Critical Analysis of Ethical Decision Making in Organizations

This report provides a comprehensive ethical analysis of decision-making within organizations, drawing on several key articles. It begins with an introduction emphasizing the importance of ethical practices for organizational sustainability. The report then reviews four articles: Jones & Ryan's (1998) moral approbation model, Gioia's (1992) Pinto case study analysis, Monahan & Quinn's (2006) neo-institutional theory perspective, and Sonenshein's (2007) rationalist approaches. Each article is examined for its contribution to understanding ethical decision-making and the factors that influence it. The report highlights the differences between the articles, focusing on their case studies and ethical approaches. The Moral Approbation model is chosen as the most dynamic model, and the report concludes with a discussion of the implications of these different perspectives. The report underscores the significance of ethical models in business organizations, advocating for informed assessment and the application of appropriate ethical frameworks.

Running head: ETHICAL ANALYSIS
ETHICAL ANALYSIS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Article Review 1..............................................................................................................................2
Article Review 2..............................................................................................................................3
Article Review 3..............................................................................................................................3
Article Review 4..............................................................................................................................4
Differences.......................................................................................................................................5
Selected Model................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Ethics in business organization are considered one of the most important factors that
increase the level of transparency in the various operations of the organization. This report
discusses about the different models of ethics in business organization. This report discusses
about the differences in the various ethical models and the most appropriate model is chosen.
Literature Review
As per Jones & Ryan (1998), moral responsibility is based on 4 major characteristics.
They are namely the severity of consequence, morality certainty, and degree of complexity and
extent of pressure that behaves unethically. The model that has been chosen in the article is
namely the Moral Approbation model. There are 6 major sections of the model. The very 1st
section deals with the 4 major characteristics of responsibility. In the 2nd section, it deals with the
attributes of the agent’s and their level of moral responsibility. In the 3rd section, anticipated
behaviour plays a major role. 4th section deals with the moral approbation. They are namely the
anticipated moral approbation and desired moral approbation. Furthermore, in the 5th section, it
deals with the establishment of the moral latent. The moral approbation models helps in filling
the gap in between moral judgement and the moral actions within an organization. Untested
individual-difference variable is considered as the critical component of the model. Moral
approbation model will guide the employees in an organization to do their duties in the right way
and abiding by the rule and regulations. An individual requires questioning his conscience before
doing a work as to if the work is being done as per the norms of the company or not.
As per the article, Gioia, D. A. (1992) stated that the ethical issue case study that has
been selected is the Pinto case study. It states that usage of scripts for prevalent case studies

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might be beneficial. It states that the fundamental processing of the assumptions will be put into
question and thus increasing the understanding of the case study. This will help in understanding
the different ethical issues that might be faced in the operational process. All the outcomes that
are possible will be known as well and hence elimination of the ethical issues will be easier. In
this article, the author discusses the fact how firms can make use of different scripts as well as
schemas to describe the experiences and the way in which these are used by the employees to
make personal choices. This is one of the easiest ways to identify the ethical issues present in
the operational process. This is one of the major process that helps in better assessment of the
ethical dilemmas and hence proper steps can be taken for eliminating the same. The moral
considerations that are generally not in the scripts can be certainly added to these.
Again Monahan & Quinn (2006), stated that this article is concerned about the model of
neo institutional theory implementation in an organization for maintaining the ethical aspects of
the business process. This article has been heavily linked with the process of ethical
consideration. Neo-institutional theory refers to the theoretical framework that is generally made
use of to explain diffusion of different practices along with structural arrangements within an
organization. This put an emphasis on the effects on work environment specifically referring to
the expectations of the external stakeholders. It can be stated that social belief has a lot of effect
on the working process of the organization. This can be said to be as the major reason for which
requires organizational structure and the various operations of the same needs to be focussed on.
This theory of neo institutionalism deals with the challenges related to traditional ideologies and
hence this adds to the rational working process. This theory focuses on evaluation of the
behaviour of the employees who are present in the organization. This is one of the major aspects
that need to be considered. The employee behaviour is also considered to be one of the important

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outcomes that will be received by the organization. This institutionalized structure helps in
increasing the organizational stability by influencing the external confluences.
Sonenshein (2007) also stated that this article is based on processing of the rationalist
approaches that are to be taken in the working process. This is one of the major aspects of the
article that have been chosen. It can be stated that there are 3 major approaches that are to be
considered for this process. They are namely Managers as a philosopher research, issue
contingent research and person situation research. In case of the Managers as a philosopher
research approach the major aspect is issues regarding the traditional philosophy ethics. This has
a drastic effect on the operational processes resulting in decrease of transparency in operational
processes. Usage of normative theory is also considered in this stage. Again in the issue
contingent research approach the main aspect is building on both managers as well as the person
situational model. This is considered to be the distinct feature of the model. This approach calls
for the attention of the importance of characteristic of various ethical models. Moral intensity
regarding the difference in between the consequences are also considered in the process.
Selected Model
The model that has been selected after analysing the ethical issues at a whole is the Moral
Approbation model. Firstly, the major reason for selecting this model is that this model helps in
proper distinction in between the several aspects of functional unit. This is one of the major
factors that ensure that the operational process will be performed in a manner that will provide
proper management in functional process. Secondly, this model ensures the fact that better
management of the issues present in each and every domain can be rectified. Analysing the
different sections of the society, the better ethical dilemmas of the business organization at a

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whole can be understood. Cognitive moral development is also performed which helps in
enhancing the ethical aspect of the employees.
Differences and Conclusion
The major differences in the articles are that they are based on different case studies and
hence wise the ethical approaches that are to be considered for each case studies are stated.
Furthermore the articles help in understanding the significance of the ethical models as per the
requirement of the cases.
From the above discussion it can be stated that there are several ethics related models that
can be used in the business organization as the entire process is dependent on the specificity of
the requirement. This is the main reason for proper assessment of different ethics models. After
researching different models, Moral Approbation model has been chosen as the most dynamic
model.

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REFERENCES
Gioia, D. A. (1992). 'Pinto fires and personal ethics: A script analysis of missed
opportunities', (Links to an external site.)Journal of Business Ethics, 11(5-6), 379-389.
Jones, TM & Ryan, LV (1998) 'The effect of organizational forces on individual morality:
Judgment, moral approbation, and behavior ', Business Ethics Quarterly, 8 (3), 431-45.
Monahan, S. C., & Quinn, B. A. (2006) 'Beyond ‘bad apples’ and ‘weak leaders’ Toward a neo-
institutional explanation of organizational deviance'. Theoretical Criminology, 10(3),
361-385.
Sonenshein, S. (2007) 'The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to
ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model'. Academy of Management
Review, 32(4), 1022-1040.