Business Ethics

Concepts & Cases

Manuel G. Velasquez
 Chapter Eight

Ethics and the Employee

 The Rational Model of a Business
Organization
• Formal hierarchies identified in the organizational
chart are the firm’s fundamental realities.
• Organizations seek to coordinate the activities of
members so as to achieve their goals with
maximum efficiency.
• Information rises from the bottom of the
organization to the top.
• Contracts obligate the employee to loyally pursue
the organization’s goals and the employer to
provide a just wage and just working conditions.
 Necessary Conditions
for a Conflict of Interest to Arise
• Employee or officer is engaged in carrying out
a certain task for his or her employer.
• Employee has an interest that gives him or her
an incentive to do the task in a way that
serves that interest.
• The employee has an obligation to do the task
in a way that serves the interests of his or her
employer free of any incentive to serve
another interest.
 Avoiding or Eliminating
a Conflict of Interest
• Removing oneself from the task in which the
conflict of interest arises.
• Eliminating the interest that creates the
conflict of interest.
• Eliminating or changing the obligation of
serving the employer’s interests and
remaining free of any incentive to serve
another interest while serving the employer.
 Ethics of Accepting Gifts
• The ethics of accepting gifts depends on:
– The value of the gift
– The purpose of the gift
– The circumstances of the gift
– The job of the recipient
– Accepted local practices
– Company policies on gifts
– Legal prohibitions on gifts
 Theft of Information
• Includes the theft of digitized programs, music, movies,
e-books, etc., as well as trade secrets, company plans,
and proprietary formulas or other data.
– Is theft even if the original is not taken nor changed but
only copied, examined, or used without the consent of the
owner
– Violates the owner’s right to have his or her property used
as he or she chooses, even if the theft does not injure the
owner
• The skills one acquires from a company are not
information and so it is not theft to take them when
leaving the company.
 The Ethics of Insider Trading
• Insider trading is said to be unethical because it is theft of
information that gives the insider an unfair advantage.
• It has been defended because :
(a) it ensures stock prices reflect the true value of the stock
(b) it harms no one
(c) having an advantage over others in the stock market is not wrong in
itself and is common among experts
• These defenses have been criticized because:
(a) the information the insider uses is not his or hers and so is stolen
(b) trading on inside information has harmful effects on the stock
market and increases the costs of buying and selling stocks
(c) the advantage of the inside trader is not like the advantage of an
expert because it is based on theft.
 Fair Wages
• Fair wages depend on:
– Wages in the industry and local area
– The firm’s ability to pay
– The risks, skills, and demands of the job
– Minimum wage laws
– Fairness in comparison to other salaries in the
firm
– Fairness of wage negotiations
– Local living costs
Argument that Wages in Developing
Nations are Too Low
– Relative to wages of workers in developed
nations, even taking productivity differences into
account.
– Relative to what companies in developed nations
can afford given their overall profits, or relative to
the profits they make from products assembled in
developing nations.
– Relative to what workers in developing nations
need to live on.
Argument that Wages in Developing
Nations are Adequate
– Wages should be set by markets, not by
comparisons to other countries.
– Local factors are more important when setting
wages than a company’s profits.
– Costs of living are important, but wages should
also consider the local average number of workers
per household.
 Job Risks
• Are not justified when labor markets are
uncompetitive and risks are unknown and
uncompensated.
• Are not justified when companies fail to
collect information on risks and fail to inform
workers of risk.
• May not be justified when less-risky jobs are
unavailable, or when workers lack information
about less-risky alternatives.
 Establishing Fair Working Conditions
• Eliminating risks when cost is reasonable,
studying potential risks of a job, informing
workers of known risks, compensating workers
for injuries.
– Providing compensation for job risks similar to risk
premiums paid in other jobs.
– Providing adequate medical and disability
benefits.
– Working with other firms to collect information
about job risks.
 Moral Responsibility for Working
Conditions
• Employer is morally responsible for bad
working conditions if the employer:
– Can and should improve conditions
– Knows about the conditions
– Is not prevented from changing conditions
 Similarity Argument
• Similarities between the power of
management and government imply
employees should have rights similar to
citizens’ rights.
– A company’s management is a centralized
decision-making body that exercises power, like a
government.
– Managements wield power and authority over
employees, like governments wield over citizens.
 Similarity Argument (Cont.)
– Management has the power to distribute income,
status, and freedom among the corporation’s
constituencies, like government does with respect
to citizens.
– Management shares in the monopoly on power
that government possesses.
– Since management’s power over employees is so
similar to government’s power over citizens,
employees should have rights that protect them
from managers’ power, just as citizens’ rights
protect them from government power.
 Replies and Counter-Replies to
Similarity Argument
• Power of government is based on consent and so
is unlike the power of managers which is based
on ownership of the company, but supporters of
similarity argument respond that today power of
managers does not come from owners.
• Unlike government, the power of management is
limited by unions, but supporters of similarity
argument respond that most workers today are
not unionized.
 Replies and Counter-Replies to
Similarity Argument
• While it is hard for citizens to escape the
power of a government, it is easy for
employees to escape the power of managers
by changing jobs, but supporters of similarity
argument respond that changing jobs is not
always so easy.
 Employee Right to Privacy
• Threatened by today’s technologies.
• Justified because of the interest we have in
the protective and enabling functions of
privacy.
• Requires that managers consider relevance,
consent, and methods when collecting
information about employees.
 Freedom of Conscience
• Is justified by the interest we have in remaining
true to our religious and moral convictions.
• Must be balanced against the legitimate rights of
the firm, its stockholders, and fellow employees.
• Whistleblowing is morally justified when:
– (a) the wrong is clear
– (b) other methods have failed
– (c) it will prevent the wrong
– (d) the wrong is serious enough to justify the costs of
whistleblowing
 Freedom of Conscience
• Whistleblowing is a moral obligation for a
person when (a)–(d) hold, and, in addition:
– the person has a special duty to prevent the
wrong or is the only person who will or can
prevent the wrong
– the wrong involves an extremely serious harm to
society’s welfare, or extremely serious injustice,
or extremely serious violation of rights.
 Employment at Will
• The employer owns the company and ownership gives
him or her the right to decide whether and how long
an employee will work in his or her company.
• Everyone has the right to do what they choose
(provided they do not violate the rights of others) and
so has the right to make whatever agreements they
choose, including the agreement with employees to
hire and fire them at will.
• Businesses will operate most efficiently if employers
have the freedom to hire or fire employees as they see
fit.
 The Right to Work
• It is justified because of the interest we have in
the instrumental and intrinsic value of work.
• Work has a critical instrumental value because it
is a means to our survival.
• Work has an intrinsic value because
– it is our basic economic contribution to society and
helps us feel worthwhile and useful
– it lets us develop our potential and identity as a
particular human being
– it lets us develop our character and virtues
– it is a source of self-esteem and self-respect.
 The Right to Work
• The right to work is threatened by unemployment which in the
United States has many causes including:
– recessions
– use of new technologies,
– outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries
– free trade agreements
– our shift from a manufacturing to a service economy
• Company layoffs also threaten the right to work and have many
causes including:
– decline in demand
– changes in consumer demand
– product obsolescence
– the pursuit of cheaper workers
– the need to consolidate operations
 The Right to Organize
• This derives from the same right owners have to
join together to form a company (the right to
freely associate with others).
• Unions have a right to strike that derives from
every worker’s right to quit working so long as
doing so does not violate other’s rights.
• Union membership declined from 35 percent of
workers in 1947 to 14 percent in 2010.
• Many developing countries do not protect the
right to organize, but U.S. companies can often
allow their workers there to unionize anyway.
Characteristics of the Caring Model of
Organization
• Caring is focused entirely on persons, not on
“profit” or “quality.”
• Caring is undertaken as an end in itself not as
a means to productivity.
• Caring is essentially personal.
• Caring is growth-enhancing for the cared-for.
 Problems for the Caring Organization
• Caring too much for others which can lead to
“burnout” when the needs of others are given too
much weight compared to the needs of the self.
• Not caring enough for others because fatigue, self-
interest, or disinterest leads us to ignore their needs.
• The organization systematically drives out caring
with layoffs, bureaucracy, managerial styles that see
employees as disposable, or rewards that encourage
competitiveness and discourage caring.