Applied Ethics: Racial Discrimination in Organizations

This report delves into the crucial ethical issue of racial discrimination within organizations operating in the global economy. It emphasizes the significance of fair treatment and equal opportunities for all employees, irrespective of their racial backgrounds. The report highlights the prevalence of racial discrimination, providing key facts and statistics, and examines the impact on employment, healthcare, and legal restrictions. It explores Act Utilitarianism as a potential ethical framework, discussing its positive aspects such as its universal basis and alignment with democratic principles, while also addressing its negative aspects, including its focus on immediate situations and the subjectivity of happiness. The report concludes by advocating for the implementation of anti-discrimination laws and cross-cultural training programs to foster a harmonious and equitable work environment.

RUNNING HEAD: APPLIED ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Applied Ethics and Sustainability
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2APPLIED ETHICS
Is racial discrimination ethical for organizations to work in a global economy?
Importance of the ethical issue
Racial discrimination is one of the major issues that is seen in different organizations
across the world. This is a very important topic of research and analysis because all the
employees must be given an equal amount of responsibilities and chances for promotions
irrespective of their racial or ethnic backgrounds. However racial discrimination is one of the
major issues that is existent both in the rural and also in urban areas. To work successfully within
the context of a global economy all the employers need to ensure that they are staying unbiased
and neutral. In other words, they must be able to ensure that they are taking care of the welfare
interest of their employees irrespective of their racial or socio-cultural background (de Kock and
Hauptfleisch 2018).
People who belong to other races apart from the native Australians are often asked to
submit more number of health documents before they can appear for any job interviews or
even get selected. It also has significant impact on the opportunities of
people’s employment and housing. For example,
If an Anglo applicant tries to get the same job along with a Chinese, Mid Eastern, Italian
and other applicants, the number of health documents and other documents to be submitted by
them will also vary.

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Key facts
 Racial discrimination is present within all the organizations working in the global
economy. A 2011 survey of teaching staff in higher education sectors revealed that more
than 70% of students who are Aboriginal academics and professional staffs have
suffered through discrimination and racisim in their workplaces (Snyder and Schwartz 2019).
 There must be no wage inequalities among employees based on their racial backgrounds.
The chances of promotions must be strictly based on merit and performance.
 It is the duty or the responsibility of the employers to make sure that they are developing
some cross-cultural training sessions so that all the employees can respect each other and
also embrace the racial differences.
 The health care organizations also give more importance to the Native Australians or the
white-skinned people in comparison to the aboriginals.
 While working in Global economy the issue of racial discrimination is spreading to all the
different countries like the U.S. During the period 2013 to 2017, white skinned patients
in the US got immediate and the better health facilities than in comparison to the 34% of
Hispanic patients, 40% of Black patients, and 40% of Native American patients.
 Legal restrictions are also much more strict than the aboriginals than the native Australian

4APPLIED ETHICS
for the same crimes
Act Unitarianism
Act Unitarianism is an ethical approach Act that strongly trusts in the actions of a person to be
morally right and ethical if it delivers the best possible results in that particular situation.
Positive aspects
 Organizations working in the global economy can use Act Utilitarianism to stop racial
discrimination among employees as this is easy to understand by all. For example, if
some Australian employees are racially harassing an employee from an aboriginal
background, then the managers might use this approach and train them to work
cooperatively.
 To follow this approach, people do not need to follow any particular religion. In other
words, this Act can be implemented on all people and has a Universal basis. This is based
purely on generation happiness for people and reducing the conflict that is taking place
(Olsson 2017).
 Utilitarianism always goes by the democratic principles that are understood by all and
accepted. In other words, the democratic rule like fair works act or the Anti-
discriminatory acts which are universally acclaimed to protect employee rights against
discrimination forms the basics of this act (Hebl, Cheng and Ng 2019).

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Negative aspects
 Act Utilitarianism focuses more on today or the immediate situation than the future. There
is no certainty of the future. In other words, unlike the Utilitarian approach that focuses
on the actual actions of people in general, Act utilitarianism focuses only on human
actions in a specific situation. Therefore there is no certainty if employees will stop
harassing each other on racial grounds.
 The main purpose of this act is to generate the happiness of people above all. However,
happiness is subjective. However, as soon as people no longer gain any happiness from
working together irrespective of racial grounds, they will no longer abide by it and the
situation may reverse back to the same (Lindebaum and Raftopoulou 2017).
 Society will always declare the outcomes of following this act. Society may dictate some
age-old Universal and specific rules for over centuries thinking that it will bring about
happiness for the majority of people. However, as the global economy is changing people
might also try to develop new and innovative ideas of their own.
Conclusion
Anti racial discrimination laws and Acts lime the Fair work acts must always be
implemented and used in all the organizations that are working in the global economy. This is
because as many different employees are coming from different racial and ethnic backgrounds,
there will always be some issues like differences in opinions and though the process. However to
get the best results all of them have to be trained with proper cross-cultural campaigns and
workshops so that they can work in peace and harmony.

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References
de Kock, F.S. and Hauptfleisch, D.B., 2018. Reducing racial similarity bias in interviews by
increasing structure: A quasi-experiment using multilevel analysis. International Perspectives in
Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 7(3), p.137.
Hebl, M., Cheng, S.K. and Ng, L.C., 2019. Modern Discrimination in Organizations. Annual
Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 7.
Lindebaum, D. and Raftopoulou, E., 2017. What would John Stuart Mill say? A utilitarian
perspective on contemporary neuroscience debates in leadership. Journal of Business
Ethics, 144(4), pp.813-822.
Olsson, M., 2017. Ethics in Hiring: Nepotism, Meritocracy, or Utilitarian Compassion.
Snyder, C.R. and Schwartz, M.R., 2019. EXPERIENCES OF WORKPLACE RACIAL
DISCRIMINATION AMONG PEOPLE OF COLOR IN HEALTHCARE
PROFESSIONS. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 26(3).