Research Paper on Decision Making

What makes a decision ethical? How do the influences affect our decision-making processes? Who are the influences? What should they be? Where do ethics and morals come into play? Webster's (1982) defines ethical as "involving or expressing moral approval or disapproval; conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct". This research paper on Decision Making will discuss what ethics in decision-making there are, what the ground rules are, if any, and the elements of an ethically defensible decision. A person who is ethical is concerned with doing the right thing. When making a decision one should apply ethics to weigh the value or magnitude of impact. Often at times this can be challenging because there are so many influences that affect ones decisions. Ambiguity can play a big part in the circumstances, details, stakeholders, and morals in which decisions are made.

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Organizations usually have a universal standard of values such as a mission statement or a vision/ value statement that is accepted above or beyond the scope of a company's policies and procedures this serves as a guideline for ethical principals. In 1996 the Ethics Resource Center developed a simple acronym ethics filters to be used in decision-making. The acronym is PLUS which, stands for Policies, Legal, Universal, and self. This provided organizational hierarchy for all employees with the same ground rules. This also provided a way to filter decisions through basic ethical and moral tests. In another example of applied ground rules, nurses have long since been ethically challenged in their profession. Noureddine, S. (2000) states, "when faced with an ethical dilemma, nurses use formula ethics, where ethical principles are applied to a specific case to determine what one ought to do." Decisions will need to be re-evaluated or reworked based on ones personal or company's ethical ground rules. However, urgency is usually a deciding factor of influence on ones decision-making process. This often limits the information on which to base a problem, which limits alternative solutions. The amount of options or alternatives is especially important when using ethical based filters. A red flag of ethical questions is raised on a daily bases to each and every one of us both personally and professionally.

In ones profession he/she may or may not be in a position that requires them to make a decision that will have a huge impact on ethical decisions. Lets use the example of a recent corporate scandal such as Enron a company that was falsifying accounting records. In this organization choices were made to put aside the potential public risk and public trust in exchange for profits with out regard for their primary stakeholders which, where the employees who were basically screwed by their employer. The only basis for this decision must have been money over risk.

It will take years for the stakeholders in this company to recover, if that is even possible. Was the decision to falsify accounting records premeditated or was it a result of a smaller decision gone wrong? The only way we will ever know is through an investigation into the dealings of the administrative upper management. One might venture to assume that the CEO and his partner's ethics are being called into question. McCall and Kaplan (1990 p93) say, "Decision making cannot be divorced from a manager's values."

Managers place different emphasis on outcomes such as return to shareholders, quality of work, and social responsibility. Because decisions have multiple consequences, the criteria used to evaluate a decision will depend on which consequences are emphasized and by whom. When one makes a decision that has ethical implications one needs to ensure that it is ethically defensible. For example, working on the communications system in a hospital can have life and death consequences. Prior to shutting the system down for an upgrade, policies and procedures need to be followed to ensure ER and other vital units are covered.

Hospital management and floor staff needs to be notified when this event will occur and informed of all alternative arrangements. The system needs to be worked on during a low traffic period to minimize any incidents. When all of these pieces are in place one knows that when one throws the switch to turn the power off that all the bases are covered and we did the best to ensure the safety of others. The matter of moral and ethical decision-making confronts us everyday in our professions. At home or work, we are bombarded by decisions made by companies relying on our use of their products everyday.

When a website is visited and an item purchased, is it ethical to retain that person's buying habits? Is it ethical to do so without their knowledge? Is it ethical to sell those buying habits, their e-mail and shipping addresses, and other personal information to another company without the buyer's knowledge? This utilizing and selling of personal information is an everyday event. The legal community and politicians are scrambling to catch up with the technology and deal with the vast array of ethical and privacy issues. The Internet spans worldwide making law enforcement difficult.

The world will have to ban together to reign in this ever-expanding ethical void. Ethics in decision-making is a part of our daily lives. It is far too prevalent in today's news, business, and schools. They are scrambling to upgrade their policies and curriculum to include some ethical requirements. Several articles state, "it may be better to integrate ethics in to other classes, so students see it as an integral part of other subjects they are studying, such as finance, marketing, or accounting." Ethics is in the forefront of everyone's mind and hopefully, this will spur change and a more ethically aware society. ( Houston Chronicle 2002)

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