Human beings are undoubtedly an intelligent species. Intelligence is a good thing; however, the more humans become consumed by it the more they become aware of morality. In the modern, ethics plays pivotal roles in every society and subsequently in everyone’s lives. Since majority of individuals spend majority of their time in offices and generally workplaces it follows that many of our moral decisions will take place within such spaces. In truth, almost every employee is often faced with a moral issue while at work be it acute or meager. Nonetheless, in the long run, the moral decisions made by employees that have the potential to alter an organization are often forgotten (Shaw & Barry, 2015). Thereby, this paper aims to evaluate the moral choices that employees face and their consequences whenever applicable.
To begin, in just about any company employers often believe that employees have an obligation to the company or in simpler words should be loyal to the company. In real sense, employee’s obligations are limited to what is stipulated in their contracts and this mostly advocates the work they are getting paid for (Shaw & Barry, 2015). Unfortunately, this notion translates very quickly and deeply to employees as workers believe they need to remain loyal to their companies. This loyalty and sense of obligation to a firm results in huge dilemmas especially when conflict of interest occurs. Loyalty can blind employees to believe it is alright for their company to carry out devious practices; which will be discussed later on in whistleblowing.
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Conflict of interest usually arises when an employee has different interests from the employer or company they work for. According to Shaw and Barry majority of the times, they are minor issues; however, sometimes conflict of interest can arise from fundamental issues that may cause acute dilemmas (2015). An example of a major issue is whereby an employee is invested either financially or emotionally which may, in turn, affect their judgment and in turn affect their ability to act in the best interests of the company. Obligation to the firm, although it is not a professional requirement can often evoke moral dilemmas in employees regardless of one’s moral perspectives.
Furthermore, abuse of official position for self-gain is another moral issue that employees face from time to time. Abuse of official position simply refers to an individual(s) using their monetarily gain even though it goes against company’s restrictions. This issue often arises in high ranking employees whom have the capability of altering things in their favor or either to benefit their family members (Moore, Detert, Klebe Treviño, Baker & Mayer, 2012). Examples may include making beneficial deals with relatives with disregard to the opportunity cost at play. More “formal” examples include insider trading and selling of propriety data. Insider trading implicates revealing private information that has an impact on stock prices by an employee while selling of proprietary data refers to mainly revealing company’s secrets that have the potential of giving competitors an upper hand.
At first glance, it seems that abuse of official position does not result in harm for any individual but unmerited gain for one party. In truth, it may seem that the company is the only losing party and at times the company may not even lose anything. However, Moore, Detert, Klebe Treviño, Baker, and Mayer argue that abuse of official presents many moral choices which employees must make with regards to their inherent ethics (2012). For instance, offering beneficial deals to relatives when they are clearly not the best alternative not only hurt the company but the diligent workers who would have benefited from that work. With regards to insider trading and sale of propriety data, such action can result in either direct or indirect injury to innocent individuals (Shaw & Barry, 2015). Take, for example, a person who invests in a stock after being lied to that it is valuable when in truth the company is at the brink of bankruptcy. As such abuse of official position is yet another phenomenon that forces employees to rethink their moral stances.
Moreover, gifts and entertainment are used fairly abundantly in the business world. When an individual is deemed to have done a good job a gift often follows suit. While granting gifts to employees or facilitating entertainment to celebrate a particular thing on behalf of an employee(s) is not illegal it does border bribery. However, this paper does not intend to evaluate the moral choices that employers face but those of employees. Gifts can be used to convey other less honest intentions of which an employee may not conversant with at first (Gunia, Wang, Huang, Wang & Murnighan, 2012). For instance, an employee may be granted gifts so to turn a blind eye when upper management does something that is probably not right. Additionally, for a long while, gifts and entertainment have been used to lure female workers into sensual relationships with their seniors (in terms of position).
At a glance it is hard to notice this concealed intentions, however, it is up to the employee to deduce them. There a variety of steps through which one can go through to ascertain the valid intentions of a gift. An employee can evaluate the price of the gift, the purpose that the gift should serve, the circumstances that led to the individual being given the gift and other precautionary steps (Shaw & Barry, 2012). However, the real moral dilemma comes after an employee indeed realizes that the gift or entertainment was not granted with honest intentions. Should they accept them? Should they return them and hope that the employer does not take it the wrong way? Should they make other employees aware of such behavior? These are just a few ethical decisions that employees have to face as a result of being beneficiaries of gifts and/or entertainment.
Lastly, whistleblowing is perhaps one of the issues that realizes the most acute dilemmas in employees. By definition, whistleblowing refers to a situation whereby an employee reveals criminal, illegal or immoral activity being carried out by their company. Whistleblowing is a noble act as it reveals the cruel practices that companies conceal to give themselves an added advantage. Nonetheless, whistleblowing does not happen frequently despite the high frequency in which companies commit such devious practices. This is because revealing such information can be quite an uphill task for any employee. Shaw and Barry articulate that whistleblowers often believe that public interest and justice outweighs their loyalty and/or fear of the company, such an action still poses an ethical dilemma (2015). For one, an employee who reveals such data has surely lost his/her job either way. Moreover, there is the case of loyalty to the company and also fear as employers have the power to ruin an individual’s life. All in all, whistleblowing often boils down to a moral choice between loyalty and retribution of vile actions by a company, a decision that which an employee has to make.
In conclusion, moral choices are decisions individuals have to make just by virtue of being human. In the workplace, a lot moral choices have to be made either on an individual or on an organization basis. Fortunately or unfortunately, employees have to make these moral decisions as well regardless of their own personal beliefs. Such choices include obligation to the company, acceptance of gifts and even whistleblowing. However, because it is mandatory making moral choices does not mean that employees should refrain from making or fear ethical decisions as they are part and parcel of life.
References
Gunia, B. C., Wang, L., Huang, L. I., Wang, J., & Murnighan, J. K. (2012). Contemplation and conversation: Subtle influences on moral decision making. Academy of Management Journal , 55 (1), 13-33.
Moore, C., Detert, J. R., Klebe Treviño, L., Baker, V. L., & Mayer, D. M. (2012). Why employees do bad things: Moral disengagement and unethical organizational behavior. Personnel Psychology , 65 (1), 1-48.
Shaw, W. H., & Barry, V. (2015). Moral issues in business . Cengage Learning.
