Individual Factors
Many individual factors affect a person's ethical behavior at work, such as knowledge, values, personal goals, morals and personality. The more information that you have about a subject, the better chance you will make an informed, ethical decision.
For example, what if you had to decide whether to approve building a new company store? What if you did not have the knowledge that the store would disturb an endangered species nest? Without the appropriate knowledge, you could be choosing an unethical path.
Values are an individual's judgment or standard of behavior. They are another individual factor that affects ethical behavior. To some people, acting in an improper way is just a part of doing business. Would you feel that it is ethical to make up lies about your competitor just to win a contract? Some people's standard of behavior will feel that lying for a business financial win is not unethical.
Morals are another individual characteristic that can affect an individual's ethics. Morals are the rules people develop as a result of cultural norms and values and are, traditionally, what employees learn from their childhood, culture, education, religion, etc. They are usually described as good or bad behavior. Would you have good morals if you pushed a product on a customer that you knew was not going to help solve a problem?
Many ethical work situations will also be affected by a person's goals. Which characteristics do you feel are worthy to aspire to? Is financial gain ranked ahead of good character or integrity? If your personal goals are about acquiring wealth no matter what the consequence, then you might act unethical in the future.
Lastly, an employee's personality plays an important factor in determining ethical behavior. Do you enjoy risk or do you prefer the safe route? Individuals who prefer to take risks tend to have a higher chance of unethical conduct at work. For example, if you are willing to risk dumping chemicals into a nearby water supply to launch a profitable drug, then your riskiness could end up creating health issues in local citizens for the sake of financial gain.
Social Factors
Cultural norms, the Internet and friends and family are three social factors that can affect ethical behavior. Different cultures have norms that vary from place to place in the business world. For example, you might have to face a request for a bribe in order to conduct business in certain countries in South America. This might be unethical to you but considered an acceptable norm in their workplace.
Friends, family and co-workers also play an important role in your ethical decision making. If you witness your father bringing home business supplies every month from work, would you believe it is ethical to steal staplers, envelopes, etc. from your place of business? Lastly, the Internet has a tremendous impact on a worker's ethical behavior. Would you think it is appropriate to post proprietary work information on your social media accounts? How about using work time to shop on the Internet? Many companies have implemented monitoring programs to watch how their employees utilize the Internet.
Situational Opportunities
The third major factor that can influence ethical behavior in the workplace are situational opportunities. These opportunities can provide an unethical employee with the freedom of choice that can lead to bad decisions. Most companies establish policies and procedures to provide ethical guidelines to employees. These are known as ethical codes and can establish checks and balances to support ethical behavior.
For example, have you ever noticed that when you use a company credit card your employer requires detailed information about the purchase, including description, amount and an original receipt? This is to ensure proper use of the spending of company money. Some companies have strict policies stating no personal phone calls on company cell phones. This can be easily monitored by auditing an employee's bill.
Lesson Summary
Are you ready to handle ethical dilemmas in the workplace? How did you answer each ethical question? Remember that business ethics refers to the moral principles or values that generally govern the conduct of an individual or group. Hopefully you will embrace ethical behavior at your place of business as it is acting in ways that is consistent with how the business world views moral principles and values.
There are three major factors that can affect your ethical behavior:
- Individual factors, such as knowledge, values, personal goals, morals and personality
- Social factors, such as cultural norms, the Internet and friends and family
- Situational opportunities can provide an unethical employee with the freedom of choice that can lead to bad decisions
Learning Outcomes
Following this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define business ethics, ethical behavior and ethical codes
- Describe the three major factors that can affect ethical behavior at work
- Explain what morals and values are
