Morality ignores the nuance, it is binary. Ethics acknowledges the discussion, arguments and paradoxes.
The approach of professional ethics must be based both on the moral dimension (the principles cannot be ignored) and on the ethical dimension (what is the best decision in this case?). When this thinking becomes collective and is the object of formalization, the process is ethical in the broadest sense. If these rules have a value for an entire profession and are the object of an official recognition, it is about ethics in a narrow sense.
Searching for and taking an equitable decision in a given sutuation are based on the following components' interaction:
- Moral (requirements, general principles)
- Ethics (virtues)
- Deontology (norms of group behaviour)
What are the factors of ethics management development?
The general discourse of companies or management scientists emphasizes more and more on the ethical dimension of business. But it is weakly reflected in managerial practices, in the absence of a model incorporating both the concepts of ethics, morality and deontology, and perception of the profession's stakeholders.
A real development of ethics in the practice involves a rigorous combination of theory and experience of professionals. The stake is important because the ethics is involved positively on all dimensions of management:
- Managing long-term goals, ethics/strategy
- Analysis assistance / high-stakes decisions
- Resolving conflicts through discussion and consensus
- Integration of points of view of different actors
- Empowering employees / total quality requirements
- Cost reduction for control and transaction
- Corporate culture, shared values, team cohesion
By what process to address professional ethics?
Ethics can be approached by the values or virtues. The virtues approach allows understanding the ethical dimension of decisions in a consistent and structured manner. These virtues which can be described as cardinal are: altruism, justice, prudence, temperance and courage.
The virtues approach has advantages in terms of method. The virtues being the dispositions to act, allow a variation of the ethical behavior of reference in a given occupation. Hence, it is possible to build a reference frame of the business ethics dimension: a virtue (behaviour of reference) through an indice (the more typical situation) allows to create a script (decision options) in this given situation.
Evaluating ethics in professional practice
The ethics review raises a number of problems. When the objective is not the control (which seems desirable in the context of a project aimed at enabling the actors to get used to the process), a system of self-evaluation must be implemented. This system may be biased if traditional survey techniques are used.
Therefore it is preferable to use a projective method: the method of scenarios. This method of ethics training is to place individuals in situations typical of decision problems in the trade and offer them for analysis. This approach is based on a simulation of decision making. The different possible decisions are presented to individuals who are able to evaluate them from different angles. This assessment enables both the positioning of individuals (through an online system to ensure their anonymity) and to identify situations that pose the most problems in a trade or company.
What are the results of an ethics perception's evaluation?
The implementation of a process to analyze the dimensions of professional ethics by management is:
- A method to better meet the needs of the employees
- An approach to animating teams in innovative manner
- Tools to strengthen ethics in the professional values of the company
- Increased security of operational management and decisions
- A reassuring communication with customers and partners.
