ETHICS AND THE

INDIVIDUAL
Members:
Arciaga, Marris
Balunan, Bambilou
Gutierrez, Bernadette
Lim, Emma Malou
Porciuncula, Shirley
 Employer–Employee
Relationship
 There is a contractual relationship of sorts
between workers and employers

 Both parties have expectations, and rights,

and offer consideration to the other

 People and corporations are naturally

involved in a tangle of relationships – both
personal and professional
Emotional Intelligence (EI) and
Ethics in the Workplace
 EI is a person’s ability to acquire and
apply knowledge from his emotions and
the emotions of others in order to be
more successful and lead a more fulfilling
life
 Through self-regulation, a component of
EI, a person is able to foster an
environment of trust and fairness where
efficiency and productivity can flourish.
 Common Ethical
Problems
1. Human Resources Issues
2. Conflict of Interest
3. Customer Confidence Issues
4. Use of Corporate Resources
 Human Resource Issues

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 Human Resource Issues
Human Resource

 The employees who make up an

organization
 Any corporation’s most important and
expensive investment
 The underpinning of an organization’s
success or failure
 What are HR Issues?

 Problems that occur when people work

together
 Include privacy, discrimination,
harassment, performance evaluation,
hiring, firing, and promotion
 Key to these issues is “fairness.”
 Were employees treated with equity,
reciprocity, and impartiality?
Internal Issues
Employee –
Organization

PEOPLE Discrimination/bias
WORKING Harassment
TOGETHER Withholding info
Team free-riding
Supervisor – Misrepresenting
Employee work as one’s own
 Internal Issues
Employee –
Discrimination/ harassment in Organization
Hiring, promotion, firing, layoffs
Work assignments
Performance appraisal & Rewards
Discipline
Withholding info / misleading info
Failure to attribute work People
working
Inappropriate directives together

SUPERVISOR –
EMPLOYEE
 Internal/External Issues
EMPLOYEE –
ORGANIZATION

Conflict of Interest People

Bribes / Kickbacks working
together
Use of Corp. Influence
Use of Corp. Resources
Confidentiality / privileged info Supervisor –
Give misleading info Employee
 External Issues
STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS
Employee –
Organization

People
Customer Confidence Issues working
together
Confidentiality / privileged info
Truth in Advertising
Supervisor –
Product Safety Employee
Pricing & Allocations
Fiduciary Duties
 Discrimination
 Occurs when something other than
legitimate qualifications determine how
someone is treated
 Violates sense of fairness
 Can be a subtle or not-so-subtle factor
not only in working relationships, but
also in hiring, promotions, and layoff
decisions
 Discrimination

 Labor Code Article 135 – woman's right

against discrimination with respect to
terms and conditions of employment
 Republic Act No. 6727 – prohibits
discrimination against women with
respect to terms and conditions of
employment, promotion, and training
opportunities
 (Sexual) Harassment

 Unwelcome sexually oriented behavior that

makes someone feel uncomfortable at work
 Usually involves behavior by someone of
higher status toward someone of lower
status or power
 Involves quid pro quo and hostile work
environment
 Quid pro quo – sexual favors are, or appear to
be, a requirement for advancement
 Hostile work environment – a worker feels
uncomfortable because of unwelcome actions or
comments related to sexuality
 (Sexual) Harassment

Why is it an ethical problem?

 Unfairly focuses job satisfaction,
advancement, and retention on factors other
than ability
 In most instances, it has nothing to do with
romance and everything to do with power
and fairness
 Republic Act No. 7877
 “An Act Declaring Sexual Harassment unlawful in
the Employment, Education or Training
Environment, and for other purposes
 Conflicts of Interest
 Occurs when your judgment or objectivity is
compromised
 Your personal reputation, and the reputation
of your company, are inextricably tied to
how well you handle relationships with other
employees, customers, consultants, vendors,
family, and friends
 Your ability to act impartially, and look as if
you are acting impartially, is key to you
fulfilling your end of the employer/employee
contract
Common conflicts of interest
1. Overt bribes or kickbacks
2. Subtle “Bribes”
3. Influence
4. Privileged information
 Conflicts of Interest
 Erode trust by making it look as if special
favors will be extended for special friends
and that attitude can enhance one
relationship, but at the expense of all others
 The basis of every personal and corporate
relationship is trust – feeling of being treated
fairly, openly, and on the same terms as
everyone else
 Conflict of interest cases – investigation by
the company, disciplinary sanctions,
termination of employment or legal action
Customer Confidence Issues

What is it?
 excellent customer service means providing a
quality product or service at a fair price,
honestly representing the product or service,
and protecting the customer’s privacy
 Customer Confidence Issues
Common customer confidence issues
1. Confidentiality
 privacy is a basic customer right
 privacy and the obligation to keep customer
information in confidence often go beyond
protecting sales projections or financial information
 it can also mean keeping in strict confidence
information concerning acquisitions, mergers,
relocations, layoffs, or an executive’s health or
marital problems
2. Product safety and effectiveness
 another basic customer right is product safety and
there’s probably no issue that will more seriously
affect a corporate or an individuals’ reputation
 Customer Confidence Issues
3. Truth in advertising
 there are many salespeople who simply exaggerate
their product’s (or service’s) benefits to customers
 another basic customer right is to be told the truth
about the products and services purchased
4. Special fiduciary responsibilities
 certain professions, such as banking, accounting,
law, religion, and medicine, have special obligations
to customers, which are commonly referred to as
fiduciary responsibilities
Customer Confidence Issues
Why is it an ethical problem?
 because they revolve around fairness,
honesty, and respect for others and customer
relationships can’t survive without those
basics of trust
Professional costs and possible penalties
 severe corporate and individual penalties
regarding truth in advertising and product
safety
 publicity generated can be seriously damaging
 Use of Corporate Resources
What is it?
 use of corporate resources involves your
fulfilling your end of the employer/employee
“contract”
 It means being truthful with your employer
and management and being responsible in the
use of corporate resources, including its
finances and reputation
 Use of Corporate Resources
Common issues
1. Use of corporate reputation
 whenever you identify yourself as an employee of
your company, people can infer that you are speaking
on behalf of it, which is why you have to be careful
how you link yourself to your company
2. Corporate financial resources
 bottom line is that corporate equipment and services
should be used only for company business
3. Providing honest information
 Use of Corporate Resources
Why is it an ethical problem?
 because it represents fulfilling your end of the
employer/employee contract, and its roots are
in fairness and honesty

Professional costs and possible penalties

 may be fired, placed at risk for a lawsuit
 Blowing the Whistle
When all else fails: Blowing the Whistle
 some of the triggers to help you determine if an issue is
serious enough to be raised beyond your immediate
manager include an issue that involves truth, employee or
customer rights, trust, harm, your personal reputation or
the reputation of your organization, and whether the law
is being broker or compromised

How to blow the whistle

1. Approach your immediate manager first
2. Discuss the issue with your family
3. Take it to the next level
4. Contact your company’s ethics officer or ombudsman
5. Consider going outside your chain of command
6. Go outside of the company
7. Leave the company
 Individual Ethical
Decision Making
2 Ways To Think About Individual Ethical Decision Making
Prescriptive Approach
offers decision making tools that prescribe what decision
should you make as a “conscientious moral agent” who
thinks carefully about moral choices
Descriptive Approach
relies on psychological research and describes how people
actually make ethical decision making
Deciding What’s Right: A
Prescriptive Approach
 Deciding What’s Right: A
Prescriptive Approach
Major Contemporary Approaches
A.Consequentialist Theories (focus on
consequences)

B.Deontological Theories (focus on duties,

obligations and principles)

C.Virtue Ethics (focus on integrity)

 8 Steps to Sound Ethical Decision
Making in Business
1. Gather the facts
2. Define the ethical issues
3. Identify the affected parties
4. Identify the consequences
5. Identify the obligations
6. Consider your character and integrity
7. Think creatively about potential actions
8. Check your gut
 Consequentialist Theories
• focus attention on the results or consequences of the decision or
action
• Utilitarianism is probably the best known consequentialist theory
- According to the principle of utility, an ethical decision
should maximize benefits to society and minimize
harms
- What matters is the net balance of good consequences over
bad
• Consequences for “society” not just for you and those close to you

Challenge
• It is often difficult to obtain the information required to evaluate all
of the consequences for all stakeholders who may be directly or
indirectly affected by an action or decision
• Rights of minority group can easily be sacrificed for the benefit of
the majority
 Deontological Theories
base decisions about what’s right on broad, abstract
universal principles or values such as honesty, promise
keeping, fairness, loyalty, rights, justice, compassion and
respect for persons and property.

Challenge

• Deciding which duty, obligation, right or principle

takes precedence
• Difficulty of arguing for a rule or principle that, if
followed in a particular situation, will have devastating
consequences
 Virtue Ethics
 focuses more on the
integrity of the moral actor
than on the moral act itself
 considers primarily the
actor’s character,
motivations, and intentions
 character is very much
defined by one’s
community; thus it is
important to thinks about
the community within which
business people operate
 shortcut approach to
ethical decision making,
based on virtue ethics
approach and the broader
community as a guide, is
the “disclosure rule”
which asks “How would
you feel if your behavior
appeared on TV?”
 Deciding what’ right: A
Psychological Approach
 Psychological Approach
 People don’t always recognize the ethical
dimensions of the issue or situation they face.

 When they do, they don’t always make the best

decisions.

 And even when they identify the best decision,

they may not have the will to follow through
 Psychological Approach
Defined:
 focuses on the psychology of individual ethical
decision making

 describes what people actually do

 discusses some of the cognitive barriers that can

keep well-intentioned people form making good
ethical decisions

 suggests some ways to overcome these barriers.

 Moral Awareness
 initial step in the ethical decision-making
process

 a person must recognize the ethical nature of

the situation at hand

 an important step that shouldn’t be taken for

granted because awareness of the ethical
nature of the situation is far from automatic
 Moral Awareness
 If people don’t recognize the issue as an ethical
issue, moral judgment processes are not likely to
be engaged

 Recent study found that people are more likely to

recognize the moral nature of an issue or decision
 if they believe that their peers will consider it to be ethically
problematic
 if moral language is used to present the situation to the
decision maker
 if the decision is seen as having the potential to produce
serious harm to others
 Moral Judgment
 once people are aware of the ethical
dimensions of a situation or decision, they
engage in moral judgment processes that
can contribute to ethical conduct

 ethical conduct is influenced by both

situational pushes and pulls, and
characteristics of the individual or what we
call individual differences
Cognitive Moral Development
Lawrence Kohlberg
 moral reasoning theory is a cognitive
developmental theory that focuses
primarily on how people decide what
course of action is morally right
 Cognitive moral development theory
proposes that moral reasoning develops
sequentially through 3 broad levels, each
composed of 2 stages
Cognitive Moral Development
Stage What is considered to be right
Level I: Pre-
conventional
Stage 1: Obedience Sticking to rules to avoid physical
and Punishment punishment.
Orientation Obedience for its own sake.
Stage 2:
Instrumental Following rules only when it is one’s
Purpose and immediate interest. Right is an equal
Exchange exchange, a fair deal.
Cognitive Moral Development
Stage What is considered to be right
Level II:
Conventional
Stage 3: Interpersonal Stereotypical “good” behavior. Living up
Accord, Conformity, to what is expected by peers and
Mutual Expectations people close to you.

Stage 4: Social Accord Fulfilling duties and obligations of the

and System social system.
Maintenance Upholding laws except in extreme cases
where they conflict with fixed social
duties. Contributing to the society group
Cognitive Moral Development
Stage What is considered to be right
Level III: Post-
conventional
Stage 5: Social Being aware that people hold a variety
Contract and Individual of values; that rules are relative to the
Rights group. Upholding rules because they are
the social contract. Upholding non-
relative values and rights regardless of
the majority opinion
Following self-chosen ethical principles
Stage 6: Universal of justice and rights. When laws violate
Ethical Principles principles, act in accord with principles.
 Locus of Control
 Refer to an individual’s perception of how much
control he or she exerts over life events.

2 TYPES
a) High INTERNAL locus of control – believes that
outcomes are primarily the result of his/her
own efforts
b) High EXTERNAL locus of control – believes that
life events are primarily by fate, luck or
powerful others
 How is locus of control related
to ethics?
Internal
 In control
 Take responsibility
 More likely to help another person
 In charge of their own fates
 Less willing to be pressured by others
 How to deal with workers with
high external locus of control

Hold them RESPONSIBLE and

ACCOUNTABLE for what they do.
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Script Processing
 Scripts are cognitive frameworks that guide human
thought and action; Contain information about the
appropriate sequence of events in routine situations
 It’s easy to look right past potential problems
 Muffled emotions can also become part of a script
 Solution
 Ethical dilemma do not lend themselves to “automatic
pilot” decisions
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Cost/Benefit Analysis
 Processes used to simplify complex decisions have
implications for the ethical decisions managers make
 They can strip ethical considerations from the
decision-making process
 Solution
 Require analysis of ethical aspects as part of the
decision-making process
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Thinking about Fact Gathering
 Likely to be biased
 All of us have tendency to look for information that
will confirm our preferred answer or choice and to
neglect to search for evidence that might prove us
wrong
 Solution
 Consciously try to think of ways you could be wrong
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Thinking about Consequences
 Reduced number of consequences

 Solution: invite input from all interested

parties esp. those who disagree with you
 Consequences for the self vs.
consequences for others
 Solution: consciously consider those
outside of yourself who are going to be
affected
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Thinking about Consequences
 Consequences as risk
- illusion of optimism
 Solution: recognize the tendency to ignore risk and
design risk analysis into your decision-making
process
 Consequences over time: Escalation of
Commitment
 Solution: ask yourself questions about whether
you’re committed to a decision just because failure
would make our original decision look bad.
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Thinking about Integrity
 Individuals prefer to think positively about
themselves
 Illusion of superiority

 Solution
 Be honest with yourself
 Cognitive Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
 Thinking about Your Gut
 Your gut may well be wrong—led by cognitive
limitations and biased thinking
 But your gut can still be useful to alert you
that something is wrong
 Emotions in Ethical Decision
Making
 People often decide to take action because they
feel empathy, guilt or anger
 Anger and emotions ca influence thoughts and
actions
 Whether that is good or bad depends o whether
the emotion lads to “right” or “wrong” action.
 Moral outrage can lead to desire for revenge
 Involve cooler heads to the decision
THANK YOU!