Answer

Ethical Issues and Sustainability

Ethical management is the practice of balancing expectations, performance, and morality so that integrity is upheld, morality given priority and business conducted in a morally acceptable, profitable and sustainable manner (Kaptein, 2013). This part of the assignment presents a brief recap of the first part of the assignment and a personal reflection on future workplace behaviour with regards to the concepts learnt in the first part.

Summary of Part A

Part A presented two ethical issues facing Medical Australia Ltd. The issues were waste disposal and controversial decision making process. The waste disposal issues was considered an ethical social issues on the basis of the social effects it may pose to the environment. Medical Australia Ltd produces a wide range of medical products, all of which age after a certain period of use and become wastes because they neither be recycled nor reused. Some of the wastes are carcinogenic, while others mutagenic, teratogenic or even non-biodegradable. The second issues was controversies during decision making. For example sharp difference between medical rationale and managerial rational among managers and medical professional. Two frameworks were identified as some of the most appropriate for handling the issues. The frameworks were the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) which presents a step by step approach and Utilitarian framework which provides that balancing rationale of decisions should be based on a proper balancing of the beneficial and harmful effects of a decision.

Reflection on Future Workplace Behaviour

Any given workplace is a platform of inevitable interaction and realities. Some of the main activities of any given work place is production of goods and services aimed for certain specific or general markets (Hiekkataipale & Lämsä, 2017). Workplaces are also characterised with the endeavours to sustainability which relies on the profitability of the production. I have learnt that not all profits may be profitable. As paradoxical as this may sound, it is the truth. Profitability must be seen through various lenses such as sustainability, morality, economics and commerce (Romious et al., 2016). For example, before really concluding that a production venture is profitable, the question which must be answered include, the impacts of such venture to the general community, to the environment, to the employees, to the management and to the owners as week as other stakeholders. A business venture should at least be relevant through all these lenses (Kaptein, 2013).  The answer to these questions would be the best indicator.

According to the ICEAW framework, the irrelevance of a production venture as seen through any of these lenses would be an indicator of an ethical issues which must be addressed. It may be, for instance, a production process that exploits employees, or members of a community or even the environment. I have learnt from the framework to identify and manage such ethical issues in a manner that is morally acceptable, economically viable and commercially feasible. This is because the framework provides all processes and procedures that should be integrated to have such issues addressed (ICAEW, 2018). For instance, in the event that an ethical issue arises, it is paramount to first gather the relevant facts and identity the problem, identify of all the affected parties, consider the ethical issues involved, recognise the fundamental principles affected by the issue, refer to my workplace’s internal procedures and finally consider and evaluate the feasibility of alternative courses of action and implement the most preferable course of action under close monitoring. This framework is applicable not just on one or a few ethical issues, but can also be applied in handling and management of various types of ethical issues which may occur at any workplace.

The second framework which I find equally important is utilitarian framework. The reason I learn a lot from this framework is because it prevents the occurrence of foreseeable ethical issues rather than solving them like in the case of the ICEAW framework. The ethical issues for which this framework was chosen was controversial decision making. Decision making is one progressive activity which is compulsory in any given organization. There are various types of decisions to make, for example, what to produce, how much to produce, how many employed to hire, to expand or not, branding and many others which have direct impact on both internal and external environment of the organization (Brown University, 2018)). Utilitarian framework involves critical evaluation of decision made because it is impossible to have 100% beneficial course of action. A cost benefit analysis is, therefore, necessary in identifying the scope of benefits and the good outcomes expected from the course of action, as well as the harmful and the bad outcomes of the same. A utilitarian approach provides that a course of action chosen should be the one with the most possible beneficial and good outcomes and the least possible harmful and bad outcomes when implemented. This is a framework which helps to solve dilemmas when making decisions. It is, therefore, wise for all stakeholders in the management to reason together not just for the sake of the organization, but for the community, the employees, the environment, the owners and the stakeholders as well (Hiekkataipale & Lämsä, 2017)

I have, therefore, appreciated the concept of far reaching reasoning before a decision is made. I understand that the operation of any given organization should generally be ethically acceptable by as many as possible (Kaptein, 2013). Since there is no ideal situation of attaining a perfect good for all the stakeholders, it is essential to consider the course of action that balances well the expectation of all of them. I have also learnt that in a work place, the decision of one person may not suffice, and thus the need to advance a consultative and inclusive framework to minimize the risk of monopoly, authoritarianism and autocracy. A work place is a community of its own (Romious, et al., 2016). Both frameworks were accurately chosen because they give two important strategies of handling ethical issues, that is to say, prevention strategy and solution strategy.

Conclusion

Getting things done is the dream of every manager, but getting things done in the right way is the dream of every leader. However, whether one is a leader or a manager, ethics remains ethics. The disregard of ethics may seem to be a small matter but may not be so for a long time. Ethics should, therefore, be observed every time so that when ethical issues occur, it would not because of disregarding ethics, but because somethings are inevitable.