Ethical decisions
In multiple instances, ethical decisions are made in alignment with societal norms, the laws of an organization, or the laws of the land (Schwartz, 2016). As per (Robbins and Judge, 2019), ethical decision making may be based on three yardsticks, utilitarianism, impartiality, and whistleblowing. There are other instances where all choices that have to be made are followed by negative outcomes, and the yardsticks may not be applicable. For instance, I read a scenario about two colleagues working in a casino—both of the staff work in the IT division. One day, one of the colleagues, call him Tom, happened to require a file from the other colleague, call him James. James was not around that day, but Tom could get access to James’ computer. Since Tom knows James’s password, he accessed his computer and sent himself the needed file. When about to log out, he saw a page where James had placed some bets in another casino. It happens that James has a gambling problem that he never intended for anyone to find out. The company disapproves of gambling for everyone working there. Such an offense is grounds for termination of employment. The company also has privacy rules that one is not allowed to access another staff’s machine without authorization. What does Tom do? Being silent is not ethical as everyone is mandated to report any wrongdoings while going forward to report would mean that Tom admits his wrong (infringing privacy rules). Also, Tom cannot talk James out of it as James would not trust him for he did not respect his privacy. He had no business looking into James’s activities. What do you do in such a case?
References
Schwartz, M. S. (2016). Ethical decision-making theory: An integrated approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 139(4), 755-776.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior (18th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.