Applied Business Research and Ethics Busines Decisions

Question: Describe about the Applied Business Research and Ethics for Busines Decisions. Answer: 1: There is no ethical theory that is perfect, however, the ethical theories are highly effective in assisting the individuals to make ethical decisions. The individuals are able to make significant decisions with the help of the ethical theories. The theories help the managers to think clearly about the ethical problems in the business. As per the ethical theories most of the individuals and especially the leaders of the organisations considers that there are certain ethical obligations ahead of the self-interest. Considers decisions based on the ethical theories help the individual to establish healthy relationship with the employees and other members around and thereby retain the potential employees in the organisation (Mulgan 2014). A positive work environment can be created effectively with the help of the ethical theories. Moreover, in an organisation there occur a number of legal theories that can be avoided with the help of the effective decision-making and ethical theories. The deontological theory or the non-consequential theory is a theory that focuses on the relationship between the duty and the morality of the human activity. An action is considered to be good in terms of the morality in the deontological ethics. As per the theory, there are certain actions that are morally obligatory despite the consequences it has on the welfare of the human. The deontological ethics is contrasted to the virtue ethics, pragmatic ethics and the consequentialism. The deontological theory is a two centres theory where the first is the agent-centred and the second is the patient-centred. The deontological theory helps the individual to remain consistent since the individual are able to perform the activities in the same way every time they satisfy their obligations. The theory further help the individual to identify the act that is usefuland does not require moral to be done. 2: As opined by Weiss (2014), utilitarianism can be termed as the theory in the normative ethics suggesting that the organisation is able to maximize their utility by holding the best moral ethics. The implementation of utilitarianism in the organisation helps the managers of the organisation to promote a happier working environment. The theory help the managers to make decisions for the organisation based on appropriate thinking and consideration of the impact that the actions might have. Moreover, when the decisions are made with a utilitarian view, the decisions become important for the managers. Thus, the activities carried out based on utilitarianism helps to affect the others in the surrounding in a positive way. The managers of the organisation faces situation where making choices or decision becomes difficult. Theutilitarianism in decision-making reduces the chances of domination of the decisions by the emotion and the desires. However, on the contradictory Shaw and Barry (2015) stated that the future cannot be predicted which reduces the effectiveness of the model. If the actions of the organisation is judged based on the future outcome, then the managers of the organisation has no perfect option to make judgement. The ideals behind utilitarianism fades away as the perfect consequences of the activities cannot be determined. There are certain situations in the organisation, where the managers of the organisation need to make quick decision. In such a situation, use of the utilitarianism is nearly impossible. Since the utilitarianism, approach requires huge time to make calculation in determining the effect and the ways, in which the individuals are affected, the correct decision is often lost during the process of calculation (Jacksonand Smith 2016). 3: There are various theories that are used in the organisation by the managers in order to make decisions in the organisation. Nevertheless,many theorists suggest that the deontological theories (non-consequential theories) are more effective than the utilitarianism approach. The features of the deontological theories are more important than the utilitarianism approach. The deontological theories are more useful as it keeps pace with the scripture, the natural moral law and the intuitions from the perception of the common sense. The deontological ethics states that the duty needs to be done for the sake of the duty. The theory further states that the managers or others should treat the human as intrinsic moral value (Thomas 2015). In addition to this, the deontological theories are applicable to every individual who are in the similar situation. Hartman, DesJardins and MacDonald (2014) mentioned that the implementation of the deontological theories help the managers of the organisation to make clear and better decisions for the organisation that supports the effective and efficient business of the organisation. The utilitarianism approach on the other hand has negative complications and is very subjective. Therefore, the managers are unable to determine the area where the line can be drawn. Furthermore, the implementation and the use of the theory is time consuming and difficult. It needs to e implemented properly so that the effective outcome is achieved. According to Immanuel Kant, the individuals need to act from Deon or duty in order to make the acct morally correct. Banks (2012) also mentions that there are certain acts or activities that are either correct or are incorrect. This does not depend on the intentions working behind the act or the after effects of the act. However, from the overall study it can be stated tha t the application of the deontological ethics depends upon the situation faced by the managers. 4: There is a huge controversy over the fact that the corporation can become a moral agent. Many authors have depicted their views supporting as well as contradicting the statement. According to DesJardinsand McCall (2014), if a corporation is enjoying certain rights that it should have enjoyed naturally, it is necessary for the corporation to undertake certain extra responsibilities. The extra responsibility helps the organisation to build customer and employee loyalty as the individuals are able to observe that the organisation cares about their employees and the stakeholders and carries out responsibility (Pozgar 2014). The corporations are considered as entity from a legal perception while there are few ethicists who argue that the corporations are moral agents. Being considered as moral agents, the corporations have certain responsibility towards the society and the company. The company takes up this responsibility in form of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The CSR he lps the company to achieve the organisational goals as the CSR addresses the social values of the company that are required to be accomplished towards the society. It is unethical for the organisation to simply enjoy the rights and not performing the responsibility that the organisation is supposed to. As rights and responsibility goes hand in hand, it is important for the company to take up responsibilities if they are enjoying extra rights. Therefore, the non-human entity or the corporation need to take up responsibilities even in order to follow the ethics of the company. 5: In the modern era, the responsibility of the business has increased largely due to the increased dependency of the consumers on the business. The companies thus need to be more responsible regarding the safety of the products offered to the customers. It is the right of the customers to obtain goods and services that are safe for consumption. There are various rules and regulations concerning the safety of the product. However, Rickset al. (2015) opined that the market needs more regulations and legislations regarding food safety that will help to ensure that the consumers achieves safe products for the given price. In case when the consumer fall victim of fraud by purchasing any goods or services where the seller fails to keep the promise of providing safe products, the consumer suffers a huge loss. The loss of the consumer is equal to the price paid for the product as well as the incidental expenses. The rules and the regulations protect the consumers by filling a complaint against the seller that will help the consumer to claim back the loss (Gaskelland Bauer 2013). The stronger the rules and the regulation, the more is the chances of avoiding the consumer exploitation. The sellers try to provide safe quality goods and services in order to avoid paying penalties and incurring extra loses. The increased regulation regarding the safety of the products is beneficial for the consumers as it ensures that the risk of consumer exploitation is low. However, the increased regulation affects the organisations significantly. The stakeholders of the organisation show minimal interest in investing in the organisation, as the profit earned is low (Broadhead 2015). The company is bears higher operational cost in order to maintain the product quality and the safety of the products. The companies thus experience a downfall in the productivity, which can be considered as an adverse impact of the increased regulation. Therefore, from the viewpoint of organisations, the alternative of the industry self-regulation is preferred more. 6: The world today has become more advanced as the individual have higher opportunities to use the available technologies. The customers nowadays have a number of tools and techniques that help them to obtain valuable information about the products and the services that help them to make the appropriate choices for purchasing the products (Wheeler and Bertram 2015). The customers today are able to achieve information about the products with the equipments such as social media, internet, knowledge and education skills (Sladeand Prinsloo 2013). These equipment help the consumer to understand the products in a better way. The consumers are able to achieve information on the product value and the thereby compare similar products offered by the different companies. This supports the customers to analyse which product is better and purchase accordingly. in the society and in the market there are a group of who are not capable of using the equipment to judge the efficiency of the products offered and therefore, these groups of consumers are also unable to make appropriate decisions regarding purchasing the appropriate product. This group of the societies include the individuals with no opportunity to access the internet, the illiterate or the ones with low education are unable to understand the differences in the product quality and further have negligible knowledge about the consumer rights. Moreover, the disable individuals also fall under this category and are often unable to make the correct decision while purchasing goods and services. Since, the society is made up of both the types of individuals where one group is able to implement the equipment in order to make appropriate decisions while the other group is incapable of accessing the equipment, there needs to be ethical obligation for the situation. The company needs to be implement rules and regulations that help to address the issues of the society. The ethical obligations for the companies include not harming anyone in the business including the consumers. The businesses further needs to give way to the customers for what they pay. The company needs to ensure that the individuals are not deceived for what they purchase. No false promotion of the products should be encouraged by the firm. 7: Social Medias such as Facebook is highly used by the individuals in order to share information with the other individuals. When the individuals especially the employees of the organisation share the information on the social media, the information about the product or the company is circulated and a huge number of individuals are able to achieve the information. However, sometimes the companies face issues due to the action of the employees on the social media. If the information delivered by the employees of the organisation on the social media harms the individual as well as the company, the employer is able to monitor the employees in order to understand the behaviour of the employees to ensure whether the individual is reliable and hard working or not. Employee monitoring has become necessary in every organisation in order to increase the productivity of the organisation. However, there occurs complexity and increased use of technology that gives rise to controversial issue in the organisation. There arises the question of private information and public spaces while carrying out employee monitoring in the organisation. There arise moral issues regarding this as the sentiments of the employees might get hurt and thereby decreasing their productivity. The employee monitoring is acceptable in moral terms until and unless the monitoring of the behaviour is restricted only up to business matters. Moreover, the emotions of the employees should not be hurt in the process of monitoring and they cannot be disrespected either. Sheldon and Wallace (2015) argued that the social networking sites of the employees being should not be monitored as it is against the ethics of the company. The employee monitoring is thus referred as an ethical issue as the introduction and availability of the new technologies to both the employee and the employer can be misused or abused. 8: In the case where the host country of a particular company has lower standard than that of the home country, the company is still obliged to follow the safety guidelines. The moral clarity often fades when the organisation starts operating in a foreign base rather than its home country. It is crucial for the organisation to rethink the assumptions made based on the foreign settings. Beltramini (2015) mentioned that it often happens that the policies that work well in the home country might fail in the foreign country due to the variations in the standard of ethical codes. Every employee working in an organisation deserves being safe in the organisation and being respected even though the standard of the host country is lower than that of the home country. There is a distinct difference between the moral obligations and law in an organisation. The law is enforced by the state where as the moral obligations are set and enforced by the organisation itself. The moral obligation is concerned with the internal and the external matters of the organisation while on the other hand the law deals only with the external matters of the individual (Uhlmann, Pizarroand Diermeier 2015). In addition to this the laws are certain and universal and is accepted globally while the moral obligations are uncertain. The corporate social responsibility is made up of four obligations. The economic responsibility to make money is a version of the business that represents human survival instincts. Without this, there is no business or business ethics present. The legal responsibility of the CSR needs to be considered as a proactive duty (Waycottet al. 2015). The philanthropic responsibility is one of the obligation that is used for conducting social projects by the organisation. Thus, the CSR practices help the organisation to follow the safety guidelines in the organisation both in home as well as in host country. 9: In a workplace the employees of the organisation has certain rights as well as duties. Among the various rights, one of the rights enjoyed by the employees is the right to speech. This right is useful in creating a better environment for the workplace as the employees are able to discuss and put forward their opinions that might benefit the organisation. However, placing certain limits against the right for free speech in the organisation is necessary. In the opinion of Barrow (2015), the employees of any organisation do not have the constitutional right to free speech and expression in the workplace. In every workplace there exist certain ethics based on which the organisation operates. Therefore, the right to free speech sometimes allows the employees to go beyond the ethics and thereby take up actions without the fear of reprisal. The right further allows expressing violence and hatred towards the other employees. According to Scarpi (2012), no rights are absolute and therefore needs to be limited by respect for others. Moreover, too much freedom speech leads to atrocities and creates hate speech. The hate speech causes psychological harm and verbal abuse in the organisation results in unbearable environment in the workplace. The ethical laws and the union of the organisation are able to both fight and protect the employees from being abused (Averill 2013). It is mandatory for the organisation to treat the employees with respect irrespective of the fact whether the law requires it or not. It is necessary for the employees to undertake decisions that have moral implications. Therefore, the presence of right to free speech along with limitations is needed in the organisation in order to provide a safe and healthy working environment for the employees (Murphy 2013). 10: In order to ensure that the research study is conducted ethically it is important for the researcher to implement certain steps in the study. It is necessary or the researcher to discuss the intellectual property frankly. The APAs Ethic Code states that when the researcher and the students use the publication credit as a tool, it helps them to discuss and evaluate the contributions continuously as the research work progresses. The researcher further needs to be aware of the multiple roles and needs to avoid relationships that are capable of degrading the performance level of the research work (Hafford-Letchfield 2013). The researcher is not supposed to exploit or harm other while conducting the research. The informed-consent rules are to be followed as it helps to ensure that the individuals have participated in the research work voluntarily and had a complete knowledge of the risk and benefits incurred in the research. The confidentiality and the privacy are to be respected by i mplementing practical security measures, the limits of the internet are to be understood and considerations are to be made regarding the sharing of data before starting the research. While conducting the researcher work, there is often consideration of surveys in order to achieve fruitful results. In such research work, the researchers need to abide by the various ethics and laws such as the Data Protection Act 1998 (Johnston 2016). The researcher has to carry out the research in such a manner that the emotion of the respondents is not hurt. Moreover, the researcher obtains the information and the data for the research work in an ethical way. 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