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7 Ways to Improve Your Ethical Decision-Making

• 03 Aug 2023

Effective decision-making is the cornerstone of any thriving business. According to a survey of 760 companies cited in the Harvard Business Review , decision effectiveness and financial results correlated at a 95 percent confidence level across countries, industries, and organization sizes.

Yet, making ethical decisions can be difficult in the workplace and often requires dealing with ambiguous situations.

If you want to become a more effective leader , here’s an overview of why ethical decision-making is important in business and how to be better at it.

Access your free e-book today.

The Importance of Ethical Decision-Making

Any management position involves decision-making .

“Even with formal systems in place, managers have a great deal of discretion in making decisions that affect employees,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “This is because many of the activities companies need to carry out are too complex to specify in advance.”

This is where ethical decision-making comes in. As a leader, your decisions influence your company’s culture, employees’ motivation and productivity, and business processes’ effectiveness.

It also impacts your organization’s reputation—in terms of how customers, partners, investors, and prospective employees perceive it—and long-term success.

With such a large portion of your company’s performance relying on your guidance, here are seven ways to improve your ethical decision-making.

1. Gain Clarity Around Personal Commitments

You may be familiar with the saying, “Know thyself.” The first step to including ethics in your decision-making process is defining your personal commitments.

To gain clarity around those, Hsieh recommends asking:

• What’s core to my identity? How do I perceive myself?
• What lines or boundaries will I not cross?
• What kind of life do I want to live?
• What type of leader do I want to be?

Once you better understand your core beliefs, values, and ideals, it’s easier to commit to ethical guidelines in the workplace. If you get stuck when making challenging decisions, revisit those questions for guidance.

2. Overcome Biases

A bias is a systematic, often unconscious inclination toward a belief, opinion, perspective, or decision. It influences how you perceive and interpret information, make judgments, and behave.

Bias is often based on:

• Personal experience
• Cultural background
• Social conditioning
• Individual preference

It exists in the workplace as well.

“Most of the time, people try to act fairly, but personal beliefs or attitudes—both conscious and subconscious—affect our ability to do so,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability .

There are two types of bias:

• Explicit: A bias you’re aware of, such as ageism.
• Implicit: A bias that operates outside your awareness, such as cultural conditioning.

Whether explicit or implicit, you must overcome bias to make ethical, fair decisions.

Related: How to Overcome Stereotypes in Your Organization

3. Reflect on Past Decisions

The next step is reflecting on previous decisions.

“By understanding different kinds of bias and how they can show themselves in the workplace, we can reflect on past decisions, experiences, and emotions to help identify problem areas,” Hsieh says in the course.

Reflect on your decisions’ processes and the outcomes. Were they favorable? What would you do differently? Did bias affect them?

Through analyzing prior experiences, you can learn lessons that help guide your ethical decision-making.

4. Be Compassionate

Decisions requiring an ethical lens are often difficult, such as terminating an employee.

“Termination decisions are some of the hardest that managers will ever have to make,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These decisions affect real people with whom we often work every day and who are likely to depend on their job for their livelihood.”

Such decisions require a compassionate approach. Try imagining yourself in the other person’s shoes, and think about what you would want to hear. Doing so allows you to approach decision-making with more empathy.

5. Focus on Fairness

Being “fair” in the workplace is often ambiguous, but it’s vital to ethical decision-making.

“Fairness is not only an ethical response to power asymmetries in the work environment,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “Fairness–and having a successful organizational culture–can benefit the organization economically and legally as well.”

It’s particularly important to consider fairness in the context of your employees. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , operationalizing fairness in employment relationships requires:

• Legitimate expectations: Expectations stemming from a promise or regular practice that employees can anticipate and rely on.
• Procedural fairness: Concern with whether decisions are made and carried out impartially, consistently, and transparently.
• Distributive fairness: The fair allocation of opportunities, benefits, and burdens based on employees’ efforts or contributions.

Keeping these aspects of fairness in mind can be the difference between a harmonious team and an employment lawsuit. When in doubt, ask yourself: “If I or someone I loved was at the receiving end of this decision, what would I consider ‘fair’?”

6. Take an Individualized Approach

Not every employee is the same. Your relationships with team members, managers, and organizational leaders differ based on factors like context and personality types.

“Given the personal nature of employment relationships, your judgment and actions in these areas will often require adjustment according to each specific situation,” Hsieh explains in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability .

One way to achieve this is by tailoring your decision-making based on employees’ values and beliefs. For example, if a colleague expresses concerns about a project’s environmental impact, explore eco-friendly approaches that align with their values.

Another way you can customize your ethical decision-making is by accommodating employees’ cultural differences. Doing so can foster a more inclusive work environment and boost your team’s performance .

7. Accept Feedback

Ethical decision-making is susceptible to gray areas and often met with dissent, so it’s critical to be approachable and open to feedback .

The benefits of receiving feedback include:

• Learning from mistakes.
• Having more opportunities to exhibit compassion, fairness, and transparency.
• Identifying blind spots you weren’t aware of.
• Bringing your team into the decision-making process.

While such conversations can be uncomfortable, don’t avoid them. Accepting feedback will not only make you a more effective leader but also help your employees gain a voice in the workplace.

Ethical Decision-Making Is a Continuous Learning Process

Ethical decision-making doesn’t come with right or wrong answers—it’s a continuous learning process.

“There often is no right answer, only imperfect solutions to difficult problems,” Hsieh says. “But even without a single ‘right’ answer, making thoughtful, ethical decisions can make a major difference in the lives of your employees and colleagues.”

By taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , you can develop the frameworks and tools to make effective decisions that benefit all aspects of your business.

Ready to improve your ethical decision-making? Enroll in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on how to become a more effective leader.

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Seven Ethical Stances to Consider

After studying the concepts of better thinking, the basics of ethical interpretation, and the philosophical conception of objective and subjective thinking, we must focus on various philosophical and ethical approaches that individuals employ daily.  For simplicity’s sake, this chapter has been broken into seven areas of exploration. This compilation is designed to introduce these significant ethical decision-making approaches to understand better how each of us might decide critical ethical issues and so that we can better understand how people and organizations have argued moral theory historically.  This study is also essential for us to become more familiar with how people might best make ethical decisions, thus leading all of us toward continuous improvement over time.

The categories we will explore are:

• Consequentialism

Natural Law

Individuals and institutions use more than one approach to decision-making. They use a combination or hybrid of theories because moral stances often overlap and dictate differing approaches or perspectives and their use.  Because this is a reality, we must be diligent when studying the ethical theory of these seven concrete categories. We must be mindful that these classifications are theoretically artificial and must be applied in “real-life” situations to develop further meaning and understanding.  By studying these categories, we become more aware of the presumptions and assumptions of those involved in the decision-making process. Hopefully, we will be better equipped to evaluate moral processes and outcomes.

Consequentialist Thinking

• The teleological approach
• The issue of Utility
• Act and Rule Utility
• Jeremy Bentham and JS Mill

The first general category of ethical thinking is “consequentialist” thinking.  Individuals using this stance believe that the right action in any circumstance or dilemma produces results the result one, either individually or by group consensus, believes is valuable.

Consequentialists hold that ethical decisions can only be accurately judged on the merit of the result or outcome of the decision.  As a result, such philosophical theories as pragmatism and utilitarianism are often referred to as teleological theories. The term teleology comes from the Greek root “telos, ” loosely translated as the end, completion, purpose, or goal of any thing or activity.

An excellent example can be found in Aristotle’s stance on ethics. Aristotle maintains a form of teleology by arguing the result of individual happiness is the essential element when deciding the ethical nature of a subject. Using his idea of the balance point of life as the basis to determine the level of contentment, Aristotle reasons that one’s knowledge of the outcome is the most crucial element to consider when determining the moral validity of a situation.

Consequentiality theory may also be interpreted in the framework of utilitarianism. This moral stance argues that the most moral results in “the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number.”  In both examples, Aristotle’s definition from the fourth century BC and the concept of utility basically center on England’s seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, offering a moral problem-solving approach central to the success and practical use of the theories.  This practicality or success can be understood by formulating other hybrid moral theories.  Philosophers such as Cornman and Frankena use consequentiality in their moral approaches, creating hybrids where moral outcomes are understood in the context of many possible outcomes.  In this sense, such thinkers see morality in terms of contextualism or the idea that situations, circumstances, and personalization play a large part in proper moral decision-making.

• Order of the world
• Natural process
• Thomas Aquinas

The second approach to moral decision-making is natural law.  In this stance, we find arguments that base the morally correct decision on the ability to explore the natural world around us through proper reason.  Using our natural logic or reasoning ability, we can deduce proper moral assessment; thus, correct morality or decision-making should be based on natural processes or connected with nature cycles or natural laws around us.

At the core of this belief is the assertion that principles of human conduct can be derived from a proper understanding of humanity in the context of the universe as a rational whole.  The proper ethical choice can be found in contemplating individuals’ acknowledgment and acceptance of their place with each other and nature.

The prime example of this ethical approach is the Stoic movement of the late Hellenistic Greek and Roman Republic era.  According to the Stoics, one who wishes to live a moral life must understand that life is short and we are limited in our control of many factors.  Therefore, we must accept nature’s control by acknowledging that we are left with nothing in our lives except the ability to control our actions in response to the powers of nature.  Through our understanding of these factors, we should try to live humble life devoted to moral principles found in an organic approach to living that acknowledges this power.

• Deontological Thinking
• Categorical Imperative
• The Principle of Ends
• Immanuel Kant

The third ethical theory is the conception of duty. The central belief is that morality comes from doing what we understand to be the practical content and application of the convictions we acquire from the world around us and the people in it. This approach, best exemplified by the work of Immanuel Kant, is based on the philosophical conception of deontology.

Deontology refers to the belief that morality is only correctly understood in the context of moral necessity or obligation. Unlike consequentialist theory, deontological thinkers believe that truly right decisions are not based on practical results but rather the moral obligation inherent in the notion of duty found in the natural understanding and right employment of the concept of reason.

In Kant’s nineteenth-century theory, he points to two specific components that are the basis of duty-based ethical approaches.  Individuals often refer to the categorical imperative or a universal moral principle that can be upheld regardless of the situation and the principle of ends. The categorical imperative or universal principle argues that ethically the right decision must be based on the belief that the process of carrying out proper moral decision-making is more important or just as necessary as the proper, reasoned end.  Individuals who approach moral problem-solving from this perspective base their moral decision-making on their obligation to an absolutistic statement found in the base conception of this obligation to principles.   Look at the following link to analyze Kant’s central portion of this theory.

• History of Rights in the Western World
• Preservation of Rights
• The Golden Rule

This fourth moral category relies on the belief that morality is shaped by one’s determination and assessment of human rights.  This stance or moral decision-making process emphasizes justified expectations about the benefits to other people or society and what should be at the basis of that expectation of thought and behavior. These expectations are often understood as morally inherent provisions.

This view illustrates that we are entitled to rights provided we act towards others similarly, thus ensuring corresponding rights for them.  Founded within the English tradition, dating to at least the thirteenth century, the expectation of how we treat others has become connected with a core of values that define life and the importance of each individual.  Ethical evaluation is resolved by preserving agreed-upon respect for others through cooperation.  Right and wrong are abstracted within the framework of expectations concerning benefits for individuals and people in groups.

The process to determine mutual rights is understood through consistent and careful exploration of mutually agreed-upon factors, the preservation of which is exchanging certain essential agreed-upon benefits to the advantage of those involved.  In this sense, for the benefit of all, individuals base their moral conceptions on the practical application of daily life, the vision they have for how it should be carried out, and the preservation and betterment of that life through agreed-upon standards or the preservation of rights best understood in the conception of the idea of the golden rule, for example.

This ideology can also be understood in Thomas Hobbes’ ethical theory from the seventeenth century. He writes the harmful component of the golden rule is perhaps more productive.  He argues that “not doing for others what you don’t want to be done to you” may be a more moral way to formulate or work towards a more moral society.  Not getting in each other’s way by attempting to treat others as you would like to be treated. However, a demonstration of rights-based moral theory respects individual desires and rights. When doing this,  people do not infringe on others’ interests or violate their rights and/or their ability to adhere to proper moral principles.   This approach to morality relies upon understanding what is essential to most people involved in moral decision-making. It can often be seen in the formulation of laws that confirm the preservation of this conception of proper acquisition.

In thinking through the possible argument that ethical determination is founded in a discoverable and agreed-upon conception of what everyone is entitled to, listen to Robert Wright’s assessment of how compassion might be connected to the Golden Rule and our natural inclinations.  Wright argues that our ethical evaluation might be understood within this hybrid of theories by integrating rights, instinct, and natural law.

• People We Respect
• Concepts We Prefer
• Simplistic and Natural

Virtue ethics is the fifth stance.  In studying “ethos” or character, thinkers believe morality is directly connected to peoples’ understanding of what is conceptually “good.”  The idea of a hierarchy of opinion, thought, or ideology becomes the focus of this perspective.  Its conceptualization is correlated with what “behaviors or thoughts” we prefer individuals to possess and less about the reality of where people are in their moral stances.

Virtue ethics is best understood in the framework of the understanding of the terms “ideals or forms”, used by Greeks such as Plato and Aristotle.  Their view maintains that humans have the innate inclination and ability to understand the concept of “betterment” in all avenues of life.  As a result, we must seek to understand “true wisdom” to grasp the values or virtues we hold dear.

By doing this, morality becomes both the compass and motivating factor for our lives.  It also becomes a guideline by encouraging us, through reason and knowledge, towards what are appropriate thoughts and behaviors while pushing us to realize that such ideas are not only subjective.  Thus, these ideals function as factors for proper behavioral practice.  In that process, we find meaning or progress in our lives.  One way to do this is to focus on people that we respect.  By analyzing their behavior and characteristics, we can internalize those values and make them part of our lives.

• The Importance of Belief
• Group or Individual Authority
• Revelation Based
• Conscience (Soul)

The sixth moral category highlights the concept of morality based on some form of authority, whether as a political, social, or cultural entity.  Often referred to as “belief ethics”, this approach can also be understood as determined by a form of a supernatural or natural authority figure who has given humanity a preferred way or manner of living.

This approach conceptualizes morality as a series of beliefs, concepts, or dictums given to humans for survival.  This belief often is directly connected with the understanding that morality can be closely linked to authority figures and to direct imperatives.  Thus, many assert or argue that religion and/or religious beliefs may be directly tied to one’s understanding of morality or ethical belief.  Therefore the issue is how one attains that moral understanding.

There are many plausible arguments, but I have narrowed it down to two that best explain this perspective.

• Morality, though steeped in some form of a moral command, is usually connected with a unique situation or understanding, allowing this information to be divulged.  When this unique situation occurs, these ideas are often reason-based and/or virtue oriented and hold to conduct that enhances the well-being or “betterment” of those involved.
• The authority-based approach to ethical conceptualization often asserts that conscience, or an innate awareness within us, confirms the validity of this understanding.  Thus, some authority-based interpretations argue that morality is known through the combination of directives and solid moral “feelings” or understanding coupled with a strong awareness of inner inclinations.  “Inner awareness” leads or confirms to us that such natural or supernatural authorities dictate proper moral principles.  In the end, authority becomes a basis for people to determine the right course of action in ethical decision-making, understanding that the human is part of that process but not the sole factor in formulating proper ethical standards and/or norms.
• Community Standards
• Kinship & Nepotism
• Reciprocity

The last area of exploration is instinct. This study comes from the belief that morality stems from our natural urges or natural/biological phenomena.  This approach stresses the importance of understanding our instincts’ role in developing morality.  Instinct can be defined as a form of natural control or guidance that influence our thinking and behavior. It is central to how we relate to others in a community.

Unlike the other theories presented, this stance argues that community standards or moral stances are based on our natural need to preserve ourselves or our species/gene pool.  Therefore, morality is staked in self-preservation.

Individuals who defend this viewpoint believe they will naturally favor their kin or biological relations in moral decision-making.  Therefore, their moral stances rely upon biological factors, and they dictate their priorities and moral beliefs.  Additionally, this field of moral analysis asserts that our biological makeup or natural “being” influences us in two other ways.  One, we innately work towards reciprocity or the moral belief that exchanging goods and/or aid is central to morality; and two, the basis of actual ethical decision-making, can be found in sharing “favors” so that individuals benefit.

The core of reciprocity is found in individual right versus wrong assessments and uniting those factors with the self-interest found in community cooperation.  As a result, instinct morality seems to be motivated in many theories by the assumption that reality dictates moral choices and that community norms are simply a reflection of individual and natural rectifications that ultimately maximize individual survival. Listen to Jane Goodall to hear more about the argument of instinct-based morality as a plausible ethical decision-making outcome.

Franz De Waal has defended that animals can teach us much about moral behavior.  Listen to his analysis of the morality of animal behavior that supports the ideology of instinct ethics.

Ultimately, instinct ethics focuses on believing humans have become too complicated in our ethical evaluation.  We may rely too much on education, reason, and complex systems that have yielded unethical returns.  By attempting to return to what is most natural, theorists’ arguments support the idea that we would be more moral if we focused on community, cooperation, and natural need.

Final Thoughts on Seven Approaches to Ethical Problem Solving

The approaches discussed in this chapter are plausible arguments for how morality is formulated and discuss what factors affect how people conceptualize decision-making.  Leaders need to understand these approaches when they weigh difficult decisions or formulate business policies. What is perhaps just as important is that one takes these seven approaches and qualifies that knowledge with the understanding that these approaches are integrated into many ways.  Though these categories are “neat” and “tidy” by definition, they also are explored in an academic setting. The reality of the human experience dictates that we understand these elements in the context of integration.  A person who relies on instinct as the basis of moral decision-making in one instance might appeal to virtues or values in another.  Beyond this, it is commonplace to see individuals appeal to both in the same circumstance, thus creating, as listed above, hybrid theories.  A good example might be the understanding that authority-based ethical theory coincides with instinct and virtue, as individuals argue that God or some supernatural power created virtue, values, or instinct as an ethical gauge.

All appeal to both facets or are multi-layered in their approach to understanding the basics of moral theory and thus make the task of assessing these various approaches extremely difficult.  Perhaps the place to start in the estimation of University of Alabama professor James Rachels is to acknowledge these various approaches and work to see their unique overlapping components and specific connections.  Rachels offers two solid suggestions for dealing with moral basics that should help address these areas as one is confronted by their different stances.

• First, get as much factual knowledge as possible.
• Second, attempt to decrease subjective interpretations or human prejudice.

Taking these seven as the beginning of approaches, leaders can begin to understand how individuals approach moral decision-making more fully.  Developing awareness of these categories and their potential hybrids allows us to more clearly, effectively, and carefully address potential problems.

References:

Cotton, J. (2016, April 06). Immanuel Kant. Retrieved from https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/

Goodall, J. (2002, March). What separates us from chimpanzees? Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_goodall_on_what_separates_us_from_the_apes

Waal, F. D. (n.d.). Moral behavior in animals. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals

Wright, R. (2009, October). The evolution of compassion. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_wright_the_evolution_of_compassion

Chapter 4--Perspectives in Ethical Theory Copyright © 2018 by Christopher Brooks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Thinking Ethically

• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
• Ethics Resources
• Ethical Decision Making

Moral issues greet us each morning in the newspaper, confront us in the memos on our desks, nag us from our children's soccer fields, and bid us good night on the evening news. We are bombarded daily with questions about the justice of our foreign policy, the morality of medical technologies that can prolong our lives, the rights of the homeless, the fairness of our children's teachers to the diverse students in their classrooms.

Dealing with these moral issues is often perplexing. How, exactly, should we think through an ethical issue? What questions should we ask? What factors should we consider?

The first step in analyzing moral issues is obvious but not always easy: Get the facts. Some moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts. This first step, although obvious, is also among the most important and the most frequently overlooked.

But having the facts is not enough. Facts by themselves only tell us what is ; they do not tell us what ought to be. In addition to getting the facts, resolving an ethical issue also requires an appeal to values. Philosophers have developed five different approaches to values to deal with moral issues.

The Utilitarian Approach Utilitarianism was conceived in the 19th century by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill to help legislators determine which laws were morally best. Both Bentham and Mill suggested that ethical actions are those that provide the greatest balance of good over evil.

To analyze an issue using the utilitarian approach, we first identify the various courses of action available to us. Second, we ask who will be affected by each action and what benefits or harms will be derived from each. And third, we choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits and the least harm. The ethical action is the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number.

The Rights Approach The second important approach to ethics has its roots in the philosophy of the 18th-century thinker Immanuel Kant and others like him, who focused on the individual's right to choose for herself or himself. According to these philosophers, what makes human beings different from mere things is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives, and they have a fundamental moral right to have these choices respected. People are not objects to be manipulated; it is a violation of human dignity to use people in ways they do not freely choose.

Of course, many different, but related, rights exist besides this basic one. These other rights (an incomplete list below) can be thought of as different aspects of the basic right to be treated as we choose.

The right to the truth: We have a right to be told the truth and to be informed about matters that significantly affect our choices.

The right of privacy: We have the right to do, believe, and say whatever we choose in our personal lives so long as we do not violate the rights of others.

The right not to be injured: We have the right not to be harmed or injured unless we freely and knowingly do something to deserve punishment or we freely and knowingly choose to risk such injuries.

The right to what is agreed: We have a right to what has been promised by those with whom we have freely entered into a contract or agreement.

In deciding whether an action is moral or immoral using this second approach, then, we must ask, Does the action respect the moral rights of everyone? Actions are wrong to the extent that they violate the rights of individuals; the more serious the violation, the more wrongful the action.

The Fairness or Justice Approach The fairness or justice approach to ethics has its roots in the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said that "equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally." The basic moral question in this approach is: How fair is an action? Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination?

Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason for singling them out; discrimination imposes burdens on people who are no different from those on whom burdens are not imposed. Both favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.

The Common-Good Approach This approach to ethics assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is inextricably linked to the good of the community. Community members are bound by the pursuit of common values and goals.

The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000 years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, contemporary ethicist John Rawls defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage."

In this approach, we focus on ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions, and environments on which we depend are beneficial to all. Examples of goods common to all include affordable health care, effective public safety, peace among nations, a just legal system, and an unpolluted environment.

Appeals to the common good urge us to view ourselves as members of the same community, reflecting on broad questions concerning the kind of society we want to become and how we are to achieve that society. While respecting and valuing the freedom of individuals to pursue their own goals, the common-good approach challenges us also to recognize and further those goals we share in common.

The Virtue Approach The virtue approach to ethics assumes that there are certain ideals toward which we should strive, which provide for the full development of our humanity. These ideals are discovered through thoughtful reflection on what kind of people we have the potential to become.

Virtues are attitudes or character traits that enable us to be and to act in ways that develop our highest potential. They enable us to pursue the ideals we have adopted. Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all examples of virtues.

Virtues are like habits; that is, once acquired, they become characteristic of a person. Moreover, a person who has developed virtues will be naturally disposed to act in ways consistent with moral principles. The virtuous person is the ethical person.

In dealing with an ethical problem using the virtue approach, we might ask, What kind of person should I be? What will promote the development of character within myself and my community?

Ethical Problem Solving These five approaches suggest that once we have ascertained the facts, we should ask ourselves five questions when trying to resolve a moral issue:

What benefits and what harms will each course of action produce, and which alternative will lead to the best overall consequences?

What moral rights do the affected parties have, and which course of action best respects those rights?

Which course of action treats everyone the same, except where there is a morally justifiable reason not to, and does not show favoritism or discrimination?

Which course of action advances the common good?

Which course of action develops moral virtues?

This method, of course, does not provide an automatic solution to moral problems. It is not meant to. The method is merely meant to help identify most of the important ethical considerations. In the end, we must deliberate on moral issues for ourselves, keeping a careful eye on both the facts and on the ethical considerations involved.

This article updates several previous pieces from Issues in Ethics by Manuel Velasquez - Dirksen Professor of Business Ethics at Santa Clara University and former Center director - and Claire Andre, associate Center director. "Thinking Ethically" is based on a framework developed by the authors in collaboration with Center Director Thomas Shanks, S.J., Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good Michael J. Meyer, and others. The framework is used as the basis for many programs and presentations at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

5.3 Ethical Principles and Responsible Decision-Making

• What are major ethical principles that can be used by individuals and organizations?

Before turning to organizational and systems levels of ethics, we discuss classical ethical principles that are very relevant now and on which decisions can be and are made by individuals, organizations, and other stakeholders who choose principled, responsible ways of acting toward others. 17

Ethical principles are different from values in that the former are considered as rules that are more permanent, universal, and unchanging, whereas values are subjective, even personal, and can change with time. Principles help inform and influence values. Some of the principles presented here date back to Plato, Socrates, and even earlier to ancient religious groups. These principles can be, and are, used in combination; different principles are also used in different situations. 18 The principles that we will cover are utilitarianism, universalism, rights/legal, justice, virtue, common good, and ethical relativism approaches. As you read these, ask yourself which principles characterize and underlie your own values, beliefs, behaviors, and actions. It is helpful to ask and if not clear, perhaps identify the principles, you most often use now and those you aspire to use more, and why. Using one or more of these principles and ethical approaches intentionally can also help you examine choices and options before making a decision or solving an ethical dilemma. Becoming familiar with these principles, then, can help inform your moral decision process and help you observe the principles that a team, workgroup, or organization that you now participate in or will be joining may be using. Using creativity is also important when examining difficult moral decisions when sometimes it may seem that there are two “right” ways to act in a situation or perhaps no way seems morally right, which may also signal that not taking an action at that time may be needed, unless taking no action produces worse results.

Utilitarianism: A Consequentialist, “Ends Justifies Means” Approach

The utilitarianism principle basically holds that an action is morally right if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. An action is morally right if the net benefits over costs are greatest for all affected compared with the net benefits of all other possible choices. This, as with all these principles and approaches, is broad in nature and seemingly rather abstract. At the same time, each one has a logic. When we present the specifics and facts of a situation, this and the other principles begin to make sense, although judgement is still required.

Some limitations of this principle suggest that it does not consider individuals, and there is no agreement on the definition of “good for all concerned.” In addition, it is difficult to measure “costs and benefits.” This is one of the most widely used principles by corporations, institutions, nations, and individuals, given the limitations that accompany it. Use of this principle generally applies when resources are scarce, there is a conflict in priorities, and no clear choice meets everyone’s needs—that is, a zero-sum decision is imminent

Universalism: A Duty-Based Approach

Universalism is a principle that considers the welfare and risks of all parties when considering policy decisions and outcomes. Also needs of individuals involved in a decision are identified as well as the choices they have and the information they need to protect their welfare. This principle involves taking human beings, their needs, and their values seriously. It is not only a method to make a decision; it is a way of incorporating a humane consideration of and for individuals and groups when deciding a course of action. As some have asked, “What is a human life worth?”

Cooper, Santora, and Sarros wrote, “Universalism is the outward expression of leadership character and is made manifest by respectfulness for others, fairness, cooperativeness, compassion, spiritual respect, and humility.” Corporate leaders in the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” strive to set a “tone at the top” to exemplify and embody universal principles in their business practices. 19 Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks; cofounder Jim Sinegal at Costco; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; and Ursula M. Burns, previous chairperson and CEO of Xerox have demonstrated setting effective ethical tones at the top of organizations.

Limitations here also show that using this principle may not always prove realistic or practical in all situations. In addition, using this principle can require sacrifice of human life—that is, giving one’s life to help or save others—which may seem contrary to the principle. The film The Post , based on fact, portrays how the daughter of the founder of the famed newspaper, the Washington Post , inherited the role of CEO and was forced to make a decision between publishing a whistle-blowers’ classified government documents of then top-level generals and officials or keep silent and protect the newspaper. The classified documents contained information proving that generals and other top-level government administrators were lying to the public about the actual status of the United States in the Vietnam War. Those documents revealed that there were doubts the war could be won while thousands of young Americans continued to die fighting. The dilemma for the Washington Post ’s then CEO centered on her having to choose between exposing the truth based on freedom of speech—which was the mission and foundation of the newspaper—or staying silent and suppressing the classified information. She chose, with the support of and pressure from her editorial staff, to release the classified documents to the public. The Supreme Court upheld her and her staff’s decision. A result was enflamed widespread public protests from American youth and others. President Johnson was pressured to resign, Secretary of State McNamara later apologized, and the war eventually ended with U.S. troops withdrawing. So, universalist ethical principles may present difficulties when used in complex situations, but such principles can also save lives, protect the integrity of a nation, and stop meaningless destruction.

Rights: A Moral and Legal Entitlement–Based Approach

This principle is grounded in both legal and moral rights . Legal rights are entitlements that are limited to a particular legal system and jurisdiction. In the United States, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are the basis for citizens’ legal rights, for example, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the right to freedom of speech. Moral (and human) rights, on the other hand, are universal and based on norms in every society, for example, the right not to be enslaved and the right to work.

To get a sense of individual rights in the workplace, log on to one of the “Best Companies to Work For” annual lists (http://fortune.com/best-companies/). Profiles of leaders and organizations’ policies, practices, perks, diversity, compensation, and other statistics regarding employee welfare and benefits can be reviewed. The “World’s Most Ethical Companies” also provides examples of workforce and workplace legal and moral rights. This principle, as with universalism, can always be used when individuals, groups, and nations are involved in decisions that may violate or harm such rights as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and free speech.

Some limitations when using this principle are (1) it can be used to disguise and manipulate selfish and unjust political interests, (2) it is difficult to determine who deserves what when both parties are “right,” and (3) individuals can exaggerate certain entitlements at the expense of others. Still, the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, was designed as and remains the foundation of, which is based on freedom and justice to protect the basic rights of all.

Justice: Procedures, Compensation, and Retribution

This principle has at least four major components that are based on the tenets that (1) all individuals should be treated equally; (2) justice is served when all persons have equal opportunities and advantages (through their positions and offices) to society’s opportunities and burdens; (3) fair decision practices, procedures, and agreements among parties should be practiced; and (4) punishment is served to someone who has inflicted harm on another, and compensation is given to those for a past harm or injustice committed against them.

A simple way of summarizing this principle when examining a moral dilemma is to ask of a proposed action or decision: (1) Is it fair? (2) Is it right? (3) Who gets hurt? (4) Who has to pay for the consequences? (5) Do I/we want to assume responsibility for the consequences? It is interesting to reflect on how many corporate disasters and crises might have been prevented had the leaders and those involved taken such questions seriously before proceeding with decisions. For example, the following precautionary actions might have prevented the disaster: updating the equipment and machinery that failed in the BP and the Exxon Valdez oil crises and investment banks and lending institutions following rules not to sell subprime mortgages that could not and would not be paid, actions that led to the near collapse of the global economy.

Limitations when using this principle involve the question of who decides who is right and wrong and who has been harmed in complex situations. This is especially the case when facts are not available and there is no objective external jurisdiction of the state or federal government. In addition, we are sometimes faced with the question, “Who has the moral authority to punish to pay compensation to whom?” Still, as with the other principles discussed here, justice stands as a necessary and invaluable building block of democracies and freedom.

Virtue Ethics: Character-Based Virtues

Virtue ethics is based on character traits such as being truthful, practical wisdom, happiness, flourishing, and well-being. It focuses on the type of person we ought to be, not on specific actions that should be taken. Grounded in good character, motives, and core values, the principle is best exemplified by those whose examples show the virtues to be emulated.

Basically, the possessor of good character is moral, acts morally, feels good, is happy, and flourishes. Altruism is also part of character-based virtue ethics. Practical wisdom, however, is often required to be virtuous.

This principle is related to universalism. Many leaders’ character and actions serve as examples of how character-based virtues work. For example, the famous Warren Buffett stands as an icon of good character who demonstrates trustworthy values and practical wisdom. Applying this principle is related to a “quick test” before acting or making a decision by asking, “What would my ‘best self’ do in this situation?” Others ask the question inserting someone they know or honor highly.

There are some limitations to this ethic. First, some individuals may disagree about who is virtuous in different situations and therefore would refuse to use that person’s character as a principle. Also, the issue arises, “Who defines virtuous , especially when a complex act or incident is involved that requires factual information and objective criteria to resolve?”

The Common Good

The common good is defined as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.” Decision makers must take into consideration the intent as well as the effects of their actions and decisions on the broader society and the common good of the many. 20

Identifying and basing decisions on the common good requires us to make goals and take actions that take others, beyond ourselves and our self-interest, into account. Applying the common good principle can also be asked by a simple question: “How will this decision or action affect the broader physical, cultural, and social environment in which I, my family, my friends, and others have to live, breathe, and thrive in now, next week, and beyond?”

A major limitation when using this principle is, “Who determines what the common good is in situations where two or more parties differ over whose interests are violated?” In individualistic and capitalist societies, it is difficult in many cases for individuals to give up their interests and tangible goods for what may not benefit them or may even deprive them.

Ethical Relativism: A Self-Interest Approach

Ethical relativism is really not a “principle” to be followed or modeled. It is an orientation that many use quite frequently. Ethical relativism holds that people set their own moral standards for judging their actions. Only the individual’s self-interest and values are relevant for judging his or her behavior. Moreover, moral standards, according to this principle, vary from one culture to another. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Obvious limitations of relativism include following one’s blind spots or self-interests that can interfere with facts and reality. Followers of this principle can become absolutists and “true believers”—many times believing and following their own ideology and beliefs. Countries and cultures that follow this orientation can result in dictatorships and absolutist regimes that practice different forms of slavery and abuse to large numbers of people. For example, South Africa’s all-white National Party and government after 1948 implemented and enforced a policy of apartheid that consisted of racial segregation. That policy lasted until the 1990s, when several parties negotiated its demise—with the help of Nelson Mandela ( www.history.com/topics/apartheid ). Until that time, international firms doing business in South Africa were expected to abide by the apartheid policy and its underlying values. Many companies in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere were pressured in the 1980s and before by public interest groups whether or not to continue doing business or leave South Africa.

At the individual level, then, principles and values offer a source of stability and self-control while also affecting job satisfaction and performance. At the organizational level, principled and values-based leadership influences cultures that inspire and motivate ethical behavior and performance. The following section discusses how ethical leadership at the top and throughout organizations affects ethical actions and behaviors. 21

Concept Check

• What are some ethical guidelines individuals and organizations can use to make ethical choices?
• Can being aware of the actual values you use to guide your actions make a difference in your choices?

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• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction
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• The PLUS Ethical Decision Making Model

Seven Steps to Ethical Decision Making –  Step 1: Define the problem  (consult  PLUS filters ) –  Step 2: Seek out relevant assistance, guidance and support  –  Step 3: Identify alternatives –  Step 4: Evaluate the alternatives  (consult  PLUS filters ) –  Step 5: Make the decision –  Step 6: Implement the decision –  Step 7: Evaluate the decision  (consult  PLUS filters )

Introduction Organizations struggle to develop a simple set of guidelines that makes it easier for individual employees, regardless of position or level, to be confident that his/her decisions meet all of the competing standards for effective and ethical decision-making used by the organization. Such a model must take into account two realities:

• Every employee is called upon to make decisions in the normal course of doing his/her job. Organizations cannot function effectively if employees are not empowered to make decisions consistent with their positions and responsibilities.
• For the decision maker to be confident in the decision’s soundness, every decision should be tested against the organization’s policies and values, applicable laws and regulations as well as the individual employee’s definition of what is right, fair, good and acceptable.

The decision making process described below has been carefully constructed to be:

• Fundamentally sound based on current theories and understandings of both decision-making processes and ethics.
• Simple and straightforward enough to be easily integrated into every employee’s thought processes.
• Descriptive (detailing how ethical decision are made naturally) rather than prescriptive (defining unnatural ways of making choices).

Why do organizations need ethical decision making? See our special edition case study, #RespectAtWork, to find out.

First, explore the difference between what you expect and/or desire and the current reality. By defining the problem in terms of outcomes, you can clearly state the problem.

Consider this example: Tenants at an older office building are complaining that their employees are getting angry and frustrated because there is always a long delay getting an elevator to the lobby at rush hour. Many possible solutions exist, and all are predicated on a particular understanding the problem:

• Flexible hours – so all the tenants’ employees are not at the elevators at the same time.
• Faster elevators – so each elevator can carry more people in a given time period.
• Bigger elevators – so each elevator can carry more people per trip.
• Elevator banks – so each elevator only stops on certain floors, increasing efficiency.
• Better elevator controls – so each elevator is used more efficiently.
• More elevators – so that overall carrying capacity can be increased.
• Improved elevator maintenance – so each elevator is more efficient.
• Encourage employees to use the stairs – so fewer people use the elevators.

The real-life decision makers defined the problem as “people complaining about having to wait.” Their solution was to make the wait less frustrating by piping music into the elevator lobbies. The complaints stopped. There is no way that the eventual solution could have been reached if, for example, the problem had been defined as “too few elevators.”

How you define the problem determines where you go to look for alternatives/solutions– so define the problem carefully.

Step 2: Seek out relevant assistance, guidance and support

Once the problem is defined, it is critical to search out resources that may be of assistance in making the decision. Resources can include people (i.e., a mentor, coworkers, external colleagues, or friends and family) as well professional guidelines and organizational policies and codes. Such resources are critical for determining parameters, generating solutions, clarifying priorities and providing support, both while implementing the solution and dealing with the repercussions of the solution.

Step 3: Identify available alternative solutions to the problem The key to this step is to not limit yourself to obvious alternatives or merely what has worked in the past. Be open to new and better alternatives. Consider as many as solutions as possible — five or more in most cases, three at the barest minimum. This gets away from the trap of seeing “both sides of the situation” and limiting one’s alternatives to two opposing choices (i.e., either this or that).

Step 4: Evaluate the identified alternatives As you evaluate each alternative, identify the likely positive and negative consequence of each. It is unusual to find one alternative that would completely resolve the problem and is significantly better than all others. As you consider positive and negative consequences, you must be careful to differentiate between what you know for a fact and what you believe might be the case. Consulting resources, including written guidelines and standards, can help you ascertain which consequences are of greater (and lesser) import.

You should think through not just what results each alternative could yield, but the likelihood it is that such impact will occur. You will only have all the facts in simple cases. It is reasonable and usually even necessary to supplement the facts you have with realistic assumptions and informed beliefs. Nonetheless, keep in mind that the more the evaluation is fact-based, the more confident you can be that the expected outcome will occur. Knowing the ratio of fact-based evaluation versus non-fact-based evaluation allows you to gauge how confident you can be in the proposed impact of each alternative.

Step 5: Make the decision When acting alone, this is the natural next step after selecting the best alternative. When you are working in a team environment, this is where a proposal is made to the team, complete with a clear definition of the problem, a clear list of the alternatives that were considered and a clear rationale for the proposed solution.

Step 6: Implement the decision While this might seem obvious, it is necessary to make the point that deciding on the best alternative is not the same as doing something. The action itself is the first real, tangible step in changing the situation. It is not enough to think about it or talk about it or even decide to do it. A decision only counts when it is implemented. As Lou Gerstner (former CEO of IBM) said, “There are no more prizes for predicting rain. There are only prizes for building arks.”

Step 7: Evaluate the decision Every decision is intended to fix a problem. The final test of any decision is whether or not the problem was fixed. Did it go away? Did it change appreciably? Is it better now, or worse, or the same? What new problems did the solution create?

Ethics Filters

The ethical component of the decision making process takes the form of a set of “filters.” Their purpose is to surface the ethics considerations and implications of the decision at hand. When decisions are classified as being “business” decisions (rather than “ethics” issues), values can quickly be left out of consideration and ethical lapses can occur.

At key steps in the process, you should stop and work through these filters, ensuring that the ethics issues imbedded in the decision are given consideration.

We group the considerations into the mnemonic PLUS.

• P  = Policies Is it consistent with my organization’s policies, procedures and guidelines?
• L = Legal Is it acceptable under the applicable laws and regulations?
• U  = Universal Does it conform to the universal principles/values my organization has adopted?
• S = Self Does it satisfy my personal definition of right, good and fair?

The PLUS filters work as an integral part of steps 1, 4 and 7 of the decision-making process. The decision maker applies the four PLUS filters to determine if the ethical component(s) of the decision are being surfaced/addressed/satisfied.

• Does the existing situation violate any of the PLUS considerations?
• Step 2:   Seek out relevant assistance, guidance and support
• Step 3: Identify available alternative solutions to the problem
• Will the alternative I am considering resolve the PLUS violations?
• Will the alternative being considered create any new PLUS considerations?
• Are the ethical trade-offs acceptable?
• Step 5: Make the decision
• Step 6: Implement the decision
• Does the resultant situation resolve the earlier PLUS considerations?
• Are there any new PLUS considerations to be addressed?

The PLUS filters do not guarantee an ethically-sound decision. They merely ensure that the ethics components of the situation will be surfaced so that they might be considered.

How Organizations Can Support Ethical Decision-Making  Organizations empower employees with the knowledge and tools they need to make ethical decisions by

• Intentionally and regularly communicating to all employees:
• Organizational policies and procedures as they apply to the common workplace ethics issues.
• Applicable laws and regulations.
• Agreed-upon set of “universal” values (i.e., Empathy, Patience, Integrity, Courage [EPIC]).
• Providing a formal mechanism (i.e., a code and a helpline, giving employees access to a definitive interpretation of the policies, laws and universal values when they need additional guidance before making a decision).
• Free Ethics & Compliance Toolkit
• Ethics and Compliance Glossary
• Definitions of Values
• Why Have a Code of Conduct?
• Code Construction and Content
• Common Code Provisions
• Ten Style Tips for Writing an Effective Code of Conduct
• Five Keys to Reducing Ethics and Compliance Risk
• Business Ethics & Compliance Timeline

• Creating Environments Conducive to Social Interaction

Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making

• Developing a Positive Climate with Trust and Respect
• Developing Self-Esteem, Confidence, Resiliency, and Mindset
• Developing Ability to Consider Different Perspectives
• Developing Tools and Techniques Useful in Social Problem-Solving
• Leadership Problem-Solving Model
• A Problem-Solving Model for Improving Student Achievement
• Six-Step Problem-Solving Model
• Hurson’s Productive Thinking Model: Solving Problems Creatively
• The Power of Storytelling and Play
• Creative Documentation & Assessment
• Materials for Use in Creating “Third Party” Solution Scenarios
• Resources for Connecting Schools to Communities
• Resources for Enabling Students

These 5 approaches and their history can be found at:

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v7n1/thinking.html

Examination of Ethical Decision-Making Models Across Disciplines: Common Elements and Application to the Field of Behavior Analysis

• Discussion and Review Paper
• Published: 29 November 2022
• Volume 16 , pages 657–671, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Victoria D. Suarez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4940-0780 1 ,
• Videsha Marya   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5836-5470 1 , 2 ,
• Mary Jane Weiss   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2836-3861 1 &
• David Cox   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4376-2104 1 , 3  

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Human service practitioners from varying fields make ethical decisions daily. At some point during their careers, many behavior analysts may face ethical decisions outside the range of their previous education, training, and professional experiences. To help practitioners make better decisions, researchers have published ethical decision-making models; however, it is unknown the extent to which published models recommend similar behaviors. Thus, we systematically reviewed and analyzed ethical decision-making models from published peer-reviewed articles in behavior analysis and related allied health professions. We identified 55 ethical decision-making models across 60 peer-reviewed articles, seven primary professions (e.g., medicine, psychology), and 22 subfields (e.g., dentistry, family medicine). Through consensus-based analysis, we identified nine behaviors commonly recommended across the set of reviewed ethical decision-making models with almost all ( n = 52) models arranging the recommended behaviors sequentially and less than half ( n = 23) including a problem-solving approach. All nine ethical decision-making steps clustered around the ethical decision-making steps in the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts published by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board ( 2020 ) suggesting broad professional consensus for the behaviors likely involved in ethical decision making.

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Assessing the Reliability of and Preference for an Ethical Decision Model

Promoting Ethical and Evidence-Based Practice through a Panel Review Process: A Case Study in Implementation Research

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Suarez, V.D., Marya, V., Weiss, M.J. et al. Examination of Ethical Decision-Making Models Across Disciplines: Common Elements and Application to the Field of Behavior Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice 16 , 657–671 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-022-00753-1

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Ethical problem-solving and decision-making The rational problem-solving process includes identifying the problem, clarifying objectives, analysing alternatives, deciding on a solution, implementing the solution, and following through to ensure its effectiveness. To begin solving a problem, the current situation needs to be diagnosed to understand and define the problem as accurately as possible. When making decisions the immediate and long-term effects of all alternative solutions on other people and situations should be considered. Decisions should also be ethical, meaning that the decision maker has an obligation to insure that the alternative chosen conforms to accepted standards of conduct. Useful criteria when making ethical decisions include public justification, moral principles, legal rights, and distributive and retributive justice. Effective implementation of an action plan depends on the parties’ commitment to make it work. Commitment to the agreed-on solution usually is gained when problems, needs, and objectives are identified mutually, and solutions are reached through participation and consensus of all involved. Individuals learn different habits for processing information when making decisions resulting in decisive, flexible, hierarchic, integrative, or systematic decision styles. Groups are also important to the decision making process. The group process can be made more effective by encouraging creativity and applying techniques such as brainstorming, the nominal group technique, the Delphi techniques, and decision support systems. To learn more about the book this website supports, please visit its . and . is one of the many fine businesses of . You must be a registered user to view the in this website. If you already have a username and password, enter it below. If your textbook came with a card and this is your first visit to this site, you can to register. 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(optional) Select some text on the page (or do this before you open the "Notes" drawer). 3. Highlighter Color: 4. Search for: Search in: Course-wide Content Quizzes More Resources Instructor Resources Course-wide Content Instructor Resources Ethical Decision Making Models and 6 Steps of Ethical Decision Making Process By Andre Wyatt on March 21, 2023 — 10 minutes to read In many ways, ethics may feel like a soft subject, a conversation that can wait when compared to other more seemingly pressing issues (a process for operations, hiring the right workers, and meeting company goals). However, putting ethics on the backburner can spell trouble for any organization. Much like the process of businesses creating the company mission, vision, and principles ; the topic of ethics has to enter the conversation. Ethics is far more than someone doing the right thing; it is many times tied to legal procedures and policies that if breached can put an organization in the midst of trouble. A general definition of business ethics is that it is a tool an organization uses to make sure that managers, employees, and senior leadership always act responsibly in the workplace with internal and external stakeholders. An ethical decision-making model is a framework that leaders use to bring these principles to the company and ensure they are followed. Importance of Ethical Standards Part 1 Ethical Decision-Making Model Approach Part 2 Ethical Decision-Making Process Part 3 PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model Part 4 Character-Based Decision-Making Model Part 5 The Importance of Ethical Standards Leaders have to develop ethical standards that employees in their company will be required to adhere to. This can help move the conversation toward using a model to decide when someone is in violation of ethics. There are five sources of ethical standards: Utilitarian Common good. While many of these standards were created by Greek Philosophers who lived long ago, business leaders are still using many of them to determine how they deal with ethical issues. Many of these standards can lead to a cohesive ethical decision-making model. What is the purpose of an ethical decision-making model? Ethical decision-making models are designed to help individuals and organizations make decisions in an ethical manner. The purpose of an ethical decision-making model is to ensure that decisions are made in a manner that takes into account the ethical implications for all stakeholders involved. Ethical decision-making models provide a framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas and serve as a guide for identifying potential solutions. By utilizing these models, businesses can ensure they are making decisions that align with their values while minimizing the risk of harming stakeholders. This can result in better decision-making and improved reputation. Why is it important to use an ethical decision making model? Making ethical decisions is an integral part of being a responsible leader and member of society. It is crucial to use an ethical decision making model to ensure that all stakeholders are taken into account and that decisions are made with the highest level of integrity. An ethical decision making model provides a framework for assessing the potential consequences of each choice, analyzing which option best aligns with personal values and organizational principles, and then acting on those conclusions. An Empirical Approach to an Ethical Decision-Making Model In 2011, a researcher at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada completed a study for the Journal of Business Ethics. The research centered around an idea of rational egoism as a basis for developing ethics in the workplace. She had 16 CEOs formulate principles for ethics through the combination of reasoning and intuition while forming and applying moral principles to an everyday circumstance where a question of ethics could be involved. Through the process, the CEOs settled on a set of four principles: self-interest rationality These were the general standards used by the CEOs in creating a decision about how they should deal with downsizing. While this is not a standard model, it does reveal the underlying ideas business leaders use to make ethical choices. These principles lead to standards that are used in ethical decision-making processes and moral frameworks. How would you attempt to resolve a situation using an ethical decision-making model? When facing a difficult situation, it can be beneficial to use an ethical decision-making model to help you come to the best possible solution. These models are based on the idea that you should consider the consequences of your decision, weigh the various options available, and consider the ethical implications of each choice. First, you should identify the problem or situation and clearly define what it is. Then, you must assess all of the possible outcomes of each choice and consider which one is most ethical. Once you have identified your preferred option, you should consult with others who may be affected by your decision to ensure that it aligns with their values and interests. You should evaluate the decision by considering how it affects yourself and others, as well as how it meets the expectations of your organization or institution. The Ethical Decision-Making Process Before a model can be utilized, leaders need to work through a set of steps to be sure they are bringing a comprehensive lens to handling ethical disputes or problems. Take Time to Define the Problem Consult resources and seek assistance, think about the lasting effects, consider regulations in other industries, decide on a decision, implement and evaluate. While each situation may call for specific steps to come before others, this is a general process that leaders can use to approach ethical decision-making . We have talked about the approach; now it is time to discuss the lens that leaders can use to make the final decision that leads to implementation. PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model is one of the most used and widely cited ethical models. To create a clear and cohesive approach to implementing a solution to an ethical problem; the model is set in a way that it gives the leader “ ethical filters ” to make decisions. It purposely leaves out anything related to making a profit so that leaders can focus on values instead of a potential impact on revenue. The letters in PLUS each stand for a filter that leaders can use for decision-making: P – Policies and Procedures: Is the decision in line with the policies laid out by the company? L – Legal: Will this violate any legal parameters or regulations? U – Universal: How does this relate to the values and principles established for the organization to operate? Is it in tune with core values and the company culture? S – Self: Does it meet my standards of fairness and justice? This particular lens fits well with the virtue approach that is a part of the five common standards mentioned above. These filters can even be applied to the process, so leaders have a clear ethical framework all along the way. Defining the problem automatically requires leaders to see if it is violating any of the PLUS ethical filters. It should also be used to assess the viability of any decisions that are being considered for implementation, and make a decision about whether the one that was chosen resolved the PLUS considerations questioned in the first step. No model is perfect, but this is a standard way to consider four vital components that have a substantial ethical impact . The Character-Based Decision-Making Model While this one is not as widely cited as the PLUS Model, it is still worth mentioning. The Character-Based Decision-Making Model was created by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, and it has three main components leaders can use to make an ethical decision. All decisions must take into account the impact to all stakeholders – This is very similar to the Utilitarian approach discussed earlier. This step seeks to do good for most, and hopefully avoid harming others. Ethics always takes priority over non-ethical values  – A decision should not be rationalized if it in any way violates ethical principles. In business, this can show up through deciding between increasing productivity or profit and keeping an employee’s best interest at heart. It is okay to violate another ethical principle if it advances a better ethical climate for others  – Leaders may find themselves in the unenviable position of having to prioritize ethical decisions. They may have to choose between competing ethical choices, and this model advises that leaders should always want the one that creates the most good for as many people as possible. There are multiple components to consider when making an ethical decision. Regulations, policies and procedures, perception, public opinion, and even a leader’s morality play a part in how decisions that question business ethics should be handled. While no approach is perfect, a well-thought-out process and useful framework can make dealing with ethical situations easier. How to Resolve Employee Conflict at Work [Steps, Tips, Examples] 5 Challenges and 10 Solutions to Improve Employee Feedback Process How to Identify and Handle Employee Underperformance? 5 Proven Steps Organizational Development: 4 Main Steps and 8 Proven Success Factors 7 Steps to Leading Virtual Teams to Success 7 Steps to Create the Best Value Proposition [How-To’s and Best Practices] Staff and Board Mission and Strategic Plan Berkshire Region Central Region Northeast Region Pioneer Valley Region Southeast Region Shared Interest Groups / Activities / Task Forces Donate to NASW-MA Chapter Membership Benefits Student Membership Join or Renew Action Center Legislative Agenda & Priority Bills Legislative Education & Advocacy Day (LEAD) Political Action for Candidate Election (PACE) Additional Advocacy Resources Employment Lawyers and Legal Resources Clinical Alerts Private Practice Supervision Workplace Safety Social Work Assistance Network (SWAN) Therapy Matcher FOCUS CE Mailer PDF Archive CE Webinars MLK Jr. Forum 2025 - coming soon Virtual Symposium 2025 Call for Proposals Nursing Home & Elder Issues Conference 2024 Virtual School Social Work Conference 2023 CE Events Calendar Online CE Institute CE Authorization by NASW-MA CE Frequently Asked Questions CE Advertisements Student Resource Center BIPOC Student Membership Program Graduation Cords Legislative Education and Advocacy Day (LEAD) Licensing Test Prep Career Services Professional Mentoring Loan Forgiveness Scholarships / Fellowships Student Ambassador Program Intern with NASW-MA Social Work Voice (member only) Email Newsletter (member only) Office Space CE Programs & Trainings Supervision, Groups, and Services Volunteer, Research, Other Place an Ad Award Nominations 2024 Awards 2023 Awards Information and History Name: Category: Share: Essential Steps for Ethical Problem-Solving Is there a conflict of values, or rights, or professional responsibilities? (For example, there may be an issue of self-determination of an adolescent versus the well-being of the family.) 2. IDENTIFY the key values and principles involved. What meanings and limitations are typically attached to these competing values? (For example, rarely is confidential information held in absolute secrecy; however, typically decisions about access by third parties to sensitive content should be contracted with clients.) 3. RANK the values or ethical principles which - in your professional judgment - are most relevant to the issue or dilemma. What reasons can you provide for prioritizing one competing value/principle over another? (For example, your client’s right to choose a beneficial course of action could bring hardship or harm to others who would be affected.) 4. DEVELOP an action plan that is consistent with the ethical priorities that have been determined as central to the dilemma. Have you conferred with clients and colleagues, as appropriate, about the potential risks and consequences of alternative courses of action? Can you support or justify your action plan with the values/principles on which the plan is based? (For example, have you conferred with all the necessary persons regarding the ethical dimensions of planning for a battered wife’s quest to secure secret shelter and the implications for her teen-aged children?) 5. IMPLEMENT your plan, utilizing the most appropriate practice skills and competencies. How will you make use of core social work skills such as sensitive communication, skillful negotiation, and cultural competence? (For example, skillful colleague or supervisory communication and negotiation may enable an impaired colleague to see her/his impact on clients and to take appropriate action.) 6. REFLECT on the outcome of this ethical decision making process. How would you evaluate the consequences of this process for those involved: Client(s), professional(s), and agency (ies)? (Increasingly, professionals have begun to seek support, further professional training, and consultation through the development of Ethics review Committees or Ethics Consultation processes.) From discussion by Frederick Reamer & Sr. Ann Patrick Conrad in Professional Choices: Ethics at Work (1995), video available from NASW Press 1-800-227-3590 Format developed by Sr. Vincentia Joseph & Sr. Ann Patrick Conrad NASW Office of Ethics and Professional Review, 1-800-638-8799 750 1st Street, NE, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20002     Ethics Resources: (formerly COI) Other Ethics Information: 6/28/2024 A Note from Executive Director Rebekah Gewirtz about the Social Work Interstate Compact in MA 6/7/2024 Liability Insurance Information 6/4/2024 Symposium 2025 Call for Proposals is NOW OPEN! 5/23/2024 SUPER Act Social Worker Sign-On Letter 7/18/2024 Virtual License Test Prep Course 8/8/2024 Virtual License Test Prep Course 9/14/2024 Virtual License Test Prep Course 10/5/2024 Virtual License Test Prep Course National Association of Social Workers - Massachusetts Chapter 6 Beacon Street, Suite 915, Boston MA 02108 tel: (617)227-9635 fax: (617)227-9877 email: chapter [email protected] Copyright 2020, NASW-MA. All rights reserved. An official website of the United States government The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site. The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely. Publications Account settings Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now . Advanced Search Journal List HHS Author Manuscripts Applying Cases to Solve Ethical Problems: The Significance of Positive and Process-Oriented Reflection Alison l. antes. Northern Kentucky University Chase E. Thiel The University of Oklahoma Laura E. Martin Midwestern State University Cheryl K. Stenmark Angelo State University Shane Connelly Lynn d. devenport, michael d. mumford. This study examined the role of reflection on personal cases for making ethical decisions with regard to new ethical problems. Participants assumed the position of a business manager in a hypothetical organization and solved ethical problems that might be encountered. Prior to making a decision for the business problems, participants reflected on a relevant ethical experience. The findings revealed that application of material garnered from reflection on a personal experience was associated with decisions of higher ethicality. However, whether the case was viewed as positive or negative, and whether the outcomes, process, or outcomes and processes embedded in the experience were examined, influenced the application of case material to the new problem. As expected, examining positive experiences and the processes involved in those positive experiences resulted in greater application of case material to new problems. Future directions and implications for understanding ethical decision-making are discussed. Across professional fields, individuals regularly encounter ethical situations and must make judgments about how to respond to these challenging workplace problems ( Ashforth & Anand, 2003 ). Making sense of the causes and implications of these complex, uncertain situations, understanding conflicting interests, goals, and motivations, and anticipating potential courses of action represent just some of the demands of thinking through ethical problems ( Waples & Antes, 2011 ). The nature of the thinking processes underlying ethical decision-making has been of principal interest to scholars concerned with understanding and improving the ethical capacity of professionals (e.g., Mumford, Connelly et al., 2008 ; Ritter, 2006 ; Rest, 1986 ; Sonenshein, 2007 ). Mumford and colleagues (2008) described ethical decision-making as a sensemaking phenomenon involving several social-cognitive processes that allow one to make sense of the elements of the situation, consider potential outcomes, and choose a course of action, and their model has received considerable empirical support ( Waples & Antes, 2011 ). One central process of the sensemaking model ( Mumford, Connelly et al., 2008 ) is self-reflection – drawing upon and examining stored knowledge about oneself, ethical problems, and experiences – to inform ethical decision-making. Drawing upon, examining, and utilizing self-relevant knowledge and experiences facilitates the complex cognition underlying problem-solving, decision-making, and learning ( Anseel, Lievens, & Schollaert, 2009 ; Dörner & Schaub, 1994 ; Mezirow, 1990 ; Strack & Förster, 1998 ), but self-reflection processes specifically pertaining to ethical decision-making have received limited examination. Given that ethical problems are social and self-relevant, reflection on personally relevant experiences or cases may provide a particularly critical source of knowledge to inform ethical decision-making ( Anderson & Conway, 1993 ; Kolodner, 1992 ; 1993 ). In fact, the primary intent of the widely applied case method approach to ethics instruction is to construct a more complete, complex collection of cases that can later be reflected upon and applied to solve ethical problems ( Jonassen & Hernandez-Serrano, 2002 ; McWilliams & Nahavandi, 2006 ; Pimple, 2007 ), but relatively little is known about the process of reflecting upon stored personal cases even though it is of key importance for understanding ethical decision-making and techniques for enhancing ethical decision-making. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is two-fold. First, we explicitly examine whether applying information garnered from reflection on personal cases is related to the ethicality of decisions made regarding new ethical problems. Additionally, we investigate the effect of the nature of the case – whether it is viewed as positive or negative – and the strategy – examination of processes, outcomes, or processes and outcomes – applied to reflecting on elements embedded in the experience. When confronted with addressing an ethical problem, individuals might recall cases from personal experience or those learned vicariously through others or from ethics courses and then reflect on the ethical standards, principles, or guidelines, and personal values embedded within the case. According to Mumford et al. (2008) , recalling and reflecting on personal experiences and the standards, values, actions, actors, causes, and contingencies found within cases, provides an important source of information to be utilized to make sense of a new situation and arrive at a decision. Thus, self-reflection is critical for drawing on relevant experiences to provide an understanding of the problem and to examine possible solutions. However, drawing upon one's stored knowledge and experience to be utilized for ethical decision-making is inherently complex ( Daudelin, 1996 ; Dörner & Schaub, 1994 ). This stored information and examination of it is influenced by emotions, self-perceptions, and personal values, beliefs, and understandings of ethical problems ( Waples & Antes, 2011 ). Consider the contrast of drawing upon this type of personally relevant knowledge and drawing upon knowledge pertaining to something like the state capital of a particular state—clearly these types of knowledge differ considerably. Ethically-relevant cases are emotional and subjective and recalling and examining this information involves personal biases, subjective evaluations, and personal perceptions ( Ashton-James & Ashkanasy, 2008 ; Gaudine & Thorne, 2001 ; Haidt, 2001 ; Sonenshein, 2007 ). Therefore, the nature of the cases drawn upon and the strategies used to examine them are likely to play a central role in whether and how that information is applied to new problems ( Rubin & Berntsen, 2003 ). However, because stored cases provide material that can be analyzed, adapted, and applied to make sense of new problems, they are expected to facilitate ethical decision-making when case material is applied to inform decision-making for new problems. Based on these observations, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Applying material from reflection on personal cases to new problems will improve decision ethicality. Affective Framing of Cases Although reflection on past cases is expected to aid ethical decision-making, not all approaches for thinking about case material are likely to prove equally effective. In particular, we expected that the affective frame and reflection strategy applied to case material would influence the application of that material to new problems. Examination of personally relevant cases is a challenging, cognitively demanding process that requires a person to actively examine past behaviors, actions, and decisions. If experiences are perceived as negative, individuals may not as actively engage in analysis of these cases because they threaten self-appraisals ( Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998 ; Sedikides & Green, 2004 ), which will ultimately hinder the use of the case material for new problems. The effect of the positively or negatively framed case material is particularly of interest given that the case method often relies upon negative exemplars of ethical transgressions. The underlying assumption of the case method is that the case material is stored to be later recalled and applied to new problems ( Gentner, Loewenstein, & Thompson, 2003 ), but if negatively framed material is threatening and less likely to be applied for new decision-making efforts, this approach to case study may be problematic. The effectiveness of the case method approach depends upon students identifying with and engaging in analysis of case experiences ( Pimple, 2007 ). If negative experiences are less personally engaging, this key condition is not met. Given that positive experiences are likely to be more actively analyzed, we proposed a second hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Reflection on positive as opposed to negative experiences will result in greater application of case material to new problems. In addition to applying a negative or positive frame to experiences, individuals might apply different analytic tactics for reflecting upon cases that they recall ( Nokes & Ohlsson, 2005 ). Given that there are many different elements of a case that might be examined in reflecting on that experience, the thinking strategies most effective for examining case material are critical for understanding ethical decision-making and how to facilitate reflection on case material. One general approach that might be applied is to emphasize the outcomes of a case or to examine the processes embedded within the experience ( Escalas & Luce, 2003 ; Pham & Taylor, 1999 ; Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998 ); or individuals might apply a strategy where they examine both outcomes and processes. Outcome-oriented reflection focuses on end results and how things within a case scenario turned out; whereas process-oriented reflection focuses on steps and elements prior to the end results. Given that outcomes and consequences are commonly the focus of ethics programs, codes, and problems ( Stansbury & Barry, 2007 ; Yongqiang, 2008 ), it may be common for analysis of cases to emphasize outcomes and thus overstress deliberate, mechanical thinking. However, to effectively examine and extract information from an ethical experience to inform a new problem, thinking about processes, or elements, involved in the case may provide insight into the more undefined elements, embedded moral beliefs and social elements, and intuitive aspects of ethical decision-making ( Marquardt & Hoeger, 2009 ; Reynolds, 2006 ). Overall, a process-oriented strategy will result in more nuanced thinking and thus facilitate ethical decision-making for new problems. It is also plausible to argue that a combined process and outcome-oriented reflection strategy would be most effective, because it might foster more complete analysis of concrete elements and reflection on the less defined elements. Nonetheless, we expect that because process-only reflection will facilitate thinking in a more divergent manner, it will result in the most relevant information to be applied for ethical decision-making; although, the less effective thinking resulting from outcome-only analysis, maybe be offset by also applying a process-oriented strategy. Thus, we proposed a third hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: A process-oriented reflection strategy will result in greater application of case material than an outcome-oriented reflection strategy, while a combined process-outcome reflection strategy will result in greater application than outcome-oriented reflection but less than process-only reflection. People readily apply affective frames to experience ( Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998 ; Martin, Stenmark et al., 2011 ; Van Schie & Van Der Pligt, 1995 ). Thus, we were interested in the combined effect of affective framing and reflection strategy. Given our propositions that a positive experience is more likely to be actively analyzed and process-oriented reflection will also facilitate analysis, we expected that process-oriented reflection on positive cases would yield the greatest application of material from reflection ( Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2003 ; Janiszewski, Silk, & Cooke, 2003 ). We expected outcome analysis to be ineffective no matter the affective frame, but we did expect that combining process-oriented reflection with outcome-oriented analysis might be particularly valuable when examining a negative experience because it might provide a mechanism for offsetting the threat associated with examination of the case. Therefore, we proposed the following interaction hypothesis: Hypothesis 4: A positively framed case examined with a process-oriented reflection strategy will result in the greatest application of case material to new problems, followed by a negatively framed case examined with a combined process-outcome reflection strategy. One-hundred and thirty-four undergraduate students (52% males; 75% Caucasian) from a large southwestern university participated in this study. Participation was voluntary and students received extra credit in their courses for participating. The sample consisted of 82% business majors, and the average participant was 22 years old. The participants reported having been employed for an average of five years, and 60% of participants reported having had completed an ethics course. Undergraduate students were recruited in their business courses via verbal and written study announcements. The study was presented as an investigation of problem-solving on critical thinking exercises. Students were told that participation was voluntary and would require a three hour time commitment. Students then signed up for one of the scheduled sessions. Upon arriving at the study location, participants were briefed about the general study purpose and procedures, and they were provided with an informed consent document. After confirming their desire to participate, each participant was provided with a packet of study materials, which were randomly assigned to contain the materials for the different experimental conditions. Before completing the materials inside of the packet at their own pace, the participants were asked to complete a verbal reasoning test, which was timed by the study proctor. Following this five minute timed test, participants completed the packet of materials according to the instructions provided on their materials. Inside the packet of materials participants found a series of low-fidelity simulation business scenarios ( Motowidlo, Dunnette, & Carter, 1990 ). The context for the hypothetical business was a small retail store which was selected because most undergraduate students have experience working in retail. Before the problems to be addressed by participants were presented, an introduction to the company and industry was provided. Additionally, background information was provided regarding the managerial role that the participants were to assume in the scenarios (see Appendix A ). In each scenario, the manager was presented with an ethical problem that had major implications for the company and their position. The ethical problems in each of the scenarios represented one of each of the four dimensions in a taxonomy of ethical misconduct developed by Helton-Fauth, Gaddis et al. (2003) . These dimensions, originally developed for misconduct in research, generalize across a number of professional fields ( Kligyte, Marcy, Sevier, Godfrey, & Mumford, 2008 ; Stenmark, Antes et al., 2010 ), and include data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. In this study, the data management scenario presented a situation that required the manager to decide how to handle reporting data from a selection instrument when fabrication of the data would benefit his/her preferred course of action (see Appendix B ). The study conduct dimension, a dimension focusing on the treatment of individuals (i.e., research participants) for which a professional has responsibility, was translated into a business context. In this scenario, the manager had to make a decision about the treatment and wellbeing of employees. In the business practices scenario, a conflict of interest was presented wherein the manager must make a decision about selling a new product manufactured by a relative's company. Finally, the professional practices scenario required the manager to make a decision about how to handle a mistake that he/she made that would affect pay raises given to employees. All participants responded to each of the four scenarios, and presentation of these scenarios was counterbalanced to avoid order effects. After reading each scenario, participants were asked to recall and reflect upon a relevant case from their experience and respond to several prompt questions about that instance. It was in the reflecting on the experience that the independent variables—affective frame and analytic approach—were manipulated. These manipulations are described in the next section. In addition to instructions to recall and reflect upon a relevant past experience, participants in all conditions were also provided with an example of the type of situation they were to recall and think about to clarify the instructions and encourage reflection on appropriate, relevant information. For example, for the data management scenario, participants were prompted to think about a situation where they were faced with a problem about submitting some kind of information, such as submitting a time card, grades, or reporting previous employers or salary on an application, where there was a temptation to change things slightly before turning over the information. After recalling and reflecting on the experience, participants returned to the new business problem and indicated what decision they would make and why. The packet of materials also contained covariate measures used to capture individual differences, such as trait affect and task engagement, which might influence performance on the business scenarios. After completing the scenarios and covariate measures, participants placed their study materials back into their envelopes and turned in their packets to the study proctor. Participants were then given a debriefing form and thanked for their participation. Manipulations The manipulations in this 2 × 3 experiment influenced the affective frame – positive or negative – and the analytic strategy – process, outcome, or process-outcome – employed by participants when they recalled and thought about a prior, relevant experience. The manipulations were embedded in the instructions and prompt questions provided to participants to guide their thinking. Specifically, the affective frame manipulation was embedded within the instructions for the type of case that participants were to recall and think about. The instructions either indicated that the participant should recall an experience that he/she felt was positive or negative. After prompting participants to recall a negative or positive case, several questions manipulated the analytic strategy applied to think about the case. Participants were asked to write out their thinking with regard to these questions. In the process-oriented condition, participants responded to three questions about the processes involved in the prior experience. For example, participants were asked about factors that they considered in working through the prior situation and why those factors were important. In the outcome-oriented condition, participants were asked to respond to three questions about the consequences of the decisions in the previous situation. For instance, they were asked to consider whether the prior decisions were effective. Participants in the process and outcome condition thought about both processes and outcomes of the prior experience by responding to three questions—one process, one outcome, and one two-pronged process-and-outcome question. Manipulation checks were performed to confirm that participants appropriately followed the instructions and experienced the intended manipulations. The checks were performed by content coding the participants’ responses to the prompt questions. The judges were four doctoral graduate students in industrial and organizational psychology who were familiar with the ethics and ethical decision making literature but not the study hypotheses under examination. The judges completed a five hour training session where they were learned the definitions of affective frame and analytic strategy and were provided with examples. Then the judges practiced scoring the responses and discussed discrepancies before continuing to code all of the responses. The manipulation check score for analytic strategy was assigned by indicating the extent to which the response provided by the participants was oriented towards processes (scored as 1), processes and outcomes (scored as 2), or outcomes (scored as 3). Affective frame was scored on a 5-point scale according to whether the case described by the participant was negative or positive, with 1 being very negative to 5 being very positive. Inter-rater agreement was assessed via intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), and revealed adequate agreement with an average ICC of .62 for analytic strategy and .82 for affective frame. A t-test comparing the mean scores revealed that participants in the negative condition described more negative cases ( M = 2.57, SD = .46) compared to participants in the positive condition ( M = 2.89, SD = .51), t (135) = 3.79, p < .01. A comparison of means for the analytic strategy manipulation check revealed statistically significant differences among the conditions, F (2, 134) = 9.86, p < .01. Post-hoc analysis using Fisher's least significant differences method indicated that the process condition ( M = 1.95, SE = .08) was statistically significantly different ( p < .01) from the outcome condition ( M = 2.43, SE = .08) but not from the process-and-outcome combined condition, although the mean for the process-and-outcome condition was in the middle as expected ( M = 2.09, SE = .08). The outcome condition was statistically significantly different ( p < .01) from the process-and-outcome combined condition. Dependent Variables Given that each participant recalled and reflected on their own cases and then generated a solution for the business problems, participants were asked to respond in an open-ended fashion to allow a range of potential responses. Therefore, the written responses generated by participants were coded for the dependent variables of interest. To prepare for scoring the dependent variables, the judges completed 10 hours of training. Judges were familiarized with the definitions of the dependent variables to be coded, and they received rating scales that provided benchmarks for scoring the participants’ responses (Redmond, Mumford, & Teach, 1993). The benchmarks provided exemplars obtained from the participants’ materials demonstrating responses that should be scored as 1 (low), 3 (moderate), and 5 (high) on the rating scales. In this training, the judges practiced coding the participants’ responses and discussed discrepancies until they were clear on the definitions and use of the benchmark rating scales. To obtain ethicality scores for the decision made with regard to the business problems, the judges rated the participants’ written responses describing their decisions on each problem. Ethicality was scored on a 5-point scale, with 1 representing low ethicality; 3 representing moderate ethicality, and 5 representing high ethicality. The participants’ decisions were examined for their ethicality according to the following criteria. Decisions must show regard for the welfare of others, attention to personal responsibilities, and adherence to professional guidelines and social obligations. Thus, responses of high ethicality were those that reflected these criteria to a large extent, moderately ethical decisions reflected these elements to some extent, while low ethicality scores were assigned to decisions that showed little or no regard for others, a focus on personal gain, and failure to adhere to professional standards of conduct. The judges showed high inter-rater agreement in their ratings of the ethicality of the decisions. Averaged across the four scenarios, the intra-class correlation coefficient was .81. Application of Case Material The other dependent variable scored by the judges was application of the reflected on case material to the new problem. To obtain scores for application, the judges scored whether aspects of the recalled case – written about in the responses to the manipulation questions – were referred to, present, or connected to the decisions made for the new business scenarios. Application was scored on a 5-point scale, with little or no presence of application receiving a low score of 1 or 2, moderate application receiving a score of 3, and a great deal of application received a score of 4 or 5. For example, when participants noted similarities or differences between the two situations in terms of what actually happened, what they wished to happen, or what they expected to happen, they would receive higher scores on the application score. Other markers indicating application of the reflection to the current decision scenario were references to the reflection scenario in the decision and clear parallels between, or divergence from, the actions or decisions in the two situations, such as repeating past behavior, or avoiding past behavior, having learned from past experience. The intra-class correlation coefficient (.74) across the four scenarios indicated that the judges showed high agreement in their application scores. Several individual difference variables were measured to control for their potential influence on participants’ performance. Given the written nature of the research task, verbal reasoning was measured using the Employee Aptitude Survey ( Ruch & Ruch, 1980 ). On this measure, participants receive 5 minutes to read six sets of facts and determine the accuracy of conclusions arising from the facts. Coefficient alpha for the scale was α = .85. Trait affect was also examined because of the potential for the positive-negative framing manipulation to induce affective reactions. Trait affect was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale ( Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988 ). This 20-item (10 positive and 10 negative) measure captures positive (α = .83) and negative (α = .84) affect by asking people to report, on a 5-point scale, the extent to which the positive and negative adjectives (e.g., excited and irritable) describe how they have felt over the past month. Task engagement was assessed using a 7-item scale (e.g, “Did you try to fully complete all of the activities in this experiment?”). Participants reported, on a 5-point scale, their level of engagement and interest in study participation, as task motivation influences the effectiveness of manipulations and participant responses. The scale reliability for this measure was .67. Finally, given the nature of the research task, the extent to which participants responded in a detailed, complete manner to the open-ended writing tasks was assessed. These scores were obtained by asking the judges to rate, on a 5-point scale, the extent to which the participants’ responses demonstrated depth and detail. The intra-class correlation coefficient of .87 was obtained for these ratings, revealing agreement among judges with respect to response elaboration. As noted above, four ethical decision-making scenarios were included to examine decision-making on several different types of ethical problems. Because the pattern of results for ethicality and application of case material did not differ across the types of ethical problems, the final analyses were conducted at the aggregated level by averaging the scores across the four scenarios. The covariates were also examined prior to the final analyses, and they were retained if they produced p-values equal to or less than .10. The only covariate retained in the final analyses was elaboration. A regression analysis examined whether application of case material was associated with decisions of greater ethicality. In this analysis, elaboration was entered as a predictor of ethicality in the first block to control for its influence, followed by application of case material in the second block. To examine the effects of affective frame and analytic strategy an analysis of covariance was conducted with application of case material as the dependent variable and elaboration as a covariate. As reported in Table 1 , application scores were used to predict the ethicality of decisions, after controlling for elaboration. In support of Hypothesis 1, which stated that the application of case material to a new problem would be associated with decisions of greater ethicality, application of case material was a statistically significant predictor of decision ethicality ( β = .24, p < .05). The model consisting of elaboration and application of case materials accounted for nine percent of the variance in ethicality scores. Regression Analysis Predicting Ethicality from Application of Case Material R ΔR Block 1 .04     Elaboration .20 Block 2 .09 .05     Elaboration .11     Application of Case Material .24 β = standardized beta coefficient It is of note that this R-squared value, although statistically significant, is small. However, this value is not of great concern in the present study because the Mumford et al. (2008) model stresses the operation of multiple processes that facilitate ethical decision-making, and just one process has been singled out for examination in this study. Moreover, this R-squared value is based on just two predictors, and the beta coefficient reflecting the effect size for reflection application is sizable. In addition to proposing that applying case material to a new problem would facilitate ethical decision-making, we proposed that reflection on different types of cases and different approaches for thinking about those cases would affect the extent to which individuals applied case material. Table 2 presents the results obtained in the analysis of the effects of affective frame and analytic strategy. Analysis of Covariance for Application of Case Material df F p Covariate Elaboration 1, 127 23.89 .16 .000 Main Effects Affective Frame 1, 127 2.17 .02 .144 Analytic Strategy 2, 127 1.772 .03 .174 Interaction Frame × Strategy 2, 127 3.56 .05 .031 Note. df = degrees of freedom; F = F-ratio; η p 2 = partial eta-squared; p = p-value. Hypothesis 2 and 3 were main effect hypotheses, suggesting that affective framing would produce a significant effect for application of case material, such that reflection on positive cases would result in greater application compared to negative cases. Although the pattern of results suggested that application was higher for positively framed cases, it was not statistically significant relative to negative cases. Similarly, the main effect for analytic strategy was not statistically significant, although, as proposed, the pattern suggested that process and process-outcome strategies resulted in greater application than outcome strategies. As shown in Table 2 , the interaction effect, proposed by Hypothesis 4, was statistically significant, F (2, 127) = 3.56, p < .05. Examination of the cell means (adjusted for elaboration) for application of case material provides evidence for the nature of the interaction effect (see Table 3 ). As proposed by Hypothesis 4, positively framed cases examined with a process-oriented reflection strategy resulted in the greatest application of case material to new problems ( M = 2.96, SE = .15), followed by negatively framed cases examined with a process-outcome reflection ( M = 2.54, SE = .15). Much less case application resulted when reflecting only on processes ( M = 2.33, SE = .15) or outcomes ( M = 2.36, SE = .15) with regard to negative cases, and reflection on outcomes was no more effective when examining positive cases ( M = 2.36, SE = .15). Adjusted Means for Affective Frame and Analytic Strategy on Application of Case Material Frame Negative Positive Mean SE Mean SE Mean Analytic Strategy Process 2.33 .15 2.96 .15 2.65 Outcome 2.36 .15 2.36 .15 2.36 Process & Outcome 2.54 .15 2.45 .15 2.50     Mean 2.41 2.59 Note. SE = standard error. In summary, Hypothesis 1 was supported. Applying case material from experiences was associated with more ethical decisions. The main effect hypotheses (Hypotheses 2 and 3) were not supported. However, the interaction hypothesis (Hypothesis 4) was supported. The findings indicated that examining processes involved in positive cases resulted in greater application of case material to new problems. The findings also suggested that when individuals reflected on the outcomes of past experiences, also thinking about processes compensated to some extent for the limited application of case material observed when only thinking about outcomes. This compensatory mechanism was especially prominent when thinking about past negative experiences, likely because they permitted the individual to engage in reappraisal of a personally threatening event ( Wisco & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2009 ). We examined the effect of recalling positive or negative cases and the strategy used to examine those cases on the use of that case material for solving new problems. We found that when case material was applied to a new problem, it was associated with more ethical decisions. However, the nature of the cases and the manner in which they were reflected on influenced whether the case material was applied. Specifically, examining positive experiences and thinking about the processes involved in those cases encouraged the application of material to a new problem. Understanding the effects of the nature of cases and the manner in which they are examined is critical for understanding ethical decision-making processes. Moreover, these findings with respect to case reflection to inform ethical decision-making pose some questions with respect to case methods utilized in classroom instruction to facilitate ethical problem-solving and ethical behavior among professionals ( Bell & Kozlowski, 2008 ; Gravin, 2007 ; Henson, Kennett, & Kennedy, 2003 ; Smith, Fryer-Edwards, Diekema, & Braddock, 2004 ). These techniques are aimed at adding to the case-based knowledge available for individuals to draw upon. Yet, the nature of cases and how they are examined specifically are rarely considered; instead it is commonly taken for granted that case material, or ethics instruction more generally, is beneficial for future ethical decision-making ( Antes, Murphy et al., 2009 ; Antes, Wang, Mumford, Brown, Connelly, & Devenport, 2010 ). The present findings suggest that there may be more and less effective types of cases and means for thinking about case material. Understanding such effects would improve our ability to not only deliver case-based instruction, but would also allow us to better educate individuals about how to think about cases and experiences in future situations where they call upon that information. Indeed, techniques such as role-play are explicitly intended to develop experiential knowledge and skill for working with this knowledge ( DeNeve & Heppner, 1997 ; Gremler, Hoffman, Keaveney, & Wright, 2000 ). The findings with regard to negative cases are particularly interesting because ethics scandals are commonly those that are most salient, tend to be especially engaging, and thus are likely to be discussed ( Sleeper, Schneider, Weber, & Weber, 2006 ). Of key interest then is whether these negative examples are likely to facilitate problem solving in future situations, especially relative to cases of positive, ethical behavior. It is likely that negative cases are more personally threatening and these examples of are not likely to be internalized as personally relevant, thus they may not be available, or examined, for future problem-solving ( Alicke, & Sedikides, 2009 ; Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2003 ; Denny & Hunt, 1992 ). This proposition is an important question for future research. Of course, there may be a great deal that can be learned from negative cases, thus strategies for examining these cases that will benefit future application of that material are of key interest. The present findings suggest that it is important to go beyond outcomes and examine the processes involved in these situations. Overall, the benefit of process-oriented analysis reaffirms the importance of active thinking for ethical decision-making. Future work might examine specifically the nature of the elements, such as social interactions, motivations, and assumptions, examined in such analysis and their role is ethical decision-making. Overall, reflecting on processes rather than outcomes allows for the extraction of information that can be applied to make sense of a new situation ( Escalas, 2004 ; Escalas & Luce, 2003 ; Oettingen & Mayer 2002 ; Pham & Taylor 1999 ; Rivkin & Taylor 1999 ; Taylor et al. 1998 ). Although it appears that it is possible to overcome, at least to some extent, the detrimental effect of negatively framed experiences by focusing on both outcomes and the processes, the effect of examining positive cases in classroom settings and strategies for doing so presents an important area for future examination. Positive cases may allow individuals to incorporate this information into one's case-based knowledge, as it is more easily viewed as self-relevant because people are not likely to attribute negative behavior to themselves or their social groups ( Hewstone, 1990 ). In fact, thinking about poor behavior of others allows people to credential their own personal ethical nature and in turn engage in unethical behavior ( Brown, Tamborski et al., 2011 ). Moreover, other research has suggested that examining negative behavior can be detrimental in other ways, promoting cynicism and pluralistic ignorance ( Antes, Brown et al., 2007 ; Halbesleben, Wheeler, & Buckley, 2005 ). Negative cases may also limit active analysis because they may be less ambiguous than other cases, leaving less room for examination ( Rubin & Berntsen, 2003 ). Ultimately, for cases—whether personally experienced or discussed in a classroom setting—to be valuable for problem solving, they must be stored, retrieved, and applied. Techniques for storing, retrieving, examining, and applying case material require future examination. Along these lines, it is also important to understand how self-reflection and other processes in ethical decision-making, such as emotion, operate jointly to influence decisions (Kligyte, Connelly, Thiel, Devenport, Brown, & Mumford, 2008). Affective explanations might account, at least in part, for the effects of examining case material. For example, reflecting on a positive case or experience might serve an emotional regulation function by removing one's thinking from the current situation to allow more thorough analysis in another less threatening context ( Josephson, Singer, & Salovey, 1996 ; Sarason, Potter, Sarason, 1986 ). Indeed, Gross (1998) describes reflection on incongruent past affective events as a form of the distraction regulation strategy, which is used to change an emotional experience by shifting attention away from the current affect-eliciting event. Clearly, more research is needed to understand the influence of reflecting on personal experiences and case examples to inform ethical decision-making. In the present effort, we have focused on the effects of general positive and negative affective frame, but cases that induce discrete emotional reactions, such as anger, fear, or excitement, may operate differently than general affect ( Maitlis & Ozcelik, 2004 ; Tiedens & Linton, 2001 ). Overall, this study suggests important issues for investigation, and indicates that there may be some particular value in positive case examples ( Pritchard, 1993 ). It is perhaps somewhat early in this line of investigation to make strong instructional recommendations, but these findings do suggest that there may be a place for reflection on personal experiences and practice in applying case material in ethics instruction. Such instruction might focus on informing people of the value of drawing upon personal experiences and techniques for doing so effectively. In addition, this approach would emphasize active and ongoing learning by encouraging a reflective analysis of personal experiences, such that ethical events are examined, evaluated and incorporated into one's knowledge to facilitate future decision-making ( Bell & Kozlowski, 2008 ; McAdoo & Manwaring, 2009 ). It may even be possible to provide individuals with techniques reframing negative personal experiences more positively ( Wisco & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2009 ). Additional research will shed light on just how to instruct people to analyze personal cases and what elements to focus on. Our conclusions and implications should be considered in light of several limitations. First, the present study was conducted in a sample of undergraduate students, which may limit generalizability of these results to individuals who are older, or have more work experience. However, this concern is mitigated somewhat, given that the sample was older than the typical undergraduate sample, and the majority of participants reported having work experience. Another limitation pertains to the methodology employed; we utilized simulated business scenarios where participants took on the role of a character, but nonetheless these are not real-world problems. However, this methodology provides a low-risk assessment of the critical variables of interest, and has been shown to provide reliable and valid results studying ethics-related phenomena ( Mumford et al. 2006 ). However, as the results indicated, the effect sizes obtained in this study were small. In addition, in this study, participants were prompted to self-reflect upon a past experience, as opposed to spontaneously drawing upon this information. It may be that individuals do not naturally ask themselves the types of questions about past experiences that they were asked to think about here. Finally, given the range of potential solutions and explanations for decisions that participants might choose, participants responded to the study prompts in an open-ended fashion. Thus, measurement of the dependent variables was based upon expert ratings of these responses. Although the raters were extensively trained in the constructs of interest, provided benchmark examples, and the inter-rater agreement coefficients were sizable, this approach to measurement may be a weakness because it is somewhat subjective. Despite this study's limitations, these findings provide evidence that past experience is an influential source of information to draw upon when facing ethical problems. Additional research examining self-reflection and other processes in ethical decision-making is needed to better understand this complex phenomenon. We are hopeful that this study will encourage that future work. Acknowledgements This research was supported by grant 5R01NR010341-02 from the National Institutes of Health and the Office of Research Integrity, Michael D. Mumford, Principal Investigator. We would like to thank Xiaoqian Wang and Jay Caughron for their assistance and support on this project. Background Information Buy More is a retail store franchise that has 20 locations in the Southwest and specializes in selling high end products for use in peoples’ homes. Because it is a franchise, each store is individually operated so that they sell the same products, but the managers can make many decisions about their individual stores, such as hiring and firing employees and buying different products to meet the local needs of the customers. Buy More specializes in selling high quality products and caters to upper middle class customers. They pride themselves on their standards for quality products and satisfaction, boasting the slogan “Buy More, Buy Better.” Customers seem to enjoy being able to buy better quality products that break less and hold up over time, and this has made Buy More relatively successful in the retail market. Since being founded 30 years ago, Buy More has continued to grow and expand its number of franchises. You are the store manager for the Buy More store in your hometown. You have worked at this store for 9 years and are generally happy with your job. You worked your way up from an hourly sales associate to being a supervisor to finally becoming the manager for the entire store. On average, you manage about 25 employees, but many more during the holiday season. On a daily basis, you oversee the employees who work on the sales floor, oversee incoming shipments, handle customer service complaints, and monitor the cashiers. When needed, you also train new employees. As the store manager, you are also responsible for keeping an eye on the store's profit margin, managing the store's bank accounts, and making the nightly deposits at the bank. Data Management Scenario One of the managers at another store resigned and your company urgently needs to hire another one. In the past, the company has promoted from within as well as hired people from outside of the company. You have always supported promoting current employees before outside employees, especially as your current employees have stuck with the company for a while and performed well. Your corporate supervisor started the interviewing process and selected two top candidates; one is from outside of the company and another, Alex, is a supervisor in your store that you think would be perfect for the position. Alex has worked for the company for 5 years and has been committed and dedicated to his work. Your supervisor does not care who you hire as long as you find a qualified person to fill the position as soon as possible. Your supervisor tells you to make the final decision and send the report to the corporate human resources department. If you want to hire someone from within, you have to review the performance appraisal (PA) scores for the recommended employee looking at the past 3 years of performance. Your supervisor gives you the resume and interview score for the external applicant and tells you to make a similar report for Alex so that they can be compared. Your supervisor tells you that Alex should have the same or better performance than the other applicant. You look at the external applicant's resume and it is really good. He has a college degree and a lot of job experience, but has not worked in this specific area of retail. You are personally convinced that he is not committed to this job for a career, and will likely leave the company after a few years, but you don't have the facts to prove it. You were not present at the interview to make an accurate judgment about how long he might stay with the company. When you summarize the performance scores, Alex's task performance score is 4.4 and social performance is 4.5, whereas the external candidate has 4.6 and 4.8. 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[ Google Scholar ] Frontline Initiative Code of Ethics The right decision method: an approach for solving ethical dilemmas. Annie Johnson Sirek, MSW is a Project Coordinator at the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota. She thanks Marianne and Julie of the Human Services Research Institute, and Amy and Derek of the University of Minnesota, for developing this method to use in daily practice and training. Share this page Share this page on Facebook. Share this page on Twitter. Share this page on LinkedIn. Share this page on Pinterest. Share this page via email. Print this page. What is an ethical dilemma?  An ethical dilemma requires a person to define right from wrong. But, as Direct Support Professionals (DSPs), we know that this is not so simple. We face difficult decisions in our daily practice. There are often many different rules, principles, and opinions at play. We are called to respond in allegiance to the individuals we support. The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) Code of Ethics provides a roadmap to assist in resolving ethical dilemmas. How do I resolve ethical dilemmas?  Ethical dilemmas can be resolved through effective decision-making. Since we are so often called upon to make independent judgments, it is important to incorporate the NADSP Code of Ethics within our daily practice. Many ethical dilemmas can be resolved easily with consultation and reflection. However, some issues cannot. Therefore, to help make it easier to solve difficult ethical dilemmas, consider a framework from which to work. The College of Direct Support has provided an approach to ethical decision-making with the NADSP Code of Ethics. This is called the RIGHT Decision Method.  RIGHT Decision Method  Recognize the ethical dilemma. Identify points of view. Gather resources and assistance. Have a plan. Take action based on ethical standards. What is the RIGHT Decision Method?  Sometimes there really is a “right” way to make decisions under difficult conditions. The RIGHT Decision Method gives us tools to make sound ethical decisions and resolve ethical dilemmas. RIGHT is an acronym that stands for each step of the decision-making process: R: Recognize the ethical dilemma.  The first step is recognizing the conflicting obligations and clearly stating the dilemma. It is important to recognize and use the NADSP Code of Ethics as you begin with this step. You may consider — In what ways is the Code of Ethics applicable to this issue? I: Identify points of view.  The second step is identifying points of view in the situation. This means considering the viewpoint of the person receiving services, your colleagues, other parties involved, and the NADSP Code of Ethics. Restating the problem clearly to someone else can also help you check out whether you have interpreted the situation accurately. It is important to understand how the person receiving supports feels. Consider — What does the person receiving support expect? Then think about others who are involved in the situation and how they feel. What do these individuals want or need? G: Gather resources and assistance.  The third step is gathering resources and assistance that might help you figure out what to do. Now that you have an accurate understanding for the problem and various perspectives, this step encourages you to consider other people who may be able to assist you. You may also need to find important information. For example — Are there agency policies that could be considered? What do these documents say? Are there any laws or regulations in the state that may influence your decision-making? Is this a situation where legal advice is needed? Does the person have a legal representative who must be involved? Are there community resources that might help resolve the problem? H: Have a plan.  The fourth step means that you are ready to make your decision. Formulating a plan will help you decide the best way to put your ideas into action. Once you have considered the following issues, write a plan down and identify step-by-step actions that you plan to take — Whom must you speak to first? What will you say? What preparations will you make? What steps can you take to ensure the best possible outcome for your decision? How might people react? T: Take action based on ethical standards.   The fifth and final step is implementing the plan you developed in the manner you decided. Then, it is important to monitor its success using the success indicators you identified in the planning process to help you reflect on your decision — What worked well and why? What did not work well and why? What would you do differently after you have evaluated your outcomes? Taylor, M., Silver, J., Hewitt, A., & Nord, D. (2006). Applying ethics in everyday work (Lesson 3) . In College of Direct Support course: Direct support professionalism (Revision 2) . DirectCourse. Icon(s) used on this page: If we’re all so busy, why isn’t anything getting done? Have you ever asked why it’s so difficult to get things done in business today—despite seemingly endless meetings and emails? Why it takes so long to make decisions—and even then not necessarily the right ones? You’re not the first to think there must be a better way. Many organizations address these problems by redesigning boxes and lines: who does what and who reports to whom. This exercise tends to focus almost obsessively on vertical command relationships and rarely solves for what, in our experience, is the underlying disease: the poor design and execution of collaborative interactions. About the authors This article is a collaborative effort by Aaron De Smet , Caitlin Hewes, Mengwei Luo, J.R. Maxwell , and Patrick Simon , representing views from McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice. In our efforts to connect across our organizations, we’re drowning in real-time virtual interaction technology, from Zoom to Slack to Teams, plus group texting, WeChat, WhatsApp, and everything in between. There’s seemingly no excuse to not collaborate. The problem? Interacting is easier than ever, but true, productive, value-creating collaboration is not. And what’s more, where engagement is occurring, its quality is deteriorating. This wastes valuable resources, because every minute spent on a low-value interaction eats into time that could be used for important, creative, and powerful activities. It’s no wonder a recent McKinsey survey  found 80 percent of executives were considering or already implementing changes in meeting structure and cadence in response to the evolution in how people work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, most executives say they frequently find themselves spending way too much time on pointless interactions that drain their energy and produce information overload. Most executives say they frequently find themselves spending way too much time on pointless interactions. Three critical collaborative interactions What can be done? We’ve found it’s possible to quickly improve collaborative interactions by categorizing them by type and making a few shifts accordingly. We’ve observed three broad categories of collaborative interactions (exhibit): Decision making, including complex or uncertain decisions (for example, investment decisions) and cross-cutting routine decisions (such as quarterly business reviews) Creative solutions and coordination, including innovation sessions (for example, developing new products) and routine working sessions (such as daily check-ins) Information sharing, including one-way communication (video, for instance) and two-way communication (such as town halls with Q&As) Below we describe the key shifts required to improve each category of collaborative interaction, as well as tools you can use to pinpoint problems in the moment and take corrective action. Decision making: Determining decision rights When you’re told you’re “responsible” for a decision, does that mean you get to decide? What if you’re told you’re “accountable”? Do you cast the deciding vote, or does the person responsible? What about those who must be “consulted”? Sometimes they are told their input will be reflected in the final answer—can they veto a decision if they feel their input was not fully considered? It’s no wonder one of the key factors for fast, high-quality decisions is to clarify exactly who makes them. Consider a success story at a renewable-energy company. To foster accountability and transparency, the company developed a 30-minute “role card” conversation for managers to have with their direct reports. As part of this conversation, managers explicitly laid out the decision rights and accountability metrics for each direct report. The result? Role clarity enabled easier navigation for employees, sped up decision making, and resulted in decisions that were much more customer focused. How to define decision rights We recommend a simple yet comprehensive approach for defining decision rights. We call it DARE, which stands for deciders, advisers, recommenders, and executors: Deciders are the only ones with a vote (unlike the RACI model, which helps determine who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). If the deciders get stuck, they should jointly agree on how to escalate the decision or figure out a way to move the process along, even if it means agreeing to “disagree and commit.” Advisers have input and help shape the decision. They have an outsize voice in setting the context of the decision and have a big stake in its outcome—for example, it may affect their profit-and-loss statements—but they don’t get a vote. Recommenders conduct the analyses, explore the alternatives, illuminate the pros and cons, and ultimately recommend a course of action to advisers and deciders. They see the day-to-day implications of the decision but also have no vote. Best-in-class recommenders offer multiple options and sometimes invite others to suggest more if doing so may lead to better outcomes. A common mistake of recommenders, though, is coming in with only one recommendation (often the status quo) and trying to convince everyone it’s the best path forward. In general, the more recommenders, the better the process—but not in the decision meeting itself. Executers don’t give input but are deeply involved in implementing the decision. For speed, clarity, and alignment, executers need to be in the room when the decision is made so they can ask clarifying questions and spot flaws that might hinder implementation. Notably, the number of executers doesn’t necessarily depend on the importance of the decision. An M&A decision, for example, might have just two executors: the CFO and a business-unit head. To make this shift, ensure everyone is crystal clear about who has a voice but no vote or veto. Our research indicates while it is often helpful to involve more people in decision making, not all of them should be deciders—in many cases, just one individual should be the decider (see sidebar “How to define decision rights”). Don’t underestimate the difficulty of implementing this. It often goes against our risk-averse instinct to ensure everyone is “happy” with a decision, particularly our superiors and major stakeholders. Executing and sustaining this change takes real courage and leadership. Creative solutions and coordination: Open innovation Routine working sessions are fairly straightforward. What many organizations struggle with is finding innovative ways to identify and drive toward solutions. How often do you tell your teams what to do versus empowering them to come up with solutions? While they may solve the immediate need to “get stuff done,” bureaucracies and micromanagement are a recipe for disaster. They slow down the organizational response to the market and customers, prevent leaders from focusing on strategic priorities, and harm employee engagement. Our research suggests  key success factors in winning organizations are empowering employees  and spending more time on high-quality coaching interactions. How microenterprises empower employees to drive innovative solutions Haier, a Chinese appliance maker, created more than 4,000 microenterprises (MEs) that share common approaches but operate independently. Haier has three types of microenterprises: Market-facing MEs have roots in Haier’s legacy appliance business, reinvented for today’s customer-centric, web-enabled world. They are expected to grow revenue and profit ten times faster than the industry average. Incubating MEs focus on emerging markets such as e-gaming or wrapping new business models around familiar products. They currently account for more than 10 percent of Haier’s market capitalization. “Node” MEs sell market-facing ME products and services such as design, manufacturing, and human-resources support. Take Haier. The Chinese appliance maker divided itself into more than 4,000 microenterprises with ten to 15 employees each, organized in an open ecosystem of users, inventors, and partners (see sidebar “How microenterprises empower employees to drive innovative solutions”). This shift turned employees into energetic entrepreneurs who were directly accountable for customers. Haier’s microenterprises are free to form and evolve with little central direction, but they share the same approach to target setting, internal contracting, and cross-unit coordination. Empowering employees to drive innovative solutions has taken the company from innovation-phobic to entrepreneurial at scale. Since 2015, revenue from Haier Smart Home, the company’s listed home-appliance business, has grown by more than 18 percent a year, topping 209 billion renminbi ($32 billion) in 2020. The company has also made a string of acquisitions, including the 2016 purchase of GE Appliances, with new ventures creating more than $2 billion in market value. Empowering others doesn’t mean leaving them alone. Successful empowerment, counterintuitively, doesn’t mean leaving employees alone. Empowerment requires leaders to give employees both the tools and the right level of guidance and involvement. Leaders should play what we call the coach role: coaches don’t tell people what to do but instead provide guidance and guardrails and ensure accountability, while stepping back and allowing others to come up with solutions. Haier was able to use a variety of tools—including objectives and key results (OKRs) and common problem statements—to foster an agile way of working across the enterprise that focuses innovative organizational energy on the most important topics. Not all companies can do this, and some will never be ready for enterprise agility. But every organization can take steps to improve the speed and quality of decisions made by empowered individuals. Managers who are great coaches, for example, have typically benefited from years of investment by mentors, sponsors, and organizations. We think all organizations should do more to improve the coaching skills of managers and help them to create the space and time to coach teams, as opposed to filling out reports, presenting in meetings, and other activities that take time away from driving impact through the work of their teams. But while great coaches take time to develop, something as simple as a daily stand-up or check-in can drive horizontal connectivity, creating the space for teams to understand what others are doing and where they need help to drive work forward without having to specifically task anyone in a hierarchical way. You may also consider how you are driving a focus on outcomes over activities on a near-term and long-term basis. Whether it’s OKRs or something else, how is your organization proactively communicating a focus on impact and results over tasks and activities? What do you measure? How is it tracked? How is the performance of your people and your teams managed against it? Over what time horizons? The importance of psychological safety. As you start this journey, be sure to take a close look at psychological safety. If employees don’t feel psychologically safe, it will be nearly impossible for leaders and managers to break through disempowering behaviors like constant escalation, hiding problems or risks, and being afraid to ask questions—no matter how skilled they are as coaches. Employers should be on the lookout for common problems indicating that significant challenges to psychological safety lurk underneath the surface. Consider asking yourself and your teams questions to test the degree of psychological safety you have cultivated: Do employees have space to bring up concerns or dissent? Do they feel that if they make a mistake it will be held against them? Do they feel they can take risks or ask for help? Do they feel others may undermine them? Do employees feel valued for their unique skills and talents? If the answer to any of these is not a clear-cut “yes,” the organization likely has room for improvement on psychological safety and relatedness as a foundation to high-quality interactions within and between teams. Information sharing: Fit-for-purpose interactions Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You spend a significant amount of time in meetings every day but feel like nothing has been accomplished. You jump from one meeting to another and don’t get to think on your own until 7 p.m. You wonder why you need to attend a series of meetings where the same materials are presented over and over again. You’re exhausted. An increasing number of organizations have begun to realize the urgency of driving ruthless meeting efficiency and of questioning whether meetings are truly required at all to share information. Live interactions can be useful for information sharing, particularly when there is an interpretive lens required to understand the information, when that information is particularly sensitive, or when leaders want to ensure there’s ample time to process it and ask questions. That said, most of us would say that most meetings are not particularly useful and often don’t accomplish their intended objective. We have observed that many companies are moving to shorter meetings (15 to 30 minutes) rather than the standard default of one-hour meetings in an effort to drive focus and productivity. For example, Netflix launched a redesign effort to drastically improve meeting efficiency, resulting in a tightly controlled meeting protocol. Meetings cannot go beyond 30 minutes. Meetings for one-way information sharing must be canceled in favor of other mechanisms such as a memo, podcast, or vlog. Two-way information sharing during meetings is limited by having attendees review materials in advance, replacing presentations with Q&As. Early data show Netflix has been able to reduce the number of meetings by more than 65 percent, and more than 85 percent of employees favor the approach. Making meeting time a scarce resource is another strategy organizations are using to improve the quality of information sharing and other types of interactions occurring in a meeting setting. Some companies have implemented no-meeting days. In Japan, Microsoft’s “Work Life Choice Challenge” adopted a four-day workweek, reduced the time employees spend in meetings—and boosted productivity by 40 percent. 1 Bill Chappell, “4-day workweek boosted workers’ productivity by 40%, Microsoft Japan says,” NPR, November 4, 2019, npr.org. Similarly, Shopify uses “No Meeting Wednesdays” to enable employees to devote time to projects they are passionate about and to promote creative thinking. 2 Amy Elisa Jackson, “Feedback & meeting-free Wednesdays: How Shopify beats the competition,” Glassdoor, December 5, 2018, glassdoor.com. And Moveline’s product team dedicates every Tuesday to “Maker Day,” an opportunity to create and solve complex problems without the distraction of meetings. 3 Rebecca Greenfield, “Why your office needs a maker day,” Fast Company , April 17, 2014, fastcompany.com. Finally, no meeting could be considered well scoped without considering who should participate, as there are real financial and transaction costs to meeting participation. Leaders should treat time spent in meetings as seriously as companies treat financial capital. Every leader in every organization should ask the following questions before attending any meeting: What’s this meeting for? What’s my role? Can I shorten this meeting by limiting live information sharing and focusing on discussion and decision making? We encourage you to excuse yourself from meetings if you don’t have a role in influencing the outcome and to instead get a quick update over email. If you are not essential, the meeting will still be successful (possibly more so!) without your presence. Try it and see what happens. High-quality, focused interactions can improve productivity, speed, and innovation within any organization—and drive better business performance. We hope the above insights have inspired you to try some new techniques to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of collaboration within your organization. Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office; Caitlin Hewes is a consultant in the Atlanta office; Mengwei Luo is an associate partner in the New York office; J.R. Maxwell is a partner in the Washington, DC, office; and Patrick Simon is a partner in the Munich office. Explore a career with us Related articles. Author Talks: Beyond collaboration overload Battling burnout: A conversation with resiliency expert Dr. Amit Sood Author Talks: Why burnout is an epidemic—and what to do about it 358 IMAGES Ethical Decision-Making Solving ethical problems Making Ethical Decisions 7 Step Ethical Decision Making Model 7 Step Ethical Decision Making Model Acts of Leadership: Process Model for Ethical Problem-solving VIDEO How To Win Negotiations Essential Skills for Logical Thinking How Zodiac Signs Solve Problems? ETC || B.E.Sem-3 || Chapter-4 ||Ethical Dilemma || Steps to Resolve It || Master Decision Making with the 6 Thinking Hats Technique (7 Minutes) Try something #shorts #motivation #reelinstagram #lifetips #wisdomoftheday #lifewisdom #love COMMENTS Examination of Ethical Decision-Making Models Across Disciplines: Common Elements and Application to the Field of Behavior Analysis Ethical Decision Making as Problem Solving. Recent attention has been given to the common-sense problem-solving approach (Szabo, 2020), which we used to score models within the current analysis. This problem-solving approach may offer great utility and is observed across various fields (e.g., cognitive psychology; Szabo, 2020). 7 Ways to Improve Your Ethical Decision-Making Effective decision-making is the cornerstone of any thriving business. According to a survey of 760 companies cited in the Harvard Business Review, decision effectiveness and financial results correlated at a 95 percent confidence level across countries, industries, and organization sizes.. Yet, making ethical decisions can be difficult in the workplace and often requires dealing with ... Chapter 4-Perspectives in Ethical Theory Final Thoughts on Seven Approaches to Ethical Problem Solving. The approaches discussed in this chapter are plausible arguments for how morality is formulated and discuss what factors affect how people conceptualize decision-making. Leaders need to understand these approaches when they weigh difficult decisions or formulate business policies. A Framework for Ethical Decision Making Ethics Resources. A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. This document is designed as an introduction to thinking ethically. Read more about what the framework can (and cannot) do. We all have an image of our better selves—of how we are when we act ethically or are "at our best.". We probably also have an image of what an ethical ... Thinking Ethically This approach to ethics assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is inextricably linked to the good of the community. Community members are bound by the pursuit of common values and goals. The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000 years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. 5.3 Ethical Principles and Responsible Decision-Making 2.1 Overview of Managerial Decision-Making; 2.2 How the Brain Processes Information to Make Decisions: ... Using one or more of these principles and ethical approaches intentionally can also help you examine choices and options before making a decision or solving an ethical dilemma. Becoming familiar with these principles, then, can help inform ... The PLUS Ethical Decision Making Model Seven Steps to Ethical Decision Making. - Step 1: Define the problem (consult PLUS filters) - Step 2: Seek out relevant assistance, guidance and support. - Step 3: Identify alternatives. - Step 4: Evaluate the alternatives (consult PLUS filters) - Step 5: Make the decision. - Step 6: Implement the decision. Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making The ethical action is the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number. The Rights Approach. The second important approach to ethics has its roots in the philosophy of the 18th-century thinker Immanuel Kant and others like him, who focused on the individual's right to choose for herself or himself. Examination of Ethical Decision-Making Models Across ... Ethical Decision Making as Problem Solving. Recent attention has been given to the common-sense problem-solving approach (Szabo, 2020), which we used to score models within the current analysis. This problem-solving approach may offer great utility and is observed across various fields (e.g., cognitive psychology; Szabo, 2020). PDF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND ACTION decisions are made and take a morally grounded, systematic approach to problem solving. COMPONENTS OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR Breaking the process down into its component parts enhances understanding of ethical decision making and behavior. Moral psychologist James Rest identifies four elements of ethical action. PDF Ethical Decision Making and Action distribute Once More With Feeling: Emotion in Moral Decision Making. There's been a seismic shift in how scholars understand the process of ethical deci-sion making.In the past, philosophers, moral psychologists, ethicists, and ethics . educators assumed that individuals consciously use logic and reason to solve ethical problems through careful ... Navigating Complex, Ethical Problems in Professional Life: a Guide to Solving ethical problems: Analyzing ethics cases and justifying decisions: New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar] DuBois JM (2013). ORI casebook: Stories about researchers worth discussing. DuBois JM (2014). Strategies for professional decision making: The SMART approach. St. Louis: Professionalism and Integrity in Research Progra. Decision support for ethical problem solving: A multi-agent approach This paper suggests that a multi-agent based decision aid can help individuals and groups consider ethical perspectives in the performance of their tasks. Normative and descriptive theories of ethical problem solving are reviewed. Normative theories are postulated as criteria used with practical reasoning during the problem solving process. Ethical problem-solving and decision-making Ethical problem-solving and decision-making. The rational problem-solving process includes identifying the problem, clarifying objectives, analysing alternatives, deciding on a solution, implementing the solution, and following through to ensure its effectiveness. To begin solving a problem, the current situation needs to be diagnosed to ... PDF Ethical Decision Making and Behavior This chapter surveys the components of ethical behavior—moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral character—and introduces systematic approaches to ethical problem solving. We'll take a look at four decision-making formats: Kidder's ethical checkpoints, the SAD formula, Nash's Promoting Ethical Discussions and Decision Making in a Human Service Some of the first goals of the Ethics Network were to establish a foundation for conceptualizing and responding to ethics scenarios using a structured problem-solving approach. The emphasis in this initial training and infrastructure was to teach an overarching problem-solving strategy that was broadly applicable to many different situations ... Ethical Decision Making Models and 6 Steps of Ethical Decision Making PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model. PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model is one of the most used and widely cited ethical models. To create a clear and cohesive approach to implementing a solution to an ethical problem; the model is set in a way that it gives the leader "ethical filters" to make decisions. Essential Steps for Ethical Problem-Solving Essential Steps for Ethical Problem-Solving 1. DETERMINE whether there is an ethical issue or/and dilemma. ... REFLECT on the outcome of this ethical decision making process. ... NASW Office of Ethics and Professional Review, 1-800-638-8799 750 1st Street, NE, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20002 ... Decision support for ethical problem solving: A multi-agent approach This paper suggests that a multi-agent based decision aid can help individuals and groups consider ethical perspectives in the performance of their tasks. Normative and descriptive theories of ethical problem solving are reviewed. Normative theories are postulated as criteria used with practical reasoning during the problem solving process. 2.2: Three Frameworks for Ethical Problem-Solving in Business and the Decision Making Manual V4.pptx Clicking on this figure will allow you to open a presentation designed to introduce problem solving in ethics as analogous to that in design, summarize the concept of a socio-technical system, and provide an orientation in the four stages of problem solving. This presentation was given February 28, 2008 at UPRM ... Ethical Decision Making Application of a Problem-Solving Model Abstract. Ethical decision making is a challenge to professionals, with an increase in the number of issues and situations that are increasingly complicated. Ethical decision-making skills are ... Applying Cases to Solve Ethical Problems: The Significance of Positive Moreover, these findings with respect to case reflection to inform ethical decision-making pose some questions with respect to case methods utilized in classroom instruction to facilitate ethical problem-solving and ethical behavior among professionals (Bell & Kozlowski, 2008; Gravin, 2007; Henson, Kennett, & Kennedy, 2003; Smith, Fryer-Edwards ... The RIGHT Decision Method: An approach for solving ethical dilemmas Many ethical dilemmas can be resolved easily with consultation and reflection. However, some issues cannot. Therefore, to help make it easier to solve difficult ethical dilemmas, consider a framework from which to work. The College of Direct Support has provided an approach to ethical decision-making with the NADSP Code of Ethics. If we're so busy, why isn't anything getting done? We recommend a simple yet comprehensive approach for defining decision rights. We call it DARE, which stands for deciders, advisers, recommenders, and executors: Deciders are the only ones with a vote (unlike the RACI model, which helps determine who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). If the deciders get stuck, they should jointly agree on how to escalate the decision or ... Unlocking the Puzzle: Investigating Problem-Solving Patterns in 2D and Problem-solving is a multifaceted process that involves the application of cognitive abilities, such as critical thinking, reasoning, and decision-making (Hanley, 1995), which are the main compe... 1. Problem-solving is a multifaceted process that involves the application of cognitive abilities, such as critical thinking, reasoning, and ... assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis