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I believe ethical decision making refers to the actions of taking alternatives possibilities with commitment in doing the right thing as well as having consciousness in that ones actions must apply moral convictions and competency to be able to foresee potential consequences. In doing this, the decision-maker will demonstrate respect and most of all responsibility. This is why I will be doing a critical analysis of four articles by drawing out key ethical decision-making that will be exposed as well as how agents were influenced in making decisions. In doing that, I will also evaluate the similarities and differences of certain decision making. And finally, I will discuss a reasonable explanation on the perspective that I believe best represent what ethical decision-making is.
(Johns & Ryan 1997) dives on the effect of organisational forces on individual morality by inserting that moral approbation influences moral judgement and moral actions. The author remarks that referent groups and organisational facets depending on the aspects of moral approbation influences individual behaviours and their decision making. This is because people seek ratification from their influencer depending on their desired level or an anticipated moral level of moral approbation. They further illustrate that agents decision is also dependent on one of four elements, that is the ‘severity of consequence, moral certainty, degree of complexity, and extent of pressure to behave,’ Jones & Ryan (1997, p. 433-434). With regards to ethics and decision making, we can understand how ones morality varies under the effects of organisational factors.
(Gioia 1992) illuminated how to script schemas drawn by the organisation differ from the real-life situation based on his own experiences with Ford. He declares that due to the immense duties as a recall coordinator, he developed a cognitive technique, the Script Schemas, Gioia (1992, p. 387) a framework used in his decision making that did not consider the issues in ethical terms because ethical dimension was not included. In other words, his decision was driven by a dominant script for time, place and context which was why he failed to evaluate ethical issues. Consequently, he disregarded critical issues by acting against his ethical principles because he was intimidated by the strong pressure to heel to company preferences, therefore following a utilitarian philosophy in the hope of keeping his job. His experiences describe how job positions and culture can influence our perception of information, hence affecting the scripts we developed. Unequivocally, in pursue of business interest, Ford has displayed the concept of amoral management (Carroll 2001), in knowing their unethical decision may endanger the lives on the road.
(Monahan and Quinn 2006) describes the issue regarding bad apples and weak leaders using a neo-institutional explanation of organisational deviance. The authors argue that organisations are significant in generating deviant behaviours due to the decoupling system. They discussed the decoupling strategy used in organisation by drawing references to the two cases, Abu Ghraib prison and Architectural internship. In Abu Ghraib prisons case, the authors argue that the unclear standard of the organisation has promoted the abuses at Abu Ghraib in prison. In the architectural internship case, fabrication of documents was widely known practices. These two cases share common traits, whereby organisations adopted decoupling, lack of monitoring, and unconcerned high positioned officials. Both cases present an example of failed ethical decision making and leadership as well as a lack of moral responsibility.
(Sonenshein 2007) looks at an ethical decision through the sensemaking-intuition model (SIM). (SIM) was introduced to offer another perspective in overcoming limitations of rationalist approaches as they ‘ignore the equivocality and uncertainty present in an organisational setting and privilege moral reasoning over intuition,’ Sonenshein (2007, p.1035). It consists of key phases: issue construction, intuition, and justification (Sonenshein 2007). It also explored the various ways of responses towards ethical issues, mainly focussing on how individuals developed moral intuition and engage in moral reason to respond to different ethical issues. In discussing how intuition can be formed, the author explains how an individual feeling may be affected by his or her surroundings thus changing his or her perception of a situation.
All four articles presented similar and a few differences in their approach in decision making. Similarities that were mainly exposed, is the organisation itself. They all argue that organisations set themselves up for ethical calamity by creating a workplace where people feel pressured to make choices that result in a blindside for ethical consequences. For example, Jones & Ryan (1997) states that agents decision depended on the severity of consequences and extent of pressure to behave because they were influenced by organisational facets. In a similar hand, Gioia (1992) admitted that he was intimidated by the pressure to heel to the company and disregarded ethical issues in decision making. (Monahan and Quinn 2006) illustrated how higher-ups in the organisation failed to take responsibility and control when unclear policies and practices led to the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison and fabrication of documents in Architectural internship. (Sonenshein 2007) finds that decision-makers are driven by intuition due to their surroundings and the situation within their organisation. Key differences were the methods used to combat the situation to arrive at their decision. (Jones and Ryan 1997) based decisions off moral approbation: the amount of approval that individuals require from themselves or others to proceed with moral actions without discomfort. Gioia (1992) claims that he relied on cognitive technique; script schemas where a decision was a result of time, place, and context. In Monahan and Quinn (2006) and Sonenshein (2007) case, the author states that the lack of ministering and unconcerned high positioned officials gave room and flexibility to those at a lower level to make choices for themselves without clear guidance and ethical standard. This resulted in uncertainty in an organisation and moral reasoning over intuition where decisions are based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning because they assume its the best for the organisation and themselves.
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