Ethical Dilemma

Running head: ETHICAL DILEMMA
Ethical dilemma
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Table of Contents
PART A: ETHICAL DILEMMA ESSAY.............................................................................2
PART B: PORTFOLIO OF EVIDENCE..............................................................................6
Appendix A: The Ethical Leadership Debate....................................................................6
Appendix B: Seminar Case.................................................................................................8
Appendix C: Interpersonal and Team-working Skills...................................................11
References...............................................................................................................................12

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PART A: ETHICAL DILEMMA ESSAY
Every individual possess a distinctive moral responsibility and principles that
influence his or her actions and behaviour. The conflict that arises in these personal views
and opinion is what we know as a dilemma. I have been an employee of company X since
past 5 years. The company is a small and medium-sized enterprise. Lately, I have faced a
situation at my workplace that have put me in an ethical dilemma. The manager of our
company Madam A, seem to have favoured a particular employee in our company named Mr
B. Now we all know that favouritism is a form of unethical act, which is not acceptable at any
workplace. However, Madam A has offered Mr B with increment who coincidently is the son
of her good friend. Mr B works as a junior subordinate in our company and until now have
not been a significant contributor for the company, nonetheless, was privileged with an
increment. Such action is a clear violation of professional ethics and I am not willing to
accept it.
The company will have a negative impact as a result of favouritism. The head of
management is responsible for offering promotions and assign an employee with
responsibilities based on his or her capabilities. However, when these are compromised and
the management ignores employee value then the company shall cease itself to attract skilled
and qualified employees. The company is bound to be damaged eventually as it compromises
with qualified employees and practice favouritism instead. Employee favouritism can also be
termed as employee cancer since it creates an unjust environment in the workplace, which
eventually generates conflict among employees and thus, downgrading the company’s
position and reputation (Bute, 2011). A sickness as such must be uprooted completely then
only it is possible for it to be cured. Therefore, I am in a situation of ethical dilemma to pick
an option to either report this unjust practice of favouritism to the Director or endure this
situation silently as my other colleagues do. After a lot of thought, I decided to go for the

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former option. The Director of the company was co-operative enough and listened to the
entire scenario. He decided to investigate the matter and take necessary actions against it.
One of the characteristics of an ethical issue is moral intensity, which influences the
ethical level of a decision (Jones, 1991). It is less likely for an individual to take unethical
decision when there is high level of moral intensity of an issue (Coram et al., 2008). In order
to increase the chances of healthy competition among employees the authorities of the
company must be reported with such unethical practice of favouritism then only such practice
can be eliminated from a workplace. In reference to the social consensus, the amount of
support that I received from my peers in exposing the unjustified practice of favouritism at
our company to our Director increased my moral intensity. Adding to this, our Director
already knew about this ill practice of favouritism in our company and he did not delay a
minute in initiating investigation about this reported matter, as it would hamper company’s
position as well as reputation.
The shorter the amount of time between the investigation procedure and its resulting
outcomes the greater shall be temporal immediacy and moral intensity (Jones, 1991). The
resulting outcome after the completion of investigation will bring in immediate amendments
in the employees welfare of the company. The above-mentioned scenario includes the
managerial Head Madam A, the Director of the Company including the employees Mr B, me
and my other colleagues therefore, the level of proximity is high as every individual belongs
to the same organisation. One of the components of moral intensity is concentration of effect,
which includes the opposite function of the total number of people being affected by the
ethical act (Jones, 1991). The action adopted by me brought positive impact in employees’
morale as this fixed the issue of favouritism and brought in a more stable rewarding system.
Hence, the company’s reputation was also regained by discarding the unjust act of
favouritism from the workplace.