Ethical Issues in Management

Ethical Issues in Management

Glenda Green

June 14, 2010

MGT/216

Kane Martin, Instructor

Ethical Issues in Management

I am not a manager at my place of employment, but I manage family and personal matters on a regular basis. Managing family and personal matters is similar in some ways to being a manager at a place of business.

Managers are faced with moral and ethical issues on a daily basis. It is the responsibility of the manager is to solve dilemmas in the office as fairly and reasonably as possible. The manager should also know the nature and personality of the people in his or her team. This knowledge will assist the manager in making the right decision for the employees and the company as a whole.

Managing family and personal issues requires the same knowledge as above. However, it can be harder because there are no set of written rules, as in a business code of ethics. A personal code of ethics is internal, not written, but is still a code that the person and their family follow from the time they are born.

Business managers have to deal with multiple moral and ethical issues like racism, bias, conflict of interest, work environment, and punishment of employees. They have to be careful not to show favoritism of employees, and strive every minute of the day to make the right decisions. In addition, a manager should have good communication with his or her employees, and make an effort to solve problems informally.

In a “Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers,” by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, he discusses the “strong, ethical principals” used by Johnson and Johnson (J&J) in handling the “Tylenol scare” crisis in the 1980s. According to Mr. McNamara, “It was the ongoing “challenge sessions” that the company regularly held in order for each person to clarify their own perspective and commitment to the J&J Credo (a form of a code of ethics) that helped J&J handle the crisis so well.”...