UNNC DMO--Business Ethics(2)

Bauman (c.f. Milgram, 1974):

unnc Designing and Managing Organisations 部分笔记

– Business ethics : Managers have more power to define and control organizational members‘ ethics. Assigning ethical responsibilities to organizations can increase unethical

organizational practices.

– Mechanisms (rules, targets, quotas``)to control employees‘ behaviour for collective purpose. Pressures for conformity and uniformity can squeeze out individual ethical responsibility. Ethics mean doing what one feels right, not boss want one to do.

– Stop members judging organizational behaviour using

individual‘s moral judgements. ―the organization as a whole is an instrument to obliterate responsibility‖. Business ethics is further removing ethical responsibility from individuals.

Question Ethics of obedience

Suggests that one person‘s subordination to another is unethical

– (e.g. subordination of employee to manager) a breach of Kant‘s imperative that a person cannot be used as a means by others.

Marxist critique of capitalist working relations

– Alienation(people sell their labour for wage. employee‘s labour is an alien thing to them, owned by another) and

exploitation(employees are another factor of production to be used and exploited) employee resistance to management control as an ethical act. But mainsteam: increase

management control.

Forms of resistance can be ethical (recall the seminar topics)

Question Corporate takeover of ethics

◎The basis of management authority

– The modern organizational form

– The working of the capitalist economic system

◎BUT these questions are rarely asked in mainstream discourse

– Business ethics‘ is ethics made safe for business

Becomes just one more way of maximizing profits‘ .

ethics is another resource that business can exploit to

ward of criticism and attrcat hapless consumers. E.g.

MNs

Critical approaches: Important studies

Niemark (1995)

– Study of multinational shoe manufacturer—Stride Rite. In public eyes, it won 14 social responsibility awards, creating

unnc Designing and Managing Organisations 部分笔记

ethical brand image. But it shift production line to low wage overseas, having bad working condition so cost is cut.----business ethics is a resource to be exploited for corporate brand.

– CSR spending deflects attention from labour exploitation – Highlights danger of accepting corporation‘s claims of ethical behaviour

Milgram (1974)

– Psychological experiment

– Shows that in obedience, there is the potential for a loss of ethical responsibility

– Highlights importance of questioning authority

Conclusion

The mainstream approach is mired in a pro-managerial agenda, together with the belief in free markets

A critical approach challenges the economic, pro-managerial understanding of ethics.