organization tend to do not care anymore about the ethical dilemmas because business values and culture had been integrated. Employees may think that an act is right if it is approved by the social group to which a person belongs and wrong if it is not. (Mullins L, (1999), Financial Time Pitman Publishing, P 146. ) Without a set of commonly shared values to guide employees from within, companies are reluctant to relinquish their traditional safeguard mechanisms against possible destabilization. Employees have been re-socialized by the company, that why at work they may forget all values acquired through social institutions like school, family, religious community. That is why members of organizations usually carry out different role at work than at home.
Most of the decision taken by the organization will be collective due to the corporate culture influence. A huge numerous of subject involving ethical matters in business would be ignored. The following represent some of them discussed by George and Webley. (De George, R. (1989), Business Ethic, Third Edition, MacMillan); (Webley S. (1993) Codes of Business Ethics: Why companies should develop them and How, The Institute of Business Ethics. ) Ethical Analysis The ethical analysis should provide answers to questions. The fundamental questions of ethic are questions of conduct-what in particular cases, should we do? -and the study of ethics provides the answers (Rachel's J, (1997) Can ethics Provide answers, Rowman & Little fiel Publishers, London, P 21). An ethical analysis enables to show the case studied with different perspectives involving a new reflection. 1 - De ontological Analysis: Kantian approach: Respect and autonomy in the business work relationship Lot of the research on the business values and ethics has established a list of principles about how the companies should respect the stakeholders.
These principles are in many cases involving the concept of respect for the persons. This principle is derived from the eighteenth-century German Philosopher named Kant. He thought the concept as a categorical imperative that society must adhere to. So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, never solely as a means but always also as an end (Kant I, (1964) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Harper& Row, New York, p 96). He meant that people should treat others as beings who have ends; relating the desires and choices, not just as means to the business ends The individual person is intrinsically worthy of respect simply because she or he is a person, regardless of whether we like the person. According to Kantian philosophy, a person is a being who is capable of rational though and self-determined action.
Rational means the ability to give reasons for actions and self-determining entails acting according to ones own choices and desires and having the ability to make decisions. It is clear that employee decision-making is highly influenced by the business culture and values. We could argue the employee is losing the control. How can he give reasons for pollution or bribery? The respect is on the centre of Kantian moral philosophy.
It focuses on the content of morality, explicitly stating how we should treat other people. Other features of Kant's theory are also important in relation to professional ethics. Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. (Kant I, (1964) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Harper& Row, New York, p 88). An example of promise keeping can be use to illustrate this point.
In order introduce a new company internal Policy, the manager of a cosmetic company may promise to do a referendum, although he has not attention to doing so. This is a fake promise avoiding lot of troubles for the manager. If everybody in the firm makes false promises, the whole institution of promise-keeping would collapse and there would be no basis to trust the business management. For Kant, it is important to underline that false promises are not wrong because of the consequences if everyone did so, but rather that it would be logically inconsistent to will that everybody should do it, because we would them be making a promise in an organization where promise-keeping no longer existed. Consequently for Kant the only good action is that which is done for the sense of duty. The author could argue that business culture and value development is done for a sense of inclination.
Employee are manipulated by the company itself, they are not anymore rational and autonomous, free to make their own decisions and choices. They do not make the moral law and give it to themselves. Max Weber: Spirit of Modern Capitalism and Protestant Ethic: This analysis is very different form what we would except from a religious. Max Webers protestant Ethic essay argues there was a close affinity between the spirit of modern capitalism and the protestant ethic. Ascetic Protestantism created an ethos which was compatible with modern rational capitalism and did not stand in conflict with capitalism business methods and practices such as culture and values over development. The capitalist could engage in his work with an easy conscience and indeed with that much greater vigor and enthusiasm in the knowledge that what he did was not only not morally suspect but was in fact the carrying out of Gods purposes for him in this life.
Weber begins by noting how frequently certain religions affiliations are associated with success in business and with ownership of capital resources. It is clear that a good development of business culture means a rewarding policy. The trend is the business management offers more and more involvement in the company through the distribution of shares. The employee feels he belongs to the company and a part of the company belongs to him. In reality, it is another ability from the management to pay less the staff, motivate them to work harder in order to obtain the higher dividend, reinforcing the common values. That is why for Weber, the modern entrepreneur characteristically seeks to maximize profit through continuous rational and optimal use of resource not simply because it is prudent to do so but as a duty.
Te spirit of capitalism involved the work ethic which meant that any time not devoted to the end of making money was considered to have been wasted. A large part of the profit must be reinvested in the company insuring the survival of the company in the future, insuring the business culture development within the years. These principles were not simply useful standards for success but a true ethic. The earning of money within the modern economic order, is, so long as it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling pp 53 54. This ethos was not one which came naturally of human beings. In fact Weber says, the desire to make money whatever the means when divorced from such an ethic is correlated with an absence of rational capitalist development.
The universal reign of absolute unscrupulousness in the pursuit of selfish interests by the making of money has been a specific characteristic of precisely those countries where bourgeois-capitalistic development, measured according to occidental Standards, has remained backward (Eber, 1930, P 57). 2 -Utilitarism view: Employees are not anymore independent and autonomous in their work. The manipulation and the over control determine the business management. For a two choice question, the Utilitarianism perspective takes into account that a right action produces much more happiness than the other action. It is basically the balance between the good and the evil expressing by the principle of utility. The good is simplified by the sum of happiness and pleasures.
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Research essay sample on Harper Amp Row Protestant Ethic
