ROLE OF ETHICS

The Role of Ethics and Evaluation in Management and Organizations

The Role of Ethics and Evaluation in Management and Organizations

Abstract

Managing ethics in the workplace holds tremendous benefit for leaders and managers, benefits both moral and practical. This is particularly true today when it is critical to understand and manage highly diverse values in the workplace. However, today's training about business ethics is flawed.

The field of business ethics has traditionally been the domain of philosophers, academics and social critics. Consequently, much of today's literature about business ethics is not geared toward the practical needs of leaders and managers -- the people primarily responsible for managing ethics in the workplace. The most frequent forms of business ethics literature today typically include: a) Philosophical, which requires extensive orientation and analysis;b) Anthologies, which require much time, review and integration; c) Case studies, which require numerous cases, and much time and analyses to synthesize; and d) Extended stories about businesses "gone bad". (This lack of practical information is not the fault of philosophers, academic or social critics. The problem is the outcome of insufficient involvement of leaders and managers in discussion and literature about business ethics).

Chapter 1: Introduction

For every organization the management is considered as the backbone of the organization and the organizational behaviour. Blake and Mouton recognize four extremes of style. Under the first style (referred to as 'impoverished management'), managers concern themselves very little with either people or results and have minimum involvement in their jobs. At the other extreme are the managers, who display in their actions the highest possible dedication both to people and to results. They are the real 'team leaders' who are able to mesh the production needs of the enterprise with the needs of individuals.

Another style of management (called 'country club management' by some), in which managers have little or no concern for results but are concerned only for people. They promote an environment where everyone is relaxed, friendly and happy but no one is concerned about putting forth a coordinated effort to accomplish enterprise goals. At another extreme are the managers (sometimes referred to as 'autocratic task managers'), who are concerned only with developing an efficient operation, who have little or no concern for people and who are quite autocratic in their style of Management.

Using these four extremes as points of reference, the idea is that it is possible to place every Management approach, or management style, somewhere on the organization. (Blake and Mouton, 2006)

Low and Macmillan (Low and Macmillan 2004) present certain ideas and approaches which have been used in trying to understand Management behaviour. An effective manager as leader is, then, seen as strongly oriented to subordinates, relying on communication to keep all parties working as a unit.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Likert has suggested four systems of management. System 1 management is described as 'exploitive -- authoritative'; these managers are highly autocratic, have little trust in subordinates, motivate people through fear and punishment with occasional rewards, engage in downward communication and limit decision-making to ...