Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility 5th Edition by Laura

In the second sense, “How should we live?” refers to how we live together in a community. This is a question about how a society and social institutions such as corporations ought to be structured and about how we ought to live together. This area is sometimes referred to as social ethics and it raises questions of justice, public policy, law, civic virtues, organizational structure, and political philosophy. 
In this sense, business ethics is concerned with how business institutions ought to be structured, about whether they have a responsibility to the greater society (corporate social responsibility or CSR), about making decisions that will impact many people other than the individual decision maker.
We refer to this broader social aspect of ethics as decision-making for social responsibility.
Teaching Note: The following hypothetical case can be used to highlight the distinction between the ethics of individual integrity and the social justice.  Imagine an HR manager who is hiring two employees. Assume that the top two candidates, one male and one female, are equally qualified and that the HR manager wishes to hire both. Assume that the HR manager himself will get evaluated, in part, by how well he controls compensation expenses. As a result, he has both a professional and personal responsibility to pay the lowest salary that is necessary to get the candidate to accept the position. At the last interview, the manager asks each about their salary expectations.   Imagine that the female candidate asks for a salary that is substantially below what the male asks. He knows that the male may not accept the job offer at a lower salary, and knows that the female is willing to accept the lower offer. What responsibility does the HR manager have for paying equally qualified employees? If the manager pays the female less, would you characterize him as sexist? Is this decision unfair workplace discrimination? Imagine now that the HR manager is a woman? Would this change your judgment? A good discussion can follow on how particular social contexts can shape decisions and, despite the best intentions of individuals involved, result in socially undesirable consequences.
 
Decision Point
Management and Ethics
 
Imagine that you are examining this chapter’s opening scenario in one of your classes on Organizational Behavior or Managerial Finance. What advice would you offer to Sodexo? What judgment would you make about this case from a financial perspective? After offering your analysis and recommendations, reflect on your own thinking and describe what values underlie those recommendations.
 
•      What facts would help you make your decision?
•      Does the scenario raise values that are particular to managers?
•      What stakeholders should be involved in your advice?
•      What values do you rely on in offering your advice?
 

 
Ethical Decision-Making: Within a business setting, individuals will constantly be asked to make decisions affecting both their own personal integrity and their social responsibilities.


Each decision made by a business manager involves not only a personal decision, but also a decision on behalf of, and in the name of, an organization that exists within a particular social, legal, and political environment. 


Whatever decision business managers make, they will have taken a stand on an ethical issue, at least implicitly.


The actions each one of us takes and the lives we lead give very practical and unavoidable answers to fundamental ethical questions.
 
Decision Point
Ethics After an Oil Spill
 
The following answers are lengthier than those that follow in the rest of this Instructors’ Manual in order to give a bit of guidance at the outset.
Ethics After an Oil Spill
In 2011, an oil pipeline owned by the energy company Enbridge sprung a leak near the town of Wrigley in the Canadian Northwest Territory. The citizens of Wrigley maintain a traditional style of life that depends on the health of local forests and waterways. Environmental protection isn’t just a question of principle for the people of Wrigley; it’s a matter of survival. Enbridge devised a detailed cleanup plan - a complex technical document 600 pages long. When the company offered $5,000 so that the community could hire its own experts to evaluate the plan, locals were offended by such a tiny payment. This was a significant blow to Enbridge’s image, coming shortly after another Enbridge pipeline ruptured in Michigan. And at the same time, Enbridge was in the midst of trying to win approval for a new project in the face of opposition from environmental groups.