Understanding Moral Philosophy and Its Connection to Business

Discuss about the Moral philosophies.

When it comes to successful business making then there is a great impact of moral philosophies. Moral philosophies and business are closely connected. But in order to understand, in which ways moral philosophies are relevant in the business making regime, understanding the exact concept of moral philosophy is important. Moral philosophy can be accepted as a study of justification and moral claims. On the other words it can be said that moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy which is there to determine which is right and which is wrong. Generally, the moral claims are there in order to evaluate the rightness or wrongness of an action taken by any individual or any team or any organisation. (Ferrell and Fraedrich, 2015)

There is an illustration of hypothetical situation in order to make understand the right application of moral philosophy to specific business regime. According to the given scenario, Sam colt is a sales representative of Midwest Hardware and he is in charge to prepare a presentation for his firm. The main products of the mentioned company, are nuts and bolts. Actually, there is project of building a bridge across the Mississippi River near ST. Louis, Missouri. The bolts are of near about three percent defect rate but this is acceptable in the industry. but although there is limitation as these bolts with such defect rate cannot take place in some specific projects in fear of sudden and severe stress.

But the challenge take place in the job of Sam Colt as a sales representative he has to promote the firm’s products and bring clients with huge projects in order make great profit. Sam is concerned of this bridge’s project but here is a great problem. The chosen place for the bridge is prone to earthquake. A devastating earthquake has taken place here in 1811 and damaged extensively and altered the flow of Mississippi. According to the earthquake experts, there is the chance of an earthquake with the magnitude greater than seven by the year 2030.

Now Sam has to make understand the contractor that some bolts can fail due to the earthquake and the challenge is that he has to make the contractor agree to purchase the products, his company serves.

According to the scenario, there are high chances of raising ethical issues. Generally, the ethical issues are accepted as a situation or problem and it requires a person or any organisation to select between the alternatives and it needs to get properly evaluated as ethical or unethical. Generally, there are some basic business issues that take place in business making regimes regardless of the industry type (Bowie, 2017). On the other words, ethical issues have become a common thing in this century as every size of business organisation faces these ethical issues during the business span. There are some basic ethical issues which get faced by near about all the business organisations all across the world such as corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship and leadership issues, decision-making issues, compliance and governance issues, fundamental issues and diversity issues.

A Hypothetical Scenario: Ethical Issues in Business Decision Making

Corporate governance is accepted as a regime through which the corporations gets directed and controlled. It is noticed that generally, the corporate governance structures and the principles are there to allocate the rights and responsibilities among various participants. Actually, the rights and responsibilities are there to accelerate the decisions in corporate affairs. (Sorensen et al, 2017)

Corporate social responsibility or CSR is accepted as an organisation’s initiatives in order to access and perform the responsibilities for the organisation’s impact on social and environmental wellbeing. It can also referred to as corporate citizenship

The most faced fundamental issues by the organisations are integrity and trust. When it comes to integrity then there is an idea of carry out the business affairs with the commitment of treating the clients with honesty and fairness. (Pearson, 2017)

Diversity issue is of differences of respect when people choose to work in an organisation. It is noticed that an ethical reply to diversity starts with recruiting a varied workforce.

Decision making issue is considered as the best way to discover the ethical dilemmas and recognizing the ethical courses of action.

In order to run any business it is mandatory to comply with the laws, federal and state safety regulations. And it falls under the compliance and governance issue. According to the given scenario, the mentioned company cannot force the sales representative to break the law or company’s value in order to make profit or promote the sales in a great level. (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014)

According to the scenario, due to the defect rate of the produced bolts, the company can face few ethical issues, which can interrupt the business making regime in a great level. Here the sales representative can make a deal with the contractor to cope with the yeasts with the permission of his company.

Appropriate ethical decision making is not a simple task as it is related with many other internal and external factors (Shaw and Barry, 2015). And it is also related with the moral philosophy. On the other words it can be said that there is no exact or appropriate moral philosophy through which any type of ethical decision making can get accelerated. Actually, there are a lot of factors which can influence the decision making procedure. In order to make an appropriate ethical decision the decision making board or the responsible person should be of the proper related factor analyzing capability.

Common Ethical Issues Faced by Business Organisations

There is a way of five steps and through which a better ethical decision making procedure can get accelerated. It is noticed that a lot of organisations prefer to follow this way in order to make greater ethical decisions in order to solve new and existing ethical issues of the business organisation. The first step is about finding and gathering the related facts. And during the description of the factors maintaining a neutral point of view is truly important. The neutral approach of the description ensures the less chance of overlook and distort. There is another fact which needs to get mentioned here and that is if the regime starts with wrong or irrelevant facts then the moral judgment will be clouded and lead to wrong decision.

The next step is about making an effective prediction about the future. Generally, the prediction take place based on the facts which are relevant to the situation or problem which is requiring a solution.

The next step is about recognizing the reactions of the related persons such as the contractor, the organisation and the rest employees. Analyzing or recognizing the reactions is important in order to check the process is in a rationalizing way or not. (Demuijnck, 2015)

The fourth step is about discussing the prediction with the others in order to make it clear the process is in the right track or not. And the final step is about engaging support, through the proper explanation, a sales representative or the organisation can gain support from the others and it directly reciprocate their business making regime.

In the previous section it is mentioned that moral philosophy is about the study of the moral judgments. But applying moral philosophy is not as easy as it seems. Through few steps or analyzing all the following factors moral philosophy can get applied properly.

Organisational culture- business ethics are accepted as the extended approach of moral philosophy in to the practical approach. On the contrary, it is an all agreed fact that organisational culture is another great thing which accelerates the success of a business organisation. The notions of right and wrong can get used in order to understand the culture of the mentioned company. On the other words, it can be said that this can get used in order to make the employees aware of their moral obligation when it comes to deal with the outsiders, clients or the contractors. It can be said that moral philosophy can get used in order to create a greater culture of honesty and ethical business practice just through enabling a code of ethics. And this can get used in order to shape the employees and leaders of the mentioned organisation.

The Five Steps for Effective Ethical Decision-Making

Discipline- discipline leaves a great impact on the business making regime. On the other words it can be said that only through the proper discipline regime a business organisation can ensure the quality behavior of its employees in the both inside and outside requirements. With the right code of ethics organisations emphasis on ethical behavior, actually through it the employees know and maintain the fact how they should act when they need to face various ethical dilemma.

Relationship of the employees- business ethics is also concerned of the way how a business organisation relates to its employees and the form of employment. Moral philosophy also gets used to determine the present relationship between the managers and the rest employees within a business organisation. Support is another great thing which all the employees need when they set off to perform a duty with the outsiders. According to the given context, Sam Colt is also in same situation as he needs support from his company as he knows the bolts are of three percent defect rate. In order to make understand the contractor the real facts and to started the deal of work together, he will need the support from his company. On the other words, a representative only can become successful with the proper support of the rest employees and it is completely based on the employee relationship. (Kelly, 2017)

Public perception- moral philosophy can get used in order to create a better impression of the business organisation. Public perception is really an important aspect when an outsider needs to sign the contract. And in order to create a better impression of the organisation offering quality approved products and services is important.

Conclusion

After a long discussion, the assignment has reached its conclusion point. Through the entire assignment it is getting clear that moral philosophy takes a great place when it comes to operating a business successfully. It is noticed that all the persons have some moral point of view and best moral ethics can set by the best setting of the work practices. And that’s why most of business organisations prefer to maintain better organisational culture, proper set of discipline and better employee relationship.  

Reference List

Bowie, N.E., 2017. Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education.

Demuijnck, G., 2015. Universal values and virtues in management versus cross-cultural moral relativism: An educational strategy to clear the ground for business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(4), pp.817-835.

Ferrell, O.C. and Fraedrich, J., 2015. Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.

Kelly, P.T., 2017. Integrating Leadership Topics into an Accounting Ethics Course–Preparing Students for a Challenging Profession. In Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations (pp. 141-180). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Pearson, R., 2017. Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.

Shaw, W.H. and Barry, V., 2015. Moral issues in business. Cengage Learning.

Sorensen, D.P., Miller, S.E. and Cabe, K.L., 2017. Developing and measuring the impact of an accounting ethics course that is based on the moral philosophy of Adam Smith. Journal of business ethics, 140(1), pp.175-191.