ETHICS:Sexual Harassment, Pay and Promotion Discrimination, Employee Privacy

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Organizational Psychology (PSY510)

LESSON 06

ETHICS

Definition

According to the Oxford dictionary, the word ethics stands for set of moral philosophies or principles.

Simply put, ethics is the right and the wrong of behaviour in organizations.

The word morality and ethics are interchangeable. The presence of two words in the English language with

the same meaning is due to the fact that they derive from different roots; morality, from the Latin word

moralitas, and ethic, from the Greek ethikos. There is no difference, therefore, between describing

discrimination as a moral issue and as an ethical issue.

Ethics, along with logic, epistemology, and metaphysics, is a traditional area of philosophical inquiry that

dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks. This study is either descriptive or normative.

Descriptive ethics may involve an empirical inquiry into the actual rules or standards of a particular group,

or it could include the understanding the ethical reasoning process. On the other hand, the normative ethics

is concerned not with what people believe we ought to do but with what we really ought to do and is

determined by reasoning or moral argument.

Ethics is a body of principles or standards of human conduct that govern the behavior of individuals and

groups. Ethics arise not simply from man's creation but from human nature itself making it a natural body

of laws from which man's laws follow.

The principles of ethical reasoning are useful tools for sorting out the good and bad components within

complex human interactions. For this reason the study of ethics has been at the heart of intellectual

thought since the early Greek philosophers, and its ongoing contribution to the advancement of knowledge

and science makes ethics a relevant, if not vital, aspect of management theory. Ethical principles continue,

even today, to have a profound influence on many modern management fields including quality

management, human resource management, culture management, change management, risk management,

mergers, marketing, and corporate responsibility.

Ethics is much more than just a collection of values. Values are almost always oversimplifications, which

rarely can be applied uniformly. Values tend to be under-defined, situational by nature and subject to

flawed human reasoning such that by themselves they cannot assure true ethical conduct. Consider the

sought after value of employee loyalty. Should employees be loyal to co-workers, supervisors, customers, or

investors? Since it may be impossible to be absolutely loyal to all four simultaneously, in what order should

these loyalties occur? Employers that demand employee loyalty rarely can answer this question completely.

Regarding the inadequacy of values, consider this. Murderers, criminals, and liars all have values, so does

this make them ethical? Also, killing can be either unethical or ethical (such as in self defense) depending

on the situation (religious arguments aside for the moment). For these reasons and more, values by

themselves are generally insufficient measures of ethics.

Impact of Ethical Practices On Organizational Behavior

Ethics is influenced by cultural, organizational and personal factors. Poor ethics can be extremely damaging

to organizational performance. When ethical behavior is poor it taxes operational performance in many

visible and sometimes invisible ways. The tax can be on yield or productivity, which is easily measured. The

tax can impose itself on group dynamics, suppressing openness and communication, which is hard to

measure but easily felt. Perhaps the most dangerous tax is the one placed on risk, which is neither

measurable nor easily sensed. Whether the damage is visible or invisible, poor ethics blinds the organization

to the realities of their declining environment leaving any organization vulnerable to setbacks that could be

avoided.

Good ethics on the other hand have a surprisingly positive effect on organizational activities and results.

Productivity improves. Group dynamics and communication improve, and risk is reduced. One reason for

this is ethics becomes an additional form of logical reasoning, increasing the flow of information, and

adding an additional set of eyes and antennae to give the organization needed feedback regarding how it is

doing. Increased reasoning capabilities, coupled with additional information, is a strategic advantage in any

business or organization.

Real organizational ethics is a rational process for exploring decision and behavior alternatives and selecting

the best possible choices for all involved. Real ethics, at the organizational level, goes beyond personal

ethics and values. Real ethics is a collective undertaking, or a team sport, with team like demands and

Organizational Psychology (PSY510)

results. Ethical issues in organizations can get complicated very quickly, so much that even the best trained

ethicists often will not know what decisions to make or what ought to be done. Such times are precisely

when the disciplined reasoning of ethics quality pays off the most. Ethical decisions and their corresponding

behaviors in organizational settings are never perfect. However, the quality of the processes applied, as well

as the usefulness of their outcomes, is precise and measurable with scientific certainty. It is through the

process of ethical reasoning that bad things are preventable and great things become more possible.

Organizations need ethics quality not only to prevent unhealthy behavior but to inspire superior reasoning

and performance. It is only through human nature, and ethics, that we can inspire greater levels of

innovation, teamwork, and process breakthroughs that result in sustainable competitive advantages. Oliver

Wendell Holms wrote, "Once a person's mind is expanded by a new idea the mind can never return to its

original form." The same is true with management and ethics. When managers understand how ethics

makes them better, their role as a manager changes forever. Once ethics is learned we all acquire the ability

to see what we often could not see before. We see that using ethics - the reasoning science - to improve

individual and group performance is what real ethics -and real management- are all about.

Sexual Harassment

Improper sexual conduct in the workplace--which includes lewd and suggestive comments, touching and

fondling, persistent attention, and requests for sexual favours--has long been a problem for women, and

occasionally for men. All too often, such sexual harassment has been regarded as employers as a personal

matter beyond their control or as an unavoidable part of male-female relations. However, increased

attentions to the problem and recent developments in laws have made employers aware of their

responsibilities--and women, of their rights! Three fourth of working women in the States are subjected to

sexual harassment. Laws are passed in various countries whereby sexual harassment is properly defined and

punished if found in the workplace. A number of steps are taken by organizations to discourage employees

form sexual harassment.

Surveys of employee attitudes reveal substantial agreement on some of the activities that constitute sexual

harassment and differences on others. In particular, most of the respondents in a 1980 poll conducted by

Harvard Business Review and Redbook magazine consistently rated a supervisor's behaviour as more

serious that the same action by a co-worker, thereby recognizing the sexual harassment is mainly an issue of

power.

Although sexual harassment is usually committed by one employee against another, employers bear both

legal and ethical obligation to prevent harassment and to act decisively when it occurs. Harassment is more

likely to occur when management has not prescribed clear policies and procedures with regard to conduct

of a sexual nature. Employers who display an insufficient concern or have inadequate procedures for

detecting harassment in the workplace bear some responsibility for individuals' harassing conduct. In

addition, companies cannot fully evade responsibility by blaming the victim for not reporting sexual

harassment in accord with the established procedures. The way in which employers respond to claims of

sexual harassment sends a powerful message about the seriousness with which management takes in own

policies and procedures. The legal duty of an employer also extends to harassment by non-employees such

as customers and clients.

Most corporations have recognized the cost of sexual harassment and accepted the responsibility to prevent

it by establishing programs to deal with sexual harassment on the job. The major features of these programs

are:

1. Developing a firm policy against harassment

2. Communicating this policy to all employees and providing training, where necessary, to secure

compliance

3. Setting up a procedure for reporting violations and investigating all complaints thoroughly and

fairly; and

4. Taking appropriate action against the offenders.

Pay and Promotion Discrimination

The term discrimination describes a large number of wrongful acts in employment, housing, education,

medical care, and other important areas of public life. Although discrimination in each of these areas takes

different forms, what they have in common is that person is deprived of some benefit or opportunity

because of membership in some group toward which there is substantial prejudice. Discrimination in

employment, which is our concern here, generally arises from the decisions employers make about hiring,

Organizational Psychology (PSY510)

promotion, pay, fringe benefits, and the other terms and conditions of employment that directly affect the

economic interest of employees.

Research shows that women get 60% of men's pay all over the world which particularly women doctors and

lawyers get 75% of men's pays.

Another form of discrimination that relates to promotion opportunities in job is referred to as the Glass

Ceiling effect where women or other minority groups are not allowed promotion beyond a certain level in

the organization. However, Glass ceiling effect can be removed by:

· Warm rather than luke warm management policies: which means that the management needs to

stringently enforce non-discriminatory policies in the organization.

· Gender training

· Seeding strategy: directly placing women in senior position

Employee Privacy

Early in the century, the Ford Motor Company set up a "Sociological Department" in order to make sure

that workers in Henry Ford's words, were leading "clean, sober, and industrious" lives. Company inspectors

checked bank accounts to keep Ford employees from squandering their munificent $5-a-day wages. They

visited employees living quarters to see that they were neat and healthful, and they interviewed wives and

acquaintances about the handling of finances, church attendance, daily diet, drinking habits, and a host of

the other matters. Workers who failed to live up to Henry Ford's standards of personal conduct were

dismissed.

Government is not the only collector of information. Great amounts of data are required by corporations

for the hiring and placement of workers, for the evaluation of their performance, and for the administration

of fringe benefit packages including health insurance and pensions. Private employers also need to compile

personal information about race, sex, age, and handicap status in order to document compliance with the

laws on discrimination.

Computer technology, drug test policy and efforts to control lifestyles of employees have created employees

privacy issues. Monitoring the work of employees is an essential part of the supervisory role of

management, and new technologies enable employers to watch more closely than ever before, especially

when the work is done on telephones or computer terminals. Supervisors can eavesdrop on the telephone

conversations or employees, for example, and call up on their own screens the input and output that appear

on the terminals of the operators. A computer record can be made of the number of telephone calls, their

duration, and their destination. The number of keystrokes made by a data processor, the number of errors

and corrections made, and the amount of time spent away from the desk can also be recorded for use by

management.

Without question, the technologies that threaten privacy have brought us many benefits. Finding the right

means is a great challenge to business firms which must meet employee and consumer expectations as they

utilize new technologies. More than many business ethics problems, protecting privacy require a

coordinated solution involving many parties. Until a solution is found, though, the focus of businesses will

remain on developing and implementing privacy policies.

Because the study of organizational ethics is in its infancy compared to other areas of healthcare ethics,

discussions about it often seem like hot air with no palpable payoff.

REFERENCES

· Boatright, R., John. (2003). Ethics and Conduct of Business (Fourth Edition). India: Taj Press.

· EJBO is Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies published by the Business and

Organization Ethics Network (BON) in School of Business, http://ejbo.jyu.fi/index.cgi?page=cover

· Shawn C. Helms, "Translating Privacy Values with Technology," Boston University Journal of Science

and Technology Law, 7 (2001), 156.

· These camps were described and analyzed in Karl D. Belgum, "Who Leads at Half-time? Three

Conflicting Views on Internet Privacy," Richmond Journal of Law &Technology, 6 (1999),

http://www.richmond.edu/~jolt/.

· Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics, Welldon, J. trans. Prometheus Books (Buffalo, NY: 1987).

Organizational Psychology (PSY510)

Bentham, J. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation in Warnock, M ed. Utilitarianism,

On Liberty, Essay on Bentham: together with selected writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin,

Meridian/New American Library (New York, NY: 1974).

· Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA: 1971).

· Sartre, J. Existentialism and Humanism, Mairet, P. Trans. & Intro. Eyre Methuen Ltd. (London, UK:

1973).

· Vanderbos, G..Knapp, S., & Doe, j. (2001 March 7). U.S. Cracks International Software Piracy Ring:

Yahoo

News.

Retrieved

March

2006,

from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Copyrights.Patents/Piracy.Ring.html

· Miller, Kevin. (2005 January 28). Professors have expressed the most concern about privacy rights

regarding intellectual property and personal e-mails from students. Retrieved March 7, 2006, from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Roanoke.Times/Alarm.html

· Spring, Tom. (2000 December 26). Copy Controls: Fair Use or Foul Play? Retrieved March 7, 2006,

from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Roanoke.Times/Alarm.html

· Inter Property Law Associates. (2005 October 15). Property Law and Issues. Retrieved March 8, 2006

from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Copyrights.Patents/www.intelproplaw.com

FURTHER READING

Bergman, P.G., (1999 December 10). Out-Licensing Brings Schools Profits, Big Legal Bills", The

National Law Journal. Retrieved March 6, 2006 from

http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/stories/A11108-1999Dec8.html

· Rohde, Laura, (2000 December 15). "BT [British Telecom] Sues Prodigy over US Hyperlink Patent",

Retrieved March 13, 2006 from

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/12/15/001215hnbtprodigy.xml?

· Buchholz, Daniel, (1996 May 02). An interesting Trademark case in Cleveland OH. Retrieved March 13,

2006 from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Copyrights.Patents/Buchholz.poster.html

· Bergman, P.G. & Editors of Encyclopeida Britannica Online. (2005-2006). Trade Secret. Encyclopedia

Britannica Online. Retrieved March 13, 2006. from Encyclopedia Britannica Online on the World Wide

Web:

http://www.search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=117376&sctn=1

· Coulter, Mary. (2004). Trade Secret & Protection by Law. Hove England: Denver Press.

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