MAN101 Report: A Deep Dive into Decision-Making in Management (MAN101)

This report, prepared for a MAN101 assignment, analyzes the decision-making process within a management context, specifically addressing ethical issues. It uses the APM Company as a real-world example, focusing on unethical activities such as overcharging and customer harassment. The report e...Read More

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Executive summary
Code of ethics is one of the most important tools that must be used by all the organizations for
their successful operation in the industry. A company has to abide by the rules and regulations as
that they can work in the best interest of their clients. APM Company tries to provide service to
the poor, old and the disabled people of Australia and other parts of the organization. However
there are charges against them that they have been engaging in some unethical activities by ill
treating their customers. They are accused of charging heavy sum of money for the insurance of
dead clients and also harassing customers with the request of bringing some unnecessary
documents. Thus they have to work over their decision making systems and make sure that they
are being able to overcome these issues.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion........................................................................................................................................5
Unethical activities.......................................................................................................................5
Utilitarian theory..........................................................................................................................6
Theory of virtue ethics.................................................................................................................6
Strategies to be taken by the company............................................................................................7
 Identify Alternatives.............................................................................................................7
 Take Action..........................................................................................................................7
 Gather Information...............................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Decision making is one of the most important aspects of an organizational setup. It is the
responsibility of the leaders and the managers to make sure that they are using all the proper
decision making tools and taking the apt decision without any loss of valuable time. APM is one
of the very well known companies in Australia that mainly tries to provide a proper disability
service to all the disabled and unemployed people of Australia and also different other parts of
the organization. However there have been several unethical issues taking place in the
organization due to the different kinds of negative incidents that have taken place in the recent
years. Dancekert (2018) has stated that the organization mainly aims at providing moral,
financial and also insurance services to the disabled people. They have been doing a good and
commendable work by providing best services. However Madary and Metzinger (2016) have
argued in the same context that there have been several unethical activities in the organization.
This research has mainly dealt with the issue covered by Sydney Morning Herald. This issue
mainly talks about the huge amount of money that was charged by The APM Company over the
life insurance of dead people (Lefkowitz, 2017). As per the opinion of the company they have
only charged a minimum amount of money or a minimum amount of time so that they can keep
it as an asset during the time span through which it is being processed. However their practices
have really been unlawful as they have refused many of their customers due to their
inconvenience of the causes for asking for the insurances.

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Discussion
Unethical activities
Dancekert (2018) has suggested that the companies have to abide by a strict set of rules
and regulations in order to satisfy their customers and also their employees as well. They have to
make sure that all the employees working in their organization are capable of getting a justified
and peaceful working ambiance. In order to make sure that all the customers are getting a proper
ethical treatment the organizations have to always abide by the ethical code of conduct. Abiding
by the code of ethics of the company they must have not ill-treated the customers. It was their
duty to make sure that they are not asking for any unnecessary charges from the customers
(Paquette, Sommerfeldt & Kent, 2015). However they have ill treated the patients of breast
cancer by not providing them the insurance on the account of the fact that they did not get much
of the portions of their breasts removed. Thus this was a justified ground for which the APM
Company can actually deny the insurance claim to these people. On bringing about legal charges
against the company on ill-treating these patients, the company said that they do not believe
these act to go beyond their ethics or their community standard.
It was also said by a nurse that as she had grown old and was suffering from a large
number of health and mental disorders she wanted to get insurance from the company. However
the company did not provide her the loan on easy and acceptable grounds. Instead these people
like the nurse had been harmed and also harassed as the company kept on calling her and asking
for the proper proofs of the medical documents that would be successful in proving her suitable
for getting the medical loan. As per the opinion of the nurse the company would ask for getting
to know some kinds of information from that nurse which were actually not needed or were not
associated with the getting of the claim. Till 2013 they only kept on asking for the different kinds

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of document that could actually act as a proof to know if the nurse really was suitable for getting
the insurance sanctioned or not
Utilitarian theory
It can be said that the Utilitarian theory of ethics is being followed here as they are trying
to look after the success of a larger section of people at the cost of others. However this practice
is really very bad. APM Company is looking after the welfare of the richer people and influential
people but at the same time they are ignoring the interest of people who are poor or are not able
to get a good influential support after them. This is considered to be really harsh as the company
is not being able to strike a proper balance between all their customers irrespective of their
economic or their social backgrounds (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). They have to make sure that
they are able to render their services to all their customers irrespective of their social or their
economic backgrounds.
Theory of virtue ethics
The theory of virtue ethics must be utilized so that the company is able to work for the
overall and the common good of the customers. Giorgini et al., (2015) has suggested that the
manners or the leaders must try their level best to develop good values among their employees
(Smith, 2017). In order to do that they have to practice those values and principles which they
want to preach (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016). In order to do that they must take the valuable
advices and the opinions of employees and also the stakeholders, In other words taking the
opinions and the opinions of all the stakeholders in the decision making and policy framing
process is of utmost importance.

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The theory of Deontology must also be used by the company in this approach. This is
because they will be able to understand the duties or the kinds of responsibilities that they are
actually having towards their clients, their society and also their customers (Segon & Booth,
2015). APM is aimed at providing services to the sick, unemployed and the people who are
rendered disabled. Therefore they are having a duty towards the society as a whole they must be
able to instill this thought among all their employees (Constantinescu et al., 2018).
Common good approach must be followed by the company so that they can work for the benefit
of the organization
Strategies to be taken by the company
 Identify Alternatives
The organization must have established different kinds of alternatives that can be used for
the betterment of their services. Alternatives like short insurance policies, feedbacks
systems customer care policies must have been developed so that the customers can
actually avail these facilities.
 Take Action
The management has to develop a 360 Degree Feedback system so that they can actually
take the feedback from all their customers before taking any kinds of final decisions.
 Gather Information
Regular meetings and feedback sessions along with 360 degree feedback systems must be
carried on so that proper information can be gathered. This will help the company to

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know if the customers are actually getting benefitted from their services or the betterment
facilities that must be used.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that ethics is one of the major building blocks of the overall
reputation of the organization. They must make sure that all the employees of the organization
are developing a sound understanding of then ethical codes of conduct of the organization and
also try to implement the same in their day to day activities (Rowe, 2017). In particular an
organization like the APM must be able to work with a common good approach and also instill a
good set of values within the ambiance of the organization. Charging more amount of money on
the insurance of the dead people or harassing the clients for unnecessary documents is really
unethical on the oat of the organization. Thus they have to formulae new set of policies so that
they can work for the overall good of all their clients rather than thinking about their own
personal benefits.
Recommendations
 It is recommended that the management make a horizontal communication system so that
the management can take the opinions and then feedbacks of their employees while
formulating any decision making policies
 The management has to develop a 360 Degree Feedback system so that they can actually
take the feedback from all their customers before taking any kinds of final decisions.

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 Special experts must be recruited from outside so that they can revise the ethical codes of
conduct and can also modify the existing codes of duties.
 Social interview sessions like the Personal Interviews or the group discussion sessions
must be conducted so that the managers can intact with the customers and know about the
different kinds of treatments that they have received at different kinds of situations.
 Discounted rates of insurance premiums and easy processes of reaching out to the
organization must be de eloped so that all the clients can get a smooth process.
 It is the duty of the organization to arrange for many different kinds of workshops and
campaigns so that they can give a proper kind of training to all their employees. This will
be helping them to make sure that all their employees are working as per the accepted
standards of the ethics. Proper ethical standards have tie b maintained so that the
company can serve the customers better.
 None of the policies will be able to work properly if no feedbacks are taken. Thus the
company will have to take proper feedbacks on a regular basis.

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References
Constantinescu, M. I. H. A. E. L. A., & Kaptein, M. U. E. L. (2018). Virtue Ethics and CSR: the
two sides of Sustainable Organizational Performance. Wermayer, W., Looser, S. & Del
Baldo, M. Intrinsic CSR in Competitive Companies: The Categorical Imperative of Doing
Well (1-17). London: Palgrave.
Dancekert, S. (2018). AMP digs in over charging dead people life insurance premiums. Sydney
Morning Herald Available at-
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/amp-digs-in-over-charging-dead-
people-life-insurance-premiums-20181003-p507io.html
Giorgini, V., Mecca, J. T., Gibson, C., Medeiros, K., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., &
Devenport, L. D. (2015). Researcher perceptions of ethical guidelines and codes of
conduct. Accountability in research, 22(3), 123-138.
Lefkowitz, J. (2017). Ethics and values in industrial-organizational psychology. Routledge.
Letwin, C., Wo, D., Folger, R., Rice, D., Taylor, R., Richard, B., & Taylor, S. (2016). The
“right” and the “good” in ethical leadership: Implications for supervisors’ performance
and promotability evaluations. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(4), 743-755.
Madary, M., & Metzinger, T. K. (2016). Real virtuality: a code of ethical conduct.
recommendations for good scientific practice and the consumers of vr-technology.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 3, 3.
Paquette, M., Sommerfeldt, E. J., & Kent, M. L. (2015). Do the ends justify the means?
Dialogue, development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations
Review, 41(1), 30-39.

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Rowe, G. (2017). VALUES AND ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL
CARE. The Handbook for Nursing Associates and Assistant Practitioners, 20.
Segon, M., & Booth, C. (2015). Virtue: The missing ethics element in emotional intelligence.
Journal of Business Ethics, 128(4), 789-802.
Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education:
Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Smith, R. S. (2017). Virtue ethics and moral knowledge: philosophy of language after MacIntyre
and Hauerwas. Routledge.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do
it right. John Wiley & Sons.