Decision Making

Management decision making and ethics: practices, skills and preferences

Rosalie Holian School of Management, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Keywords

Decision making, Ethics, Skills, Top management

Introduction

This paper may be of use to practising managers and management educators with an interest in ethical dilemmas in organisations. The extent to which managers face ethical problems and their level of cognitive and affective skills to cope with these can impact on outcomes and on role stress. Theory and research on ethics and decision making have sought to explain behavior and develop models; however, many managers in organizations continue to rely on learning how to do this on the job, by trial and error. This study set out to build a theory of practice based on the experience of ethical issues in workplaces. It set out to explore the ``grey'' areas of decision making and how managers deal with these issues in order to understand the skills, competencies and development needs required. Asking: what is the nature of organisational decision making involving ethical issues? What are the differences between decision makers in the ways in which they define, recognise and address perceived ethical issues? Who are the role models, what do they do, and how do they cope? The ethical issues described by participants involved complex interactions between their roles, professional affiliations, working relationships, personal qualities and individual preferences. The findings describe patterns of behaviour associated with this group of practising managers to assist understanding of decision making behaviour, rather than general laws.

Abstract

This article summarises the findings from a study of practising managers which explored experiences of and views on decision making about actual ethical issues in organisations. Data gathering was based on a combination of an intensive case study of an organisation and in-depth...