ilovestudy

  Management Ethics and Social Responsibility Introduction/Fundamental Concepts Ethics may be broadly defined as that division of philosophy which deals with questions concerning the nature of value in matters of human conduct. While virtually all people are concerned with making ethical judgments and decisions, philosophers in particular are concerned to explicate the nature of such judgments in general, to provide criteria for determining what is ethically right or wrong, and to analyze the grounds or reasons we have for holding them to be correct. Those concerned exclusively with telling us what is right or wrong, good or bad, in matters of human conduct may be termed moralist. While philosophers have sometimes been moralists, as philosophers their primary concern is not so much to provide moral prescriptions as it is to explain why what we consider to be "right" or "good" is right or good. To do so, philosophers engaged with such questions have generally sou

  What Is Workplace Diversity? Diversity has been “one of the most popular business topics over the last two decades. It ranks with modern business disciplines such as quality, leadership, and ethics. Despite this popularity, it’s also one of the most controversial and least understood topics.”5 With its basis in civil rights legislation and social justice, the word diversity often invokes a variety of attitudes and emotional responses in people. Diversity has traditionally been considered a term used by human resources departments, associated with fair hiring practices, discrimination, and inequality. But diversity today is considered to be so much more. We’re defining workforce diversity as the ways in which people in an organization are diferent from and similar to one another. Notice that our definition not only focuses on the diferences, but also the similarities of employees. This reinforces our belief that managers and organizations should view employees as having qualities in

Regional Trading Alliances  Global competition once was considered country against country—the United States versus Japan, France versus Germany, Mexico versus Canada, and so on. Now, global competition and the global economy are shaped by regional trading agreements, including the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which we review here. A comprehensive list of trading alliances is available on the U.S. federal government’s International Trade Administration website (www.trade.gov). More than 200 countries participate in at least one regional trade agreement.21 The United States alone has agreements with 75 countries. THE EUROPEAN UNION The European Union (EU) is an economic and political partnership of 28 democratic European countries. Five countries (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Montenegro, and Serbia) are candidates to join the EU. Two countries are potential candida

This view of managers as omnipotent is consistent with the stereotypical picture of the take-charge business executive who overcomes any obstacle in seeing that the organization achieves its goals. And this view isn’t limited to business organizations. It also explains turnover among college and professional sports coaches, who are considered the “managers” of their teams. Coaches who lose more games than they win are usually red and replaced by new coaches who are expected to correct the poor performance. THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT constraints and challenges The term external environment refers to factors and forces outside the organization that a­ect its performance. The economic component encompasses factors such as interest rates, ination, changes in disposable income, stock market uctuations, and business cycle stages. The demographic component is concerned with trends in population characteristics such as age, race, gender, education level, geographic location, income, and family

  THE decision-making process Managers at all levels and in all areas of organizations make decisions. That is, they make choices. For instance, top-level managers make decisions about their organization’s goals, where to locate manufacturing facilities, or what new markets to move into. Middle- and lower-level managers make decisions about production schedules, product quality problems, pay raises, and employee discipline. Our focus in this chapter is on how managers make decisions, but making decisions isn’t something that just managers do. All organizational members make decisions that aŽect their jobs and the organization they work for Step 1: Identify a Problem  Your team is dysfunctional, your customers are leaving, or your plans are no longer relevant. Every decision starts with a problem, a discrepancy between an existing and a desired condition. Let’s work through an example. Amanda is a sales manager whose reps need new laptops because their old ones are outdated and inadequa

  THE BROAD PROBLEM AREA A “problem” does not necessarily mean that something is seriously wrong with a current situation that needs to be rectified immediately. A problem could also indicate an interest in an issue where finding the right answers might help to improve an existing situation. Thus, it is fruitful to define a problem as any situation where a gap exists between an actual and a desired ideal state. EXAMPLES OF PROBLEMS Long and frequent delays lead to much frustration among airline passengers. Th ese feelings may eventually lead to switching behavior, negative word‐of‐mouth communication, and customer complaints.  Staff turnover is higher than anticipated.  Th e current instrument for the assessment of potential employees for management positions is imperfect.  Minority group members in organizations are not advancing in their careers.  Th e newly installed information system is not being used by the managers for whom it was primarily designed.  Th e introduction of fl ex