Thus high relativistic individuals and low idealistic individuals were likely to view slavery as a necessary evil to accomplish the goals set by society, while high idealistic individuals were perturbed by the harm that slavery caused to the slaves.
The concepts of relativism and idealism apply in business setting as well. Business ethics can be defined as written and unwritten codes of principles and values that govern decisions and actions within a company. In the business world, the organization's culture sets standards for determining good and bad behavior.
Ethical dilemmas arise when an employee's personal ethics, his morals, conflict with the business ethics set by an organization. For example situations have developed where doctors refuse to give abortions because it conflicts with their personal beliefs about terminating a human life. Alternatively, a judge may follow the law and impose the death penalty even though he or she may be personally opposed to it.
Such conflicts can be mollified by an organization's culture, and the effect it has on personal idealism and relativism. Ziegenfuss et al. (1994) found that personal moral philosophies can be influenced by the ethical environment in an organization. Douglas...
(2001) suggested that organizational ethical culture may modify personal ethical philosophy to conform more closely to the organizational code. High idealistic employees the most likely to experience conflict between personal and business ethics based on any harm that they believe may be caused by the organization's standard for action. However, Jackson et al. (1994) indicated that a well-managed
organizational culture could reduce conflict among its employees based on an employee's
perception of it's ethical quality. Thus, organizations that have a highly ethical code of conduct and give incentives for
conformity with such code of conduct can reduce conflict between an employee's personal ethics and the organization's code of conduct.
REFERENCE LIST
Desnoyer, G. (2010). Ethics and Morality. Retrieved from: http://www.endusmilitarism.org/ethicsandmorality.html.
Douglas, P.C., Davidson, R.A., & Schwartz, BX (2001). The effect of organizational culture and ethical orientation on accountants' ethical judgments. Journal of Business Ethics, 34, 101-121.
Forsyth, D.R. ( 1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of
Social Psychology, 39(1): 175-184.
Forsyth, D.R. (1992). Judging the
morality of business practices: The influence of personal moral philosophies. Journal of business Ethics, 11, 461-470.
Jackson, S.E. & Schuler, R.S. (1985). A
meta analysis and conceptual critique of research on role ambiguity and role conflict in work settings.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 3-6, 16-78.
Ziegenfuss, D.E., Singhapadki, X, & Martinson, O.B. (1994). Do internal auditors and management accountants have different ethical philosophies?. Managerial Auditing Journal, 9(1): 4-12.
