Ethics in Organizations

Ethics in Organizations

            Ethics can be defined in many ways. Pamela Shockeley-Zalaback (2009) defines ethics as “moral principles that guide judgments about good and bad, right and wrong, not just effectiveness or efficiency” (p. 111). This definition will serve the purpose that I intend to discuss in this paper. In this paper, I will examine two scenarios regarding potentially unethical behavior, and discuss what should be done in this situation, ethically, and what I, as an individual, would be likely to do.

            The first scenario I plan to discuss is one where a personnel director is enlisted to screen applicants for promotions. Usually, the top three candidates are sent for interviews with management. The newest vacancy is on the president of the company’s personal staff, and the personnel director knows that the president does not like women on his staff. The dilemma in this situation arises because the top three applicants for this particular job are female (Shockeley-Zalaback, 2009, p. 125-6).

            I will start with what should be done in this situation. Ethically and legally, any qualified applicant for a job cannot be disqualified due to race, age, gender, or religion. Equal Employment Opportunity Acts prevent this kind of discrimination. Because the president of the company is, apparently, above reproach, there are no higher channels that the personnel director could go through to have the president spoken with about sexism. If I were put into this position, I think that I would do as much research as I could on Equal Employment Opportunity and take this information to the president. I would then explain to him that, regardless of his personal feelings about female workers, the top three applicants for this position happen to be female. I would tell him that disqualifying female applicants just because of their sex is not only ethically wrong, it is also illegal. Then I would send those top three applicants to him for an interview and let him choose whether or not to hire one of those women for the open position.

            What I, personally, would do in this situation is not that much different than what, ethically, should be done. Most likely, put in that position, it would depend on how stable my job was. If I knew that I was secure in my job and that I would not lose my job for speaking up, I would speak to the president about being sexist and give him the three female applicants. However, if I were not so secure in my job and feared that speaking to the president could compromise my career, I would likely rearrange my qualifications to try to find a male applicant that fit the criteria I needed. You never know, the president could possibly choose the better qualified female applicant on his own, even though it is unlikely.

            The next situation I plan to discuss is that of a personnel liaison being confronted with possible drug use in the production area of the company. The source that brought this information to the liaison does not wish her name to be mentioned in relation to this and does not want to give specifics, for fear of being called out as a whistle-blower. She also states that some other personnel liaisons may be involved and asks that you not bring the possible drug use up to them (Shockeley-Zalaback, 2009, p. 126).

            In this situation, there are several solutions that would be considered ethical, depending on how much authority the personnel liaison has in the company and what the company’s drug policy is. If the company has a posted drug policy that states that employees can and will be subjected to random drug testing, and the liaison has the authority to order such tests, she could run a random drug screen of the whole production floor. If she does not have the authority, she could bring up the employee’s concerns to her supervisor, who can decide what to do with the information that you have been given.

            What I would do in this situation is probably about the same as what should be done. As a personnel liaison, I would likely try to find the source of the information. As everybody knows, the “grapevine” is not exactly a reliable source for information. This information could be nothing more than a rumor spread in the hopes of costing somebody his or her job. Things like this should not happen in organizations, but the fact is that they do. So, given the scarce information from the source, I would likely try to find out exactly how true that information is before going ahead with drug testing or going to a supervisor.

            Ethics determine what you should do in any given situation. They are the right and wrong of a situation. Values determine what you actually would do in that same situation. While these may often determine that you would do the same thing in each situation, that is not always the case. Values may get in the way of ethics, or vice versa. For example, in the first scenario in this paper, if the personnel director has a high value of financial security, the outcome would be very different from that of a personnel director with a high value of sexual equality. The question remains, should ethics or values be what guides you in your life?

References

Shockeley-Zalabak, P. (2009). Fundamentals of organizational communication: Knowledge,

            sensitivity, skills, values (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.