Running head: ETHICS REFLECTION

Ethics Reflection Shubhangi Kapatkar STR/TM581 February 13, 2012 Eliza Gorham

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Ethics Reflection Ethical awareness is the process of ethical decision-making through awareness, articulation, and application. The Ethics Awareness Inventory tool helps to understand the approach for ethical issues, and the reason behind the approach. The four categories of ethical philosophy are character, obligation, results, and equity. Ethical perspective does not stay the same over the period; it differs with the different level of awareness and situations. Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Developing a Strategic Plan The key stakeholders of an organization are the employees, the executive management, the customers, and the market shareholders. Every business whether for profit or nonprofit is always seeking to maximize their profit and return of investment through successful strategic management and decisions. A strategy reflects a companys awareness of how, when, and where it should compete; against whom it should compete, and for what purposes it should compete (Pearce & Robinson, 2007, ). The strategic levels such as corporate or business level and functional level have an effect based on the strategic plan. Whereas corporate and business-level managers center their attention on "doing the right things," managers at the functional level center their attention on "doing things right" (Pearce & Robinson, 2007, ). Every organization has to have a clear mission, vision, and goals to achieve the results and align the stakeholders. The internal stakeholders could be employees, management, and the external stakeholders are customers, market shareholders, suppliers, government, and local policy makers, and the public. The organization objective should focus on stakeholders interests and expectations, and should coordinate those with the company mission.

ETHICS REFLECTION

The social responsibility of organization increases with the increase in the employee base and the market share. The social responsibility could vary from donations to charity trusts to volunteering opportunities for employees in local communities. It also adds to the recognition and respect to the diversity at workplace and in the local community. The local and government regulations and laws such as labor act or immigration laws help enforce some of the ethical and legal responsibilities that the organizations have to follow. Another social aspect is the impact of companys success on local businesses such as housing market or retail industry. The organization plays a key role in defining the role models for philanthropic work and leads an example for the same. The employees of the organization follow the culture of their leaders in the social community also. The loyalty of customers and vendors also plays important role in organization success and the company has to define the strategies and establish alliances to stay ahead in the market competition. Ethical behavior and awareness is important in the organization strategic planning as the leaders are responsible for the act. Many businesses such as Lehman brothers fall apart because of unethical actions and tarnish the company image permanently. The unethical decision causes turmoil in life of employees and shareholders and has chain effect on the economy. An example would be the unethical practices of some banks for mortgage loans caused the crash of housing market and lead to downturn of economy in 2009. Ethical Perspective The ethics categories such as character, objective, results, and equity are foundations of the ethical thinking. Individuals learn about the ethics from the surroundings and the examples or idols they look up. The values such as integrity, honesty, and dependability should be part of the curriculum in every school and educational institute to imbibe those in the children from the

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childhood. These values become integral part of life only when practiced every day. In the civil and professional world the rules, regulations, government policies, and training help enforce the ethical behavior. An example would be the human resources training for sexual harassment would provide an education to employees on the code of ethics for respecting diversity at workplace. When the individual does not have a strong foundation of ethical and social responsibility, he or she is prone to fall to the temptations and regret for the rest of the life. The different ways to enforce ethical behavior is through definition of policies, rules, regulations, providing the education, and harsh punishments, or penalties for breaking the rules. An example in the corporate world would be the Sarbanes-Oxley rule, or code ethics documents in every organization. In the program, there have been numerous situations to choose the ethical choice over unethical one such as plagiarism check for every paper to make sure that the copyright laws is not violated. Another example would be certificate of originality that pledges the assignments are original and not a copy of someone elses paper. Providing references in the assignments shows the ethical behavior in writing assignments. The learning team evaluations also establish the results and equity in ethical awareness in the team. I definitely think of the program benefited me in terms of wealth of knowledge and the ability to make decisions with rational thinking. The teamwork assignments definitely taught me the social responsibility and accountability in terms of ethical values and also made me aware of the articulation and application of the same. The learning team charter helped to establish the ground rules or code of ethics and behavior that the group has to follow. The timelines for weekly assignments and the consequences of reduction of credit for late assignments also is a good example of ethics reflection.

ETHICS REFLECTION

Conclusion Every individual has a different personality and different perspective of ethical behavior. The code of ethics, rules, regulations, government policies, and the community help in establishing the ethical behavior and enforce it on the individuals. Every organization bears a social responsibility in its actions and decisions. The larger the organization, the more is the impact on society for its strategic decisions. The business ethics could make or break the company, so the executive management has to define and enforce the code of ethics in organizations.

ETHICS REFLECTION

References Pearce, J. A., & Robinson, R. B. (2007). Strategic Management: Formulation, implementation, and control (10th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.