Employees' Roles / Responsibilities in Ethical Situations (Case Study Sample)

Introduction
In the contemporary world, ethical dilemmas are very common, especially in organizations. An ethical dilemma may arise within one individual or between two or more individuals. Theses dilemmas may have negative or positive outcomes on the victim and any other party involved in the organization. Ethics of employees are propelled by different factors including individual factors, issue-specific factors as well as environmental factors. The top management is required to set clear guidelines to help the employees to deal with ethical dilemmas. Employees are also obliged to solve issues of ethical dilemmas amongst themselves without risking or losing their jobs. This paper discusses roles of employees in ethical situations as well as functions of the organizations to ensure ethical practices in conducting business.
Jacob’s Ethical Dilemma
The ethical dilemma in the case study is the issue of honesty. Jacob is aware of the fact that Krystal did most of the work for the presented. However, Jacob has medical bills for his son, and his bonus could not cater for all the bills. He is thus confronted with the dilemma of whether to use the bonus to pay medical bills for his son or share it with Krystal since they did the presentation together while at the same time considering the fact that Krystal did the most of the work. Jacob should be honest, inform Krystal of the bonus of $10,000 together with his son’s medical bills, and solve the issue without engaging in unethical behavior. By approaching Krystal, Jacob will demonstrate ethical behavior in conducting business (Jennings, 2014).
Employees’ Roles/responsibilities in Ethical Situations
Various factors contribute to unethical behavior among workers. These factors include individual factors, issue-specific factors and environmental factors (Kish-Gephart et al. 2010). Employees who tend to obey unethical directives of their seniors to avoid being punished evidence individual factors. Employees often influence others with the aim of personal gain without considering their acts and consequences. Such individual factors perpetuate unethical behavior in the business. Issue-specific factors on the other hand vary depending on the level of harm that the victim is imposed as well as the extent to which peers agree. For instance, if an employee is alleged to have been involved in alleged unethical behavior, he/she may be triggered to act in an unethical way. Collins & Shemko (2014) argues that unethical behavior tends to increase when employees consider that any act they engage in is not likely to lead to an adverse outcome for a potential victim and feels that their colleagues will not become critics of their actions. Lastly, environmental factors in the workplace also influence the behavior of employees. If a working environment for instance promotes egotistic behavior rather than a climate that encourage a positive atmosphere to all stakeholders, employees are more likely to act unethically.
Every employee contributes to the decision making process regardless of his/her level in the company. Additionally, all employees are potential victims of being confronted with an ethical dilemma at any one time, and various ethical decisions are more challenging to comprehend compared to others (Fernando, 2011). To make most appropriate decisions, an employee can take different steps when faced with an ethical dilemma.
The first step an employee ought to take is to consult the code of ethics of the company for formal guidance (Collins & Shemko, 2014). This simple act may help to provide a solution to the ethical dilemma instantly depending on whether the ethics statement is comprehensive or specific. Code of ethics of the employee can offer a backdrop on which to measure both pros and cons of organization’s decisions thus providing a clear picture of the decision that aligns more with ethical commitments of the business.
The second step is to share the dilemma with the supervisor. According to Brooks & Dunn (2011), employees may face ethical dilemmas while performing their duties such as issuing out refunds, an act that does not adhere to the policies of the company specifically or whether to report internal theft being suspected but which cannot be proven. Forwarding ethical questions can help employees to get out of trouble and contribute to solving conflicts in the business.
The executives can help to make farthest-reaching decisions. Employees are also obligated to engage in talks with peers from other businesses to acquire a broad spectrum of insights.
The third step is discussing ethical dilemma together with other company’s executives especially if the employee is at the top of organization’s hierarchy. The executives can help to make farthest-reaching decisions. However, it is important for as an executive to demonstrate competence while solving his problems (Jennings, 2014). The fourth step involves engaging in talks with peers from other businesses to acquire a broad spectrum of insights.
Lastly, employees are required to research more on the ethical issues affecting them for instance on news articles to gain an insight of how other companies deal with specific ethical dilemmas. The employee ought to find out how other employees have dealt with such a challenge in the past and identify the results of their decisions. Finding out the outcome of others can provide an insight of what to anticipate after making a similar decision (Trevino & Nelson, 2011).
The Organization’s Role/responsibility in Ensuring Ethical Practices
Brooks & Dunn (2011) asserts that since ethics is an art of being accountable for making the right decisions, organizations ought to establish a process of making decisions when faced with an issue in the decision making process. The organization must find out the decisions made, develop and examine various options to decide ethical values and principles involved. Ethically justifiable options should be selected. The organization should get solid facts rather than relying on opinions and personal beliefs. The credibility of the source of information should be determined together with any aspect of self-interest and examine the benefits, risks or burdens involved. To ensure ethical practices, it is important for the organization to investigate the potential outcome of the proposed actions by assessing the negative and positive outcomes of the action. The organization is thus responsible for creating the worst-case scenarios to test the decision and find out any modification of the methods that can be done and make a decision. Organizations ought to develop an implementation plan ensure optimization of benefits while minimizing risks and costs without being swayed by selfish attitudes (Trevino & Nelson, 2011). The success of the implementation plan should be assessed to determine if the employees have learned from their actions to avoid mistakes when making judgments.
An organization can take various steps to ensure all its parts operate in an ethical way. The organization can do so by setting the bar, motivating effects, sustaining ethics and scale ethics (Fernando, 2011). The first step is creating clear and precise standards of ethical behaviors, values, and attitudes. Positive deviants should model best practices and ethical attitudes that other employees should achieve to preserve ethics of...