Argumentative Essay: Ethics Versus Power in Decision Making

This essay examines the crucial role of ethics in managerial decision-making within business environments. It emphasizes the importance of ethical standards, principles, and values in guiding managerial actions and behaviors. The essay explores how ethics influences decision-making processes, from policy development to the evaluation of alternatives, and highlights the significance of commitment, consciousness, and competency in ethical decision-making. It also discusses various ethical standards like utilitarianism, rights, fairness, common good, and virtue, as well as factors that improve ethical standards, such as legislation and ethical codes. Furthermore, it addresses the impact of ethics on protecting business reputation, ensuring fair practices, and motivating employees. The essay also delves into the influence of internal and external factors, including stakeholders, competitors, and environmental considerations, on the decision-making process, and concludes by underscoring the importance of ethical behavior in handling uncertainty and achieving business objectives. References are provided to support the arguments.

Ethics

Ethics influences managerial decision making in certain business environments.
In every business, it is necessary for the management to consider ethics. Ethics in
business are the standards of organizations, principles, sets of values and norms which are
followed for actions and behavior of an individual in the business environment. Ethics helps the
management in taking all the decision which are related to the management for the future growth
of the business. It means to be morally correct for making the decision is important for creating a
professional work environment for both, employees and leaders. It is necessary for the
management and leaders to be fair with all the employees. Ethics is the moral philosophy and it
is important for building and managing the business with ethical decisions and strategies. Ethics
influences managerial decision making as it is a set of moral principles or beliefs which affect
the behavior of employees. In business, it is important to do the right things and make effective
decisions for employees and consumers (Dane and Pratt, 2007). Ethics is considered by the
management for making and developing the policies. In a certain business environment, ethics
influences managerial decision making as the management is responsible for making the policies
and they have to consider and follow the ethical behavior for making the effective use and
satisfying the employees.
Ethics helps in developing the decision-making skills in managers for taking the effective
decision. Ethics in business comprises the principles and standards that help in guiding the
employees and team to work in a team (Brown, et al., 2010). Ethics impacts the decision making
the process in an organization. Management has to be ethical in managerial decision making as it
is a process of evaluating and choosing from alternatives constantly with ethical principles. It is
necessary for managerial decision making to perceive and eliminate the various unethical options
and choose the best ethical option for management and employees.
The managerial decision-making process requires the various ethical decisions which are
to be considered. It requires commitment, consciousness, and competency. Commitment in
business is when an individual is a desire to do the things right regardless of the cost
(Woiceshyn, 2011). Consciousness is when an individual is aware to act consistently and use
moral conviction in behavior at the workplace. Competency is managerial decision making is to

have an ability to collect and evaluate information and develop the various alternatives and
analyses the potential consequences and risk which are associated with the business. The
managerial decision-making process involves the identification of problems in which the
employees and generate the alternative solutions for the problems and then the management has
to choose from the alternative after evaluating and implementation is the last step of the chosen
solution. The problems which are faced by the management in managerial decision making are
the crisis, non-crisis, and opportunity problems (Wheeler, 2007). Managerial decision-making
problems require immediate action which is to be resolved instantly. Ethics helps in safeguarding
the employees and groups from the negative consequences of managerial decision making.
Managers have to make ethical decisions for every situation for positive outcomes.
Managerial decision making in business is to make some decisions for the business it can
be for the process, product, employees or taking any action for something. In business, it is
necessary for the management to identify the various ethical standards. There are various types
of ethical standards: Utilitarian, rights, fairness, common good and virtue (Hartman, et al., 2008).
To improve the ethical standards of the business, managers have to consider the factors like
legislation, government rules, and regulations, ethical codes, social pressures and adopt the
ethical climate in the business. Managers must make the policies that benefit the employees and
motivates them to work for the organization effectively and efficiently. Ethics in managerial
decision making helps in protecting the reputation of the business in the market. It helps in
making the activities of business fair and reasonable for the customers (Sayegh, et al., 2004).
In business, management of the organization can determine the obligations and duties
which are to be followed by the employees because of the ethics in business. It helps in running
the business smoothly if the managerial decisions are taken appropriately by the managers (Loe,
2000). Managerial decision making is crucial for managers and ethics can motivate managers to
make ethical decisions as the wrong decision can ruin the business and the employees. It is
beneficial for managers to make decisions at the right time so that it will impact business
performance. Managerial decision-making skills are the most important skills which are required
by managers of every business.
Every business environment requires ethics in the managerial decision-making process.
There are various factors also which affect the ethics in the business environment by the

managerial decision-making process. Ethics is important in influencing managerial decision
making because it helps in satisfying the basic needs of employees as every employee desires to
be himself and with their work in the business. Ethics helps in maintaining and uniting people in
the business (Negulescu, 2004). Ethics makes it possible for the management to reach the
common goal of the business. Ethics has objective and subjective factors that affect managerial
decision making in the business.
In the managerial decision-making process, the decisions which are taken by the
management are based on the five intuitions. It can be experience-based decision making where
the decision by managers is based on the experience of the past. Decisions made can be based on
the feeling or emotions of managers which is affect-initiated decisions. Cognitive based
decisions by the management are based on the skills, knowledge, and training (George, et al.,
2005). Sometimes managers can make the decisions with their subconscious mind in some
urgent situations but it is necessary for them to follow the rules and regulations along with the
ethics of business. When the decisions by managers are made based on ethical values and culture
which are implemented in the business to run and grow the business.
As the ethics influence the managerial decision-making process which is affected by the
internal and external factors linked with the businesses. Ethics is involved in every step of the
managerial decision-making process which includes eight steps in every business environment
(Corner, 2009). The various environmental factors which reflect on the process can be internal or
external. These are stakeholders, competitors, socio-cultural, ethical, political and natural.
Managerial decision-making process includes the eight steps and in the first stage manager of the
business recognizes and defines the various problems or opportunities which are available in the
business for future growth and development and it must be done along with considering the
ethics. In the second step, the manager has to collect and process the data for the decision to be
taken for the business. The manager has to identify alternative methods for solving the problems
of finding different opportunities. It is necessary for managers to determine the criteria for
selecting the appropriate alternative for implementation as the action is taken for decision
making. In the process of managerial decision making, the main step is evaluation in which the
manager has to analyze the situation and method which was implemented to learn for the future
for making the corrective decision in the future (Bowen, 2005). The information is gathered form

the employees as feedback for making an effective decision in the future. Feedback is necessary
for the business to improve the quality of the decisions in the future. There are various factors
like personal, psychological and environmental factors that affect the managerial decision-
making process. The behavior and personality of managers are considered for the decision
making in business as all the decisions are taken by managers and managers have to consider
ethics in making any decision. Personal factors include the experience, age, knowledge which the
managers have to play the role in making all the decisions. The business environment also affects
the managers in making managerial decision making (Baron and Baron, 2003). The external
environment also makes it difficult for managers to make an effective decision for the business.
It is important for managers to interact with the external environment for making effective
decisions. Environmental factors that must be considered are stakeholders, competition, and
technology, legal, political and natural factors as these effects in managerial decision making.
Every manager has to handle the situation in business certainty and uncertainty. It is the
responsibility of a manager to have all the information and knowledge about the business and
must analyze the situations and conditions for making effective decisions for the business. It is
necessary for managers to manage the workplace effectively and efficiently. Manager can help
the business to grow by implementing the correct ethics at the workplace. Ethics helps in
influencing managerial decision making in a certain business environment as a manager can
handle any situation which may affect the business positively or negatively.

Reference
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