Business Ethic (Essay Sample)

Business Ethics
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Introduction
The chapter is about how different people react to ethical issues at their workplace. Following this, there was a survey that was conducted by CIMA in 2008. In their report, it was noted that 27% financial professionals reported experiencing pressure to compromise ethical standards due to various reasons. Thus, since compromising ethical issues is an actual possibility, this chapter deals with ways in which an individual can respond to ethical situation. These responses are based on two main cognitive responses; categorization and particularization. Categorization involves basing the ethical issues according to their values. In particularization, an individual decides on how to deal with each situation based on its nature. In this scenario, the type of the response given depends on the nature of the scenario and the judgment of the individual involved.
Categories of response to ethical issues
In categorization, a specific formula is used to classify any situation and a response is given from a list of suggested responses. A matrix with eight subdivisions is used to categorize the ethical problem. The first subdivision is ethical neutrality. In this scenario, many people tend to set aside their morals if they interfere with their work. Thus, the manager either does not take any action and she/he keeps out of the problem. Another category is ethical awareness. In this scenario, the individual is aware of their ethical duty. However, such individuals do not have a logical explanation as to why they are observing the set ethics. An important aspect of ethical awareness is for the person to express emotiveness. In this scenario, the person expects the others to uphold the same ethical standards and expresses surprise if any different. Another category is ethical convention which is a classic example of categorization.
In this case, the ethical issue is allocated to a specific class and the specified solutions used to solve the issue. The specified solutions include social norms, expectations and standard of professional behavior, or the various constraints associated with the given organization. Conventional ethical norms are presented in informal forms and if written they are presented in general terms. In this scenario, an individual respond with consulting with others and applying the set norms to deal with the situation. An ethical puzzle only occurs in a clear moral context. In this scenario, a given formula is used to arrive at the best solution for the ethical situation.
In this case, a person can calculate the consequences of an action and based on the results give the best solution. An ethical problem is where there is no optimal solution to t...