Ethics in decision making

Ethics in Decision Making

Charnchai Tangpong and James G. Pesek commence by recognizing the multitude of problems encountered within the business community and generated by the mixed application of ethics and morals in decision making. The two authors then assess the issue of ethics and moral conduct within the modern day business context through the lenses of the shareholder value ideology and reciprocity.

The shareholder value ideology argues that the stock owners are the ones financing the business operations and that the economic agent has the obligation to maximizes their investments. On the other hand, the reciprocity concept argues that the economic agent should decide in a manner in which their actions are beneficial for the stakeholders, who are important for the overall support and success of the firm.

Based on gradual research, Tangpong and Pesek find that there is no direct relationship which could universally explain the moral reasoning of the economic agents.

"From the experiment, the ideology of shareholder value significantly increased the likelihood of participants' decision outcome to increase profits at the expense of suppliers (not customers and employees), while the norm of reciprocity significantly decreased the likelihood of participants' decision outcome to increase profits at the expense of suppliers and employees (not customers). This provides mixed support for our ideology of shareholder value and norm of reciprocity hypotheses" (Tangpong and Pesek).

Within the overall field of research on the moral and ethical decision making of economic agents, the article by Charnchai Tangpong and James G. Pesek is situated in a more specific manner. Particularly, most of the research conducted is generic, with emphasis falling on rather universal issues and on case studies of previous situations. Still, the work of the two authors is focused on a particular direction.

In other words, where other academic researchers only assess the generics of business ethics, Tangpong and Pesek strive to address the issue from a more niche dimension -- that of the features which could explain the moral and ethical decision making of managers. While the initiative is laudable, the results are not palpable and cannot be extrapolated, indicating as such that research on the topic has still to be conducted.

At the level of the individual, the reading of the article confirmed the complexity of the ethics and morals within the business community. Still, aside from this, it also indicated that the organizational entities are primarily focused on their profitability objectives, and they will strive to attain these goals at the expense of either suppliers, either suppliers and employees. The firms strive to make those ethically and morally sound decisions for the satisfaction of their customers.