Ethical Decision Making Process

Kuliah 4 Etika Profesi dan Bisnis
Oleh Coky Fauzi Alfi
cokyfauzialfi.wordpress.com

Ethical Decision-Making
Process

Topics

• Ethical Dilemmas
• Define: Ethical Decision Making
• Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision
Making
• Ethical Decision-Making Process
• Three Ethics Theories

Ethics is about choices which matter,
and choices which matter are
dilemmas.
― Martin Cohen

An Ethical dilemma is a complex situation where
ethical principles or values are in conflict.
Examples:
• To whom do I have a duty—self, family,
friends, workers, investors, consumers, future
generation, and so on?
• What is a fair or justice resolution—is fairness
or justice based on everyone receiving equal
shares, or more to those who merit or have
earned it.

When faced with a difficult ethical
dilemma, we need ethical decision making
ability for resolve it.

It helps one determine the right course of
action or the right thing to do and also
enables one to analyze whether another’s
decisions or actions are right or good.

Define: Ethical Decision Making

In the context of decision making, your
ethics are your personal standards of
right and wrong.

They are your basis for making ethically
sensitive decisions.

Ethical decision making
is a cognitive process
that considers various
ethical principles,
rules, and virtues or
the maintenance of
relationships to guide
or judge individual or
group decisions or
intended actions.

Framework for Understanding
Ethical Decision Making

Ethical Issue
Intensity
Individual Profession or Ethical
Factors Business Ethics Or
Organizational Evaluations and Unethical
Factors Intentions Behavior

Opportunity

Ethical Issue Intensity
Ethical issue intensity can be defined as the
relevance or importance of an ethical issue in
the eyes of the individual, work group, and/or
organization.

Ethical issue intensity reflects the ethical
sensitivity of the individual or work group that
faces the ethical decision making process.

Individual Factors
• Gender―women are generally “more ethical”
than men.
• Education or work experience―the more
education or work experience that one has,
the better he or she is at ethical decision
making.
• Nationality―cultural appears to be significant
in affect of ethical decision making.

Individual Factors
• Age―the older you are, the more ethical you
are.
• Locus of control― external control vs. Internal
control.
– external control, see themselves as going with the
flow because that’s all they can do.
– internal control, believe that they control the
events in their lives by their own effort and skill

Organizational Factors
• The organization’s values often have
greater influence on decisions than a
person’s own values.
• The more ethical employees perceive an
organization’s culture to be, the less
likely they are to make unethical
decisions.

Opportunity
Opportunity describes the conditions in an
organization that limit or permit ethical or
unethical behavior.

Opportunity results from conditions that either
provide rewards, whether internal or external,
or fail to erect barriers against unethical
behavior.

Ethical Decision-Making Process

Identify the Collect
Evaluate the
Ethical Relevant
Information
Problem Information
01 02 03

Act or Make a Consider
Implement Decision Alternatives
06 05 04

Review the
Action
07

01 Identify the Ethical Problem
The decision maker must be able to determine:
• if there is a possible violation of an important
ethical principle, societal law, or
organizational standard or policy
• if there are potential consequences that
should be sought or avoided that emanate
from an action being considered to resolve
the problem.

02 Collect Relevant Information
• The decision maker should seek to gather as
much information as possible about which
rights are being forsaken and to what degree.
• A consequential focus would prompt the
decision maker to attempt to measure the
type, degree, and amount of harm being
inflicted or that will be inflicted on others.

03 Evaluate the Information
• Once the information has been collected, the
decision maker must apply some type of
standard or assessment criterion to evaluate
the situation.
• The decision maker might use one of the
predominant ethics theories—utilitarianism,
rights, or justice.

04 Consider Alternatives
The decision maker needs to generate a set of
possible action alternatives, such as:
• confronting another person’s actions,
• seeking a higher authority, or
• stepping in and changing the direction of what
is happening.

05 Make a Decision
• The decision maker should seek the action
alternative that is supported by the evaluation
criteria used in Step 3.
• A decision maker selects a course of action
that is supported by all the ethics theories or
other evaluation criteria used in the decision-
making process.

06 Act or Implement
• The decision maker, if truly seeking to resolve
the problem being considered, must take
action.
• Once the action alternatives have been
identified in Step 4 and the optimal response
is selected in Step 5, the action is taken in Step
6.

07 Review the Action
• Once the action has been taken and the
results are known, the decision maker should
review the consequences of the action.
• If the optimal resolution to the problem is not
achieved, the decision maker may need to
modify the actions being taken or return to
the beginning of the decision-making process

The ethical decision-making process that
applies three predominant ethics theories:
1. Utilitarian perspective
2. Rights perspective
3. Justice perspective

Utilitarian Perspective
A utilitarian perspective:
Where the decision maker considers the
consequences or out-comes of an action
and seeks to maximize the greatest good
for the greatest number of those affected
by the decision.

Rights perspective
A decision maker who considers a rights
perspective would consider the
entitlements of those affected by the
decision.

Justice perspective
A justice perspective may focus on either
the equitable distribution of the benefits
and costs resulting from the plant closing
and employee layoffs (distributive justice)
or the maintenance of rules and standards
(procedural justice).

Ethical Decision Making Process

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