Developing An Ethics Program

Developing an Effective Ethics Management Program
ABSTRACT:
Ethics and social responsibility is a dividing line for organizations that care about their policy for good citizenship and those that do not. (Velasquez, 2006) Business ethics is a study of moral standards, how those apply to the social systems and organizations through which modern societies produce and distribute goods and services and to the behaviors of the people who work within these organizations. Developing an effective ethics management program will provide a road map for and the right way for an organization to practice justice and fairness in business dealings.

What is Ethics?
Most often, we fail to understand the term ethics. Many times ethics has been defined as deciding between right and wrong. Other times ethics has been categorically described as learning to decide between two rights verses right and wrong. According to Velasquez, ethics is defined as follows:
“Ethic is the discipline that examines one’s moral standards or the moral standards of a society. It asks how these standards apply to our lives and whether these standards are reasonable or unreasonable- that is, whether they are supported by good reasons or poor ones.” (Velasquez, 2006 pg 11)
In designing and implementing ethical programs, the moral standards should be the main objective. Organizations can develop good ethics programs as long as the program is supported by good reasons. Good moral standards will be a yardstick in doing the right thing while striving to be a good corporate citizenship.
(Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2008) Define business ethics as “comprises the principles and standards that guide behavior in the world of business.” (pg 6)
Virtue ethics is an area in ethics that compliment overall study in ethics. The concept of virtue ethics looks at the individual’s character vs. the actual wrong act that is performed. Taking this perspective is different from how the action-based ethics are evaluated. To understand the concept of virtue ethics there must be an understanding of “more clearly and moral nature of the person who serves as manager (Whetstone, 2003). The elements of virtue that are important to business transactions have been defined as trust, self-control, empathy, fairness and truthfulness.

Why an ethics program
The importance of organizational ethics program is constantly growing; managers are seeking legal help in developing programs to deal with violations of federal guidelines, which are intended to prevent unlawful conduct, increase surveillance and control, impose penalties for wrongdoers, educate managers in the need to establish compliance standards and procedures, and the managers need to communicate standards and procedures through regular training. Managers are also tasked with monitoring and auditing, and for taking steps to prevent similar infractions in the future (Paine, 1994).
Business Ethics Categories:
Business Ethics can be divided into two categories:
1. Managerial Mischief
2. Moral dilemma

Managerial Mischief
This kind of ethics deals with “illegal, unethical or questionable practices of individual managers or organizations as well as the causes of such behaviors and remedies to eradicate them.” (Madsen, 1990) Most often, it is utterly difficult to differentiate between an individual managers or organization that he/she works for, after an ethical behavior has occurred. Developing an ethical program will help an organization to differentiate this kind of scenario and apply remedies that will eradicate such behavior from both individual managers and an organization.

Moral dilemma
This category include ethical problems that managers or an organization has to deal with on daily basis. Moral or ethical dilemma is a problem, situation or opportunity that requires an individual, group or organization to choose among several actions that must be evaluated as right or wrong ethical or unethical (Ferrell et al, 2007). The following issues have been identified as major ethical dilemmas in management or an organization as a whole:
1. Potential conflict of interest
2. Wrongful use of resources
3. Mismanagement of contracts and agreements

Potential conflict of interest:
Potential conflict of interest may involve actions or business dealings that may compromise an employee position to either favor or being unfair to a situation that need best judgment. According to Velasquez, Conflict of interest in business arise when an employee or officer of a company a) is engaged in carrying out a certain task on behalf of the company and b) the employee has an interest in the outcome of that task, and c) the employee is obligated to exercise independent judgment on behalf of the company in performing the task. Conflict of interest occurs when employees in certain job have an interest that might motivate them to do that job in a way that might not be in the interest of the firm. (Velasquez, 2007)

In recent years Enron conducted most unethical decisions that involve conflict of interest. One of the senior executive of Enron, Andy Fastow then CFO, Fastow made some unethical decisions that displayed conflict of interest with his wife Lea and his Finance executive Michael Kopper. Michael Kopper was a friend with both Fastow and Lea (Michael et al, 2004 p.153.) Lea was indicted together with her husband Fastow for financial scandals. Conflict of interest is evidenced here when Fastow was architecture of many enterprises that did business with Enron and he was an executive at both Enron and these enterprises. “When individuals serve as directors of businesses, they represent the interests of the other owners. In this situation, the potential for conflict of interest indeed exists.”(Colley et al, 2003 p.13). Arthur Andersen cannot be forgiven caught in between Enron’s conflict of interests and how the accounting firm helped Enron to get away with it.
In contrast, Milton Friedman argues that this is a free world and there is one and only one social responsibility of a business. That is, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits as long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engage in open and free competition without deception and fraud or conflict of interest (Cheeseman, 2000, p, 42). It was unethical and illegal for Enron and the auditors of Arthur Anderson to manipulate General Accepting Accounting Principles and General Accepting Auditing Standards to avoid consolidating financial statements for a true picture of the company’s on going concern. That is, Enron disobeyed the “Stakeholder interest theory of social responsibility that states that a corporation must consider the effect its action has on a person other than its stockholders.

Wrongful use of resources:
Wrongful use of resources is when an executive or an employee uses company resources for his own benefits. One of the ways that resources can be wrongful used is when a firefighter drives a fire track and fills his and his friends swimming pools with water from the fire track.

Mismanagement of contracts and agreements:
Since Enron stands out as one of the major cases for ethics for our time. I would like to refer to Enron on how the mismanagement occurs. “You had Lay, (Ken Lay) who was disengaged and you had Skilling who was a big picture guy and a terrible manager” (Mc Clean et al, p.101) Enron top executives seemed to care less what Enron did and how it conducted its business. Management had lost all interest on their organization and it was obvious that they were calling for mismanagement of all contracts and agreements. Enron is publicly known for breaking all of its contracts and engaging in most unethical conducts in business that saw it fall from the top of US corporate world.

With regards to the application of the Kant’s approach (I have discussed Kant’s approach in theories of ethics), the Enron situation leaves a lot to be desired. The actions cannot be applied to a belief in moral rights or an application in an equal manner to everyone associated with the organization. Their actions do not represent the treatment that they would expect in an equal situation, nor does it provide a sense of reason. Because Kant’s approach deals directly with the inner motivation of a person’s actions, no one can appreciate the level of corruption, deceit and pure immoral worth involved in the Enron situation. The true duty of the management should have been to the people making up the company and its investors, but because of the realized personal financial gains, everyone and everything was set aside, so that Lay, Skilling and Fastow could benefit at everyone else’s expense.
Managing Ethics as a discipline:

A program can only be successful only and when it is managed in a manner that describes the vision and the future of that particular program. In today’s complex world, organizations need to manage ethic programs as disciplines so that ethics programs can get desired outcome and awareness from all business functions. (Burke, 2007) illustrates that managing an ethical program as disciplines, then these five steps need to be followed: initiating process, planning process, execution process, controlling process and closing the process. In the final stage - closing the process - an ethical program that has been tailored to organization needs, is handed over to departments (business functions) so that employees can be actively involved in learning and participating in the program.

Business Ethics:
Ethics programs need to focus on rights and wrongs that may involve either an organization or an employee. When designing an ethical program different views on ethical issues from employees from all levels should be incorporated in the program. Employee input is vital because it will bring more understanding in the ethic program in its design and implementation. Business ethics will bring more lights to managers that struggles with ethical issues in their decision making process. Business ethics is becoming more complicated each passing day by the fact that shareholders are pushing management to make decisions that serve their agendas.
“ Stakeholders’ ethical concerns determine whether specific business actions and decisions are perceived as ethical or unethical. In the case of government, community and the society, what was merely an ethical issue can soon become a legal debate and eventually law. Most ethical conflict in which there are perceived dangers turn into litigation. Additionally, stakeholders often raise ethical issues when they exert pressure on business to make decisions that serve their agendas.” (Ferrell et al, 2007 p. 58)

It is imperative that managers maximize share holders wealth, however, if doing that leads to unethical behaviors then management have to be blunt and open with their shareholders so that they are do not let shareholders push them into unethical conducts. Decisions that have raised ethical issues in business are honesty, fairness and integrity. These three issues build the foundation of business ethics and offer a wide range of options that can be incorporated in the organizational ethics program.

Honesty as described by Ferrell (Ferrell et al, 2007) refers to truthfulness or trustworthiness as to telling the truth to the best of your knowledge without hiding anything (p.60). Honesty is a tricky subject when it comes to business dealings; it presents challenges and complications for both sides of the fence (shareholders and customers) especially when the business is not doing well. In the absences of well-stipulated ethics programs and training then it is easy to be dishonest as long as you keep the business going.

“Fairness is a quality of being just, equitable and impartial” (Ferrell et al, 2006). Fairness deals with issues only as equality, reciprocity and optimization. Optimization is about maximum productivity and fairness needed to be the dividing line. When an organization does maximize its production, it is being fair to the employee, shareholders, consumers and even competitors.

Finally integrity is a culmination of business ethics and training. Integrity refers to “being whole, sound and in an impaired condition. In organization it means uncompromising adherence to ethical values” (Ferrell et al, 2006 p.63). When the business is honest and fair then integrity will automatically become the culture of an organization. Business ethics are about integrity but the difference between business ethics and ethical program is how integrity is used in the road map ethics.
Designing an ethics program and its management:

In designing an ethical program, management should be careful to ensure that the program addresses current and future ethical issues. Designing this program will ensure that concerns, dilemmas and situational cases are addressed. All entities of an organization that is shareholders, management and employees (both exempt and non-exempt) are part and parcel of the design. Ethical experts might be involved in the early stages for their professional and expert advices. An example of a design stage for an ethical program should be such as a guideline that addresses customer service situational cases. Issues facing customer service might be when a customer takes an employee out for a meal just to get account details of a business adversarial, spouse or a friend.

Once all ethical issues that are facing or might face the organization are in the design stage then a method of training should be decided upon.
Training can be conducted in many ways such as classes with an instructor, web based, computer aided training or seminars. The organization has to match its available resource and the actual training that might require. Training can be divided into initial training then build on initial by offering module or stages that build on the foundation of the program. As training takes place, implementation should start immediately and an open door policy to clarify for additional insights to the ethics program should be encouraged.

Evaluation of all stages of the program should be next and lead to the redesigning. Redesigning means updating ethical theories and providing periodical updates and training. Managing ethics should be given priority as managing other function of an organization. “The primary method of resolving serious business ethics disputes is through lawsuits in which one individual or organization uses civil law as to take another individual or organization to court.” (Ferrell et al, 2006) By managing ethics program, it simply means preventing lawsuits and damages that come from unethical behaviors.

Business Areas that deals with Ethics:
Three major areas can be identified mostly affected in business with ethical issues- maximizing shareholders- wealth (profit), finance (billing and accounting) and production. In maximizing shareholders wealth, management or board of directors might either be forced by the shareholders to bend some laws to make profit or when profit are low and bottom lines do not look favorable, management might be tempted to be dishonestly by telling shareholders what they want to hear. Financial issues present the most ethical dilemmas. In recent years we have seen major big business such as Enron and MCI crumble due to ethical issues surrounding their finance.
Production issues sometimes ties to both shareholders and financial ethical issues. In production an organization might knowingly or unknowingly bring defective products to the consumers. Areas that deal with ethics such as mentioned above need to be addressed and stressed to all levels of organization so that an organization can avoid unnecessary and increasing litigations and lawsuits.
Guidelines for Developing Ethics program:

Developing an ethic program draws inputs from each function of an organization. Managers need to be careful not to miss small details that might affect their organization in a big way. A good program always comes from well-developed guidelines. The guidelines to this program are divided into six categories;
1. Demonstrating integrity
2. Lead by example
3. Passionate about customers and the business
4. Deliver results
5. Caring about each other
6. Work and Win as a Team

These guidelines will be incorporated in the ethical program in its design and implementation. The guidelines provide a wide range of issues that can be covered in the ethical program while aligning business with ethics.
Other guidelines that can be incorporated in designing ethics program includes but are not limited to:
1. Recognizing that managing ethics is a process
2. The best way to handle ethical dilemmas is avoid their occurrences
in the first place.
3. Integrate ethics management with other management practices
4. Use Cross-functional teams when developing and implementing an ethics management program.

Myths about Ethics:
While ethics program takes time and effort in designing and implementation, its complexity provide myths that sometimes blur the line between actual ethics and myths. One of the biggest myths is when employees rationalize that since their organization is not in trouble with the law, their organization is ethical. Other myths are as follow: Business ethics is the new police person on the block, business ethics and social responsibilities are the same, ethics can’t be manage and managing ethics in the workplace has little practical relevance. Ethical myths can be a hindrance to an ethical program design and implementation. Management needs to clarify what are the myths and the actual ethics that need to be streamlined into organization day to day business operations.

Benefits of Managing Ethics:
Organizations that have managed ethical programs have been profitable and rewarded by becoming brand household names with their product or services. Dr Roy Merck CEO – a drug company cannot stress enough on how ethical and doing the right thing pays in the long run. He simply says that, “people will remember” what good your organization has done to them. (Velasquez, 2003 p.6)

Ethics Theories:
There are several theories of ethics and approaches. These theories need to be explored to help organizations and employees understand the impact and consequences of following any of the approaches.
These theories are:
1. Kant’s theory
2. Utilitarian theory
3. Ethics of care
4. Egalitarian
5. Theories of Justice
6. Retributive Justice
7. Distributive Justice
8. Compensatory Justice

Kant's theory of categorical imperative is based on the moral principle that there is a requirement that everyone should be treated as a free person equal to everyone else and (1) "An action is morally right for a person in a certain situation if, and only if, the person's reason for carrying out the action is a reason that he or she would be willing to have every person act on, in any similar situation" and (2) "An action is morally right for a person, if, and only if, in performing the action, the person does not use others merely as a means for advancing his or her own interests" (Velasquez, 2006, p. 79-80). Both of these formations are basically equivalent to each other in what is morally right.

Utilitarian approach to moral decision making might very well be thought of as a very precise, nuts and bolts, bottom line process in deciding what decision should be made in a given situation. To state Velasquez (2006, p. 59), "A utilitarian standard of morality, a moral principle, that claims that something is right to the extent that it diminishes social costs and increases social benefits." This is a very strong statement that to many would leave little room for solid ethics to become involved.

Ethics of care is important to consider regardless of the size of business. It’s about taking care of those close to us, whether it’s the employees or customers. It’s not always true that big business is bad business unless the organization doesn’t care of those that mean the most. In the case of Enron, that was bad business. It affected employees, customers, and shareholders. In a positive example, Wal-Mart is offering generics for $4 or less. It not only benefits the organization, but those that can’t afford medications. Many poor people can’t afford antibiotics and other medications to prevent illnesses. Is there an ulterior motive for doing this? Yes, it’s good for the patients and their reputation in being a good business. The ethics of care theory emphasizes caring for the concrete well being of those nearest to you. An example might be where the manager of the people fighting the fires in San Diego allows their employees to be paid for time off during the fires, even though they are not sure that they will be reimbursed for the time by the government. Not only is it the right thing to do, it represents the ideals of the person and the culture, and emphasizes that financial considerations are secondary to the responsibilities of caring for the ones most dependent on management.
The next ethical theory is Egalitarianism. This is based on the belief that all people should provide the same benefit and burden no matter their position in society. This applies to both the individual, as well as the entire society.

Retributive justice can be applied based on blaming and punishing persons fairly doing wrong. It may also include penalties. According to the principle of fair play, the loyal citizen must do his part in this system of reciprocal restraint. An individual who seeks the benefits of living under the rule of law without being willing to make the necessary sacrifices of self-restraint is a free rider. He has helped himself to unfair advantages, and the state needs to prevent this to preserve the rule of law (Murphy, 1992).

Compensatory justice concerns the just way of compensating people for what they lost when they were wronged by others (Velasquez, 2006). This type of justice provides a payback of some form to the person who was negatively affected by another. A business example would be if a sales manager took an account away from a salesperson that compensated him a certain dollar amount that sales manager is morally obligated to give that salesperson another account that would generate equal compensation.

Distributive justice is concerned with the fair distribution of society’s benefits and burdens. The fundamental concept behind “distributive justice is that equals should be treated equally and unequals treated unequally” (Velasquez, 2006).

These theories might not be necessarily incorporated in the ethics program, however, learning and understanding their approach and impacts on business might give a better understanding to ethics. Some of these theories might not even apply to the business or industry that an organization is in, so careful examination of these theories in terms of what good or bad they might bring to business has to be thorough. In my own opinion Kant’s theory and its approaches seem to be working in most organizations. It should then be an obligation of management to put more emphasis on understanding the dos and don’ts of Kant’s before applying it to their business and to ethics training.

My approach to ethics is based on Kant’s categorical imperatives and ethics of care but ethics of virtues plays a big part in my decision making too. While I am keeping in mind the utilitarian objectives of the company investors, I believe good employees are the greatest asset any company can have and those valuable assets should be treated with respect (as in Kant’s theory) and taken care of throughout various types of situations (ethics of care) (Velasquez, 2006).
Kant’s second formulation for categorical imperative is based on treating people never as a means but as an end. This formulation means two things, respect people’s freedom by treating them only as they have freely consented to be treated beforehand and develop each person’s capacity to freely choose the aims to pursue (Velasquez, 2006).

This version of the categorical imperative implies that people have an equal dignity and not to be treated like objects not capable of free choice. Based on the formulation, employer typically explains to a potential employee what the job entails. If the person consents and takes the job, they are aware of the situation. Doing this also tends to decrease conflict and issues.

Whereas most of us think of ethics in very personal terms, the word actually assumes a much greater meaning the minute we become part of an organization or established group of people. At that point, individual values are not enough to define what behaviors will or will not be acceptable or tolerated. Definitions of right and wrong may vary, even if the group is composed of individuals who all consider themselves to be “ethical.” Michael Josephson, founder of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, says it this way:

“If we conclude that ethics is purely a personal matter, and that each person’s private code of values is entitled to equal respect regardless of the content of their beliefs, there is no legitimate basis for distinguishing between Saddam Hussein and Mother Teresa—both live up to their own standards.”(Josephson, 2005)

Surveys on Ethics in different Organizations:
Different organization have followed and displayed different ethical approaches due to either the business they are in, territorial politics or conflict. Globalization is another ethical concern with the new economy. Some of the ethical issues are; (1) challenge of introducing the opportunities of new technologies to developing countries, (2) an increased inequality between wage and income levels, and (3) “social exclusion” is a phenomena in countries that exclude certain populations or entire nations aren’t given the opportunity to take part in the new technology race. Inequality does raise concerns in regards to the impact of economic, political, social, and ethical problems in developing countries. Is it a problem associated with the new economy? No, it’s a matter of organizations dealing with these problems ethically for the well being of others (Argandona, 2003).
Caltex, an American oil company jointly owned by Texaco and Standard Oil, operated in South Africa in apartheid era, contributing to the apartheid economy and, hence, contributing as many would say to the continued oppression of South Africa's Black population is one extreme example of the utilitarian standard of morality. The other example of utilitarianism is that of Ford making the decision to continue production of the Pinto predicting from statistical data that there would be deaths, personal injuries and burned vehicles. Lives and families would be destroyed but taking the utilitarian approach and evaluating their decision on the basis of the benefits and costs to society (Velasquez, 2006), Ford decided to produce the Pinto. One must ask if the "net benefit" is all that is important in making a good, ethical business decision. Can or should business decisions be made by strictly equating all factors in a situation to a dollar value?

Proponents of utilitarianism defend the principle by stating several factors and discussing misunderstandings about the theory to overcome objections such as (to paraphrase):
The leaders found a method to make decisions that would benefit themselves and forgo the needs of the stakeholders involved. Utilitarianism says that actions and policies should be looked at on the benefits and costs they will impose on society (Velasquez, 2006). If the leaders had looked at the three important questions this type of ethics require different decisions may have been made. Those include:
- determine what alternative actions or policies are available
- estimate the direct and indirect costs and benefits of each alternative action
- Which will produce the greatest sum total of utility must be chosen?
Answering these three questions, all gray areas would be covered, or at least minimized. Looking at what Immanuel Kant stated was a basis for moral rights, one would see a ground work plan for what individuals would see as basic moral rights no matter what an individual believes. It is more of a "do unto others" idea that allows individuals to treat each other with a basic respect and understanding for doing the right thing.
(1) Although a right action produces more utility, it does not mean that the most utility is for the person performing the action; rather, it means that it produces the most utility for all persons affected by the action.
(2) Although the principle states that the action is right as long as the benefits outweigh the costs, it means that only one action is right and that is the action whose net benefits by comparison are greater than the benefits of all other possible alternatives.
(3) The utilitarian principle does not require the consideration of only direct and immediate consequences of an action but must also consider all foreseeable costs and benefits as well (Velasquez, 2006).
Advantage of an Ethical program:
In having an ethics program in place, the following will be some of the advantages that an organization will be able to achieve:
1. To accomplish preferred behaviors in the work place
2. Integrating ethics management with other management practices
3. Giving guidelines to employees in view of situations that might bring gray areas and improve integrity in dealing with customers
4. With an ethical program in place, an organization will be able to know and establish strong ties to its values.
Disadvantages of an ethical program:
One of the biggest disadvantages to an ethical program is when employees wrongly think that since the organization has ethics program in place then, the organization is ethical in its business dealing and activities. Some employee will look at management and their behaviors or conducts as above unethical simply because these managers are on top of advocating good ethical behavior in the organization. We should not forget that ethical behaviors or conducts comprises with a character composition of an individual and not of the organization that he/she works for.
Behavior is the ethical compositions that influences practices and outcomes of a Leader. A leader will use this type of practices and outcomes on their employees. It is important for organizations to shape an individual behavior such as employees, managers, and leaders in a company. Judgments made by managers and leaders and can deceive or harm others. Paine states, “errors of judgment rarely reflect an organizational culture and management philosophy that sets out to harm or deceive” (Paine 1994).
Many times, there are managers who will not let employees know about their misbehavior in an organization. Paine states, “ people who resist acknowledging the influence of organizational factors on individual behavior especially on misconduct-- for fear of diluting people’s sense of personal moral responsibility” (Paine 1994). An example based on Porter is “executive increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of corporate social responsibility and investors applying pressure to maximize short-term profits” (Porter and Kramer 2002).

Conclusion:

An ethics program, which is well managed, will be instrumental in guiding an organization to the right direction. It will provide check and balance to overall operations. Employees will be obligated, after ethics training, to fulfill their end of the bargain in a responsible manner and conduct. With an ethics program in place an organization will strive to be accountable in every process and all of its activities. One thing should be clear upfront that ethics program does not make an organization ethically right or responsible, it is just a guideline to prevent and alleviate bad practices and litigations. Developing and ethical program is vital, but the important thing is to implement it.

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