Seminar Five
Seminar Objectives
Students will:
Stay in the seminar debating teams.
See some more news stories that have ethical dimensions.
Discuss in teams the same case study that was introduced in Seminar One.
Preserve these notes for comparison with their analysis of the same ethical dilemma at the beginning of the module.
Take personal journal notes of their revised impressions and feelings about the case.
Preparation for Seminar
NB: Make sure that you attend the seminar with a print out of the Seminar Brief and The Case Study.
We want you to re-analyse the ethical dilemma case. This will include the thoughts and ideas of others in your team. Use the theory and frameworks that you have encountered during the module (the seminar
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You can compare your ability to analyse in your team (with the benefit of having learnt and applied this module content), against your lone attempt to do this without any applied business ethics knowledge. This can help you to reflect upon team-working in Portfolio Appendix C.
Directed Reading
Crane A and Matten D (2010) Business Ethics OUP Chapters 1 - 4
CASE STUDY (REVISITED)
The Case of the Holiday (based on actual events)
This case concerns a young medium sized advertising agency in Germany. It had had grown rapidly in the four years since it was founded and had just opened a new office in the US. The company operates in a highly competitive market in which failure to meet customers’ deadlines incurs substantial penalties. Work is almost exclusively project-based, in a high pressure but largely informal environment where teams predominate and hierarchy is little in evidence. The company pays well, and its employees are highly skilled, overwhelmingly graduates and equally overwhelmingly young with over 35 year-olds a rarity.
Employees work an average of 50 hours a week and when deadlines are tight some arrive as early as 5 a.m. and leave as late as 1 a.m. If there is a personnel ‘problem’ it is that turnover is high. Employees tend either to be dismissed quickly after their unsuitability emerges or leave voluntarily after only two or three years. While there
1. Analyze the questions associated with your chosen case study and discuss them using concepts you learned in this course.
High employee turnover, where workers frequently leave and must be replaced, leads to increased spending on recruitment and training and can indicate management problems. Employees often have good reasons for moving on but if too many are leaving an organisation, can be very disruptive.
Now, let's see how learning about the Four Ethical Lenses and a simple method for decision-making can help you resolve a typical ethical dilemma. Ready?
It is important to look at ethical dilemmas in a systematic way, thus increasing the chance of achieving a solution that gives the best possible outcome. An ethical problem solving model taken from American sources (Paradise and Siegelwaks, 1982; Austin et al., 1990) was used to develop a six-step process to follow, in order to achieve this (Bond 2010, pg. 227). This process informs this paper, and I am in the role of counsellor.
This week’s Discussion topic is BYP7-7, Ethics Case, on page 330 of your textbook which reads as follows:
Apply the ethical decision making model presented in week one lectures (adapted from Beemsterboer, 2010; Velasquez et al, 2009) to the case study.
Ethical theory will be outlined in relation to the example case with discussion on how the case poses an ethical dilemma in the workplace. Additionally ethical theory will be considered in light of the case with
Based on study of thousands of real ethical dilemmas, Kidder presents four ethical paradigm pairs:
1.3 – explain a range of ethical and moral dilemmas faced by those in this role
People from all walks of life face many ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas have consequences. Our worldview determines how we deal with these dilemmas, and guides us to the right decisions. In this essay, I will examine an ethical issues through my Christian worldview. I will also present other viewpoints, and compare them to mine.
Everyday individuals are faced with issues associated with ethical dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas involve an individual’s behavior toward a moral standard, which may have been established from previous generations and passed along. In upholding the standards taught individual may be forced to take a particular action involving a decision when a behavior is considered non-ethical is when an ethical dilemma occurs. It can become difficult at times in making the correct decisions or solutions to the situation, which is why a code of ethics is established in the workplace. The code of ethics in the
Employee turnover is one of the biggest challenges that Unilever faces. A turnover event takes place when an employee voluntarily or involuntarily exits an organization or unit. There are various factors that contribute to high turnover events in Unilever. For instance, the organization often struggles to contain challenges arising from regular complaints by employees over issues such as being overworked. As soon as they are recruited, new workers do not go through real organizational induction or orientation. Therefore they do not understand who to contact or what they are expected to be doing. As a result, highly skilled and talented workers decide to leave the organization. The degree of long-term sick leaves is high in the company. Some workers complaint that the company subjects them to long working hours and low wages. This results in an imbalance in their work-life issues. Employee turnover also affects managers and senior employees.
There are a variety of different ethical systems that have developed of the course of millennia. However, even though the subject has been covered so thoroughly, it is still heavily debated. The varieties of ethical systems that are in existence look at various ethical problems from different perspectives and can be applied differently in different circumstances. Because of the subjective aspects to applying ethics, they can be as much an art as they are a science. Ethics are something that must be practiced and really cannot be perfected. In this way, studying ethics is a continual process that does not really stop. This paper will argue that ethics are the most important subject that an individual can pursue.
Before a good outcome to an ethical dilemma is achieved obstacles must be overcome through argumentation and analyzing the
In the recent years, there has been viable evidence that shows that other factors in the work environment may also be strong push factors for retention (Burns, Bradley and Weiner, 2012, pg.445). The factors that contribute to forcing workers to leave the public sector include: "workload and staff shortages are contributing to burnout, high absenteeism, stress, depression, low morale, and de-motivation" (Burns, Bradley and Weiner, 2012, pg.445). It is also shown that poor working conditions also contributes to preventing staff morale and motivation and it also contributes directly to recruitment and retention (Burns, Bradley and Weiner, 2012, pg445). According to Burns, Bradley and Weiner (2012),