Running head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN MANAGEMENT

Ethical Issues in Management Paul A. Dobiesz II University Of Phoenix Organizational Ethics and Soccial Responsibility MGT 216 Peggy Ryan August 05, 2010

Ethical Issues in Management Every manager will have to deal with moral and ethical issues during his or her career. As a manager, a person may have to re-evaluate what he or she was taught to be moral and ethical. Furthermore, making moral and ethical decisions is not for self, but for the company, the individuals who work for the company, and customers and the community. A manager must know what the policies are for the company are when deciding what is ethical, before he or she can implement and enforce the company policies on ethical behavior. Managers must be consistent when dealing with ethical issues. For instance, if a management punishes an individual for doing something immoral and unethical, the manager much do the same for any person who does anything unethical. Organizations nationwide conduct daily business based upon principles and values that govern the decisions and actions of a company (L. Trevino and K. Nelson, K. Wiley, 2007). Business ethics is the behavior that an organization conducts on a daily basis both towards organizational personnel and customers. Businesses worldwide struggle to adhere to these business ethics on a daily basis, but ethical issues still arise. Ethical issues such as layoffs, discrimination, and harassment are just some of the issues companies are faced with everyday. Downsizing or layoffs is one ethical issue that companies are faced with today in this struggling economy. The oilfield industry is now facing downsizing all along the Gulf Coast. Major companies such as Halliburton had to layoff 300 employees in a Louisiana location in March of 2009. Baker Hughes Drilling Fluids Division laid off a staggering 1500 employee in the North American Region in the month of February 2009 as well (Cole, 2009). Layoffs can

occur for many reasons such as mergers, relocations or economic reasons as is such with the recent layoffs in the oilfield industry. Harassment in the workplace is another ethical issue that should not be tolerated. One type of harassment is called hostile environment. For example, an employee pulls the manager aside and tells the manager, this individual has been bully a few members of the staff in to covering for him when he is late or to help him when he is behind with is work and will possibly miss the deadline. Most of the staff does it because he has been with the company for a long time and has built a good relationship with most of the senior executives. The staff believes that since that person has made such and impression on the higher personnel, no one would believe that he could be this bully that the other staff is speaking about. Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, and or age (eeco.gov). Bullying is a form of harassment which turns the workplace into a hostile environment and should not be tolerated. In this type of harassment an employee is made to feel uncomfortable in the work environment because of unwelcomed actions or comments.(L. Trevino and K. Nelson, K. Wiley, 2007). This type of behavior can lead the company to being sued if this issue is not corrected. No one should have to work in an environment where he or she is being intimated into doing someone else work. When the issue is reported it needs to be dealt with immediately. Once the issue has been bought to the attention of higher personnel, it is now the responsible of the company to make sure all employees are to work on time and doing his or her own work. An organization can maintain business ethics with a code of conduct. A business code of conduct and ethics is a written document with standards relating to an organizations values. The code of conduct is used to promote honesty, fairness, compliance, and accountability. Establishing corporate values such as integrity, high standards, performance, and responsibility are just some

factors businesses need to maintain a healthy business ethics environment. By a company living up to the image and reputation of the company can lead to positive thinking and positive results. Although some ethical issues such as layoffs may sometimes be unavoidable, others such as discrimination and harassment can be prevented (L. Trevino and K. Nelson, K. Wiley, 2007). A supervisor was told that he has to be return to his position as an agent helping customers on the telephone and sometimes work as floor support to help take supervisor calls and for agents that may questions that are not in the troubleshooting guides. The reason that was gave; the company was experiencing loss in revenue and was not hiring any new employees at that time. This individual was one of the last persons to move into a supervisors position. As a supervisor this individual was working on a salary instead of hourly like the agents on the telephone but was told that he would have to lose his salary and return to hourly pay. This supervisor agreed with returning to being a telephone agent, but refused to take a pay cut because he had signed a contract. The supervisor was terminated in view of the fact that he would not take a pay cut. At the time when the individual was offered a supervisory position he signed a contract that stated that he could be asked to return to the telephones to help customers, but pay shall remain the same. The legal ramifications are that the supervisor that was let go may decide to take legal actions against the management for breach of contract. A breach of contract is failing to perform any term of a contract, written or oral, without a legitimate legal excuse. By law that individual had the right to decline the decrease of pay and go back to being a customer service representative on the telephone. Since the company did not keep within the terms of the contract that individual refused to agree with a pay cut and was released from the company. Management should have honored the contract and continued to pay the individual his salary.