Ethical conflict

Ethical conflict is the term used for the

condition when the values of organizations,

employees and the perceived criteria of
success are misaligned.
This misalignment results in conflict.
Conflict occurs when the employees think
they know the right course of action yet their
work group or company requires or promotes
unethical decisions.

Ethical conflict
Here they may participate out of willingness or even go outside

the organization to publicize and correct harmful situation.

Conflict occurs when there is a question, as to which goals or
values takes precedence in the situation with certain values
not co-insiding with the same values of others may fight or
leave the organization.
Personal-societial conflict develops when an individual values
differ from those of society.
When society feels that a particular activity is unethical and
legal, new laws may be enacted to help to redefine the ethical
behaviour. Ex: Marketing of new products may bring business
into conflict with society when those products affect moral
issues for certain groups.

Ethical conflict
Feeding the hog: This is the retaliatory

response. It is a unique way of punishing their

employees for perceived wrongs. It is one of the
powerful drive that cause good people to do bad
things. This is how employee strike back when
they believe the organization is unfair.
People in all fields and at all levels feed the hog.
Ex: This name has come from a sick lumber
company. A consultant invited and found from one
of the employees that the employee got
frustrated with his employer used to feed the hog.

Ethical conflict
Silent saboteurs: This is a defensive response.
Employee is silent because no body talks

about them and saboteurs because they

undermine the organizations business plans
creating failures and eating the effectiveness
within the organization like a cancer.
They are clever, but never funny. This is a
type of self preservation.

Ethical conflict
The common practices which individual employees employ to

meet organizational requirements or expectations for success at

a very high cost to their employers are :
1. Scape goating: Blaming failure on someone or something.
2. Budgeteering: This is manipulating budgets and expenses.
3. Overpromising: Making commitments unnecessarily.
4. Turf guarding: Hoarding resources and control.
5. Under achieving: Only doing the minimum work.
6. Risk avoiding: Taking the safe position when it is wrong.
7. Sharp penciling: Making results look better than they are.
8. Empire building: Accumulating power and control.
The silence saboteurs are little more than sophisticated forms of
lying, cheating and stealing.

Ethical Congruence
When the Organisational values, behaviors

and perceptions are aligned, it is called ethical

congruence.
Normally congruence means agreeing or
conceding exactly when super imposed.

Steps to achieve increased Org.

effectiveness
Clear personal values
Clear organizational values Increased ethical
Consistent leadership
Congruence
Effective system
Increased employee
commitment
Increased organizational
effectiveness

Whistle Blowing
Whistle blowing involves exposing an

employers wrong doing to outsiders, such as

media or government agency
It would be the outcome if an employee goes

public with the complaint which results after if

he fails to convince the company to correct
alleged abuse

Why bringing ethics into business

Ethics governs all voluntary human activities and because business is a

voluntary human activity, ethics should also govern business.

Ethics is a part of business because it points out that business activities
like human activities cannot exist without people and people and
community, business is a cooperative activity whose existence requires
ethical behavior.
Ethics should be brought into business by showing that ethical
considerations are consistent with business standards, mainly profit.
Examples are many good companies have good ethics side by side with
the history of profitable operations e.g.., XEROX, HP, Johnson & Johnson,
TATA, Hindustan Lever, Wipro etc.
Even though factors like recession ,weather ,consumer taste, affect the
profitability, they follow ethical principles
The difficulties foresee in measuring the profitability for ethical companies
are 1. Measuring Profit, 2. Factors affect companies Profit, 3. Competitor
companies, 4. Rational & self interest

Type I Ethics
The relationship between an individual and an

organisation believes to be moral and correct

is called Type I Ethics

Type II Ethics
This the strength of the relationship between

what one believes and how one behaves

Everyone would agree that to do what one
considers wrong is unethical
Eg., when a student knows that he is wrong
when he looks at other students paper during
the exam this is unethical