Ethics Frameworks PDF

Week 1 - Utilitarianism and consequentialism in both the short and long run - Virtue ethics: what would a virtuous person do? - Ethical theories to back/explain your decision not to reason it - Moral Foundations Theory - Care/Harm: - Fairness/Cheating:...

Week 1 - Utilitarianism and consequentialism in both the short and long run - Virtue ethics: what would a virtuous person do? - Ethical theories to back/explain your decision not to reason it - Moral Foundations Theory - Care/Harm: - Fairness/Cheating: - Liberty/Oppression: - Loyalty/betrayal: - Authority/Subversion: - Sanctity/Degradation: Traditional Decision Making Model Moral Intuitionist Model Week 2 Process Fairness (PF): The process itself is fair. Studies show that when they are convinced about the process (more transparency-clarity) then they won't even mind the outcome; let's say low bonuses. When there is a perception of process fairness they are more likely to accept the outcome even if they don't like it. It's easier to achieve PF more than OF. 3 drivers of process fairness: - Involvement: how much the ppl were involved in the process (decision making for eg). To ensure ppl feel involved and to avoid blind spots. - Decision making: to ensure consistency across the decision made and if the decisions were transparent and clear to the ppl - Implementation & communication: are u treating the ppl with respect and that u give the people the appropriate explanation and that u were empathetic when communicating the decision to them. Outcome Fairness (OF): Distribution of rewards/outcomes. Eg: bonuses. The merits of the decision itself. Perceptual Gap: the gap between how much is done and how much people perceive is done. Week 3 Individual Biases: - Want/Should Conflicts - Factors affecting Want/Should conflicts: - Choosing now vs later: do u want 50 today or 1000 in 1 week - Cognitive Load: want options are more likely to be chosen when fewer cognitive resources are available. - Construal Level: when ppl adopt a more abstract, high-level consideration of choices rather than contextualised, surface level, goal irrelevant features. This results in more “should” choices being made. - Depletion: using willpower by choosing should choices can deplete ur self control resources so u might end of resorting to more wants in the future but the more you practise self control ur capacity for it increases as well. - Joint vs separate evaluation: presenting the want/should option together results in more “should” options being chosen.  - Mood: the more relaxed and happy you are then u have higher chances of choosing should when compared to being more emotionally volatile/bad mood. - Licensing effects: I have been eating at home for 1 week so now I can eat outside. Feeling like you are licensed to make the want choices by justifying to yourself the “should” choices made before or the need to make “should” choices in the future. - Fresh starts: you would want to make more “should” choices for e.g. after your new year or your bday; new year's resolutions. - How to make more “Should” choices? - Prompts: Being specific about your goals. Eg: setting SMART goals - Commitment devices: imposing penalties/ restrictions if you make “want” choices. - Temptation bundling: tying a want to a should. Eg: I am eating brownies because I am studying. - Escalation of Commitment: - You put in effort and a lot of resources but then the outcomes are not good. Eg: my applications to acad CCAs - How to recover from an EOC - Self-Justification: feel more personal responsibility for a decision such that it increases one’s motivation to justify the decision to one self - Confirmation Bias: finding and overweighting evidence that supports the decision and ignoring and underweighting the evidence to contrary - Loss Aversion: loss of both investment and potential rewards - Impression Management: admission of error would impact others view on one’s competence and may come across as inconsistent. - Moral Equilibrium: - Moral Licensing: - Moral Compensation - Consistency Vs Moral Licensing - Level of construal: Abstract vs Concrete - Initial behaviour that is construed concretely tends to lead to balancing, whereas initial behaviour is construed more abstractly. - How past behaviour is framed: Commitment vs progress - Ppl frame their initial behaviour as reflecting commitment to their moral values, they are more likely to show consistency, however when the initial behaviour is framed as evidence of progress towards the goal then they are more likely to exhibit balancing. - High vs low identification - More positive/subsequent behaviour when there is identification with value or a cause. Eg: people with strong pro-environmental identification do ont experience licensing effects. - In domains related to morality, a bad act can hurt one’s reputation but individuals who are highly identified are unlikely to exhibit licensing  effects and low identifiers would be more happy to slack off as they don’t have much commitment to their cause/initial behaviour. - When ppl use their initial prosocial behaviour to reflect their identification with a goal/value then they are more likely to be consistent with following their goals/causes. Role of Individual Biases - Implicit Bias/Prejudice: - Unconscious stereotypes and attitudes - Making unconscious associations. Eg: black men and violence - In-group favouritism - Favour towards one group/individual discriminates another where majority/power allocate scarce resources to people like them. Eg: I am not treating them badly cause they xyz but instead because i really like abc more. - Overclaiming Credit - To overrate own contributions - Eg: aggregate contributions of self in like group projects - Conflict of interest - Distorts the decision making process - When work arrangements include incentives which cause a conflict of interest - “Motivated blindness”: when u dont recognize facts that are right in front of you because they would make the situation more inconvenient to deal with. - Indirect blindness - Tendency to not notice unethical actions because third parties were doing it. Eg: volkswagen!! - Overvaluing outcomes - Overlooking unethical behaviour because outcomes are good. Week 4 Organisation culture: system of shared meanings and beliefs in an organisation that influences how employees act. Levels of Culture: - Artefacts: visible organisational symbols, structures and processes - Espoused Values: strategies, goals, philosophies - Basic Assumptions: unconscious, take-for-granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, feelings. - Organisational culture can affect you via socialisation and internalisation. Formal Systems: Executive Leadership - Affects both formal and informal systems - What they “say”, “do” and “support” matters - Sets the “tone from the top” and personifies the culture and values of the organisation. - Be the role model for ethical conduct by being moral and behaving morally. - Communicating openly and regularly about ethics and values. - Rewards systems that hold everyone accountable to the set standards. Formal Systems: Selection Systems - Recruiting and hiring new employees - Understand whether the new employee has a proper ethical background and things like background checks, check the references, integrity tests and Qs related to ethics during interviews. - Formal Systems: Values and Mission Statements - General statement of guiding beliefs - Align the stated values with the actual culture in the organisation. - Formal Systems: Policies and Codes - More detail than vision and mission statements - Guidance about behaviour in multiple areas - Distributed widely to employees + vendors + clients + other stakeholders - Not sufficient by itself due to window dressing and the need to be enforced and in alignment with other culture components. - Formal Systems: Orientation and Training Programs - To introduce and help employees better understand and follow more specific guidelines - Messages conveyed in formal programmes need to be reinforced on the job and not undermined. - Difficult to administer effective training programs - Formal Systems: Performance Management Systems  - Articulating goals, identifying performance metrics and providing compensation that matches effort in relation to goals. - Formal disciplinary systems: what drives results for the organisation. - Reflects on what the “real” message and the value is. - Formal Systems: Organisational Authority Structure - Individuals who make independent decisions with ess direct supervision and need a strongly aligned ethical culture to guide them - Whistle-blowing system. - Formal Systems: Decision Making Processes - Ethical concerns are a key part of all decision making - Regularly reinforced in meetings and as a part of managers’ reports - Less reliance on quantitative analysis - Appropriate burden of proof. Eg: obligation of a party to prove its allegations. Informal Systems - Role Models and Heroes - Mentors, people in senior roles, “employee of the month” exhibit ethical behaviour. - Norms - General daily behaviour is ethical and the vibes are all good and no unethical bullshit happens - Rituals - Some form of award ceremony or some tradition that in a sense re-affirms the culture of the organisation and what the company wants from them. - Myths and Stories - Things in the company’s history or employees’ experiences don’t involve anything unethical or bad that can influence their behaviour in the now. - Language - An open environment when it comes to talking about ethical decision making. - Talking more frequently about morals, ethics, values etc. - Avoiding Euphemism Week 5 Corporate Governance: control mechanisms to prevent self-interested managers from taking actions detrimental to the shareholders and stakeholders. The board’s responsibilities: - Decision Making - Oversight: monitor corporate performance - Advisory: consult with management for strategic and operational direction of the company. Board’s Responsibilities: Independence: Operation’s of the Board: Board Trends: - Board size and composition: There should have appropriate qualifications and a mix of members and small boards are better but then it depends on the needs of the organisation. Big companies usually have 11-15 board members. - Board independence: absence of conflict of interest through professional or personal ties with the corporation or management - Board Expertise: Ability to comprehend the issues at hand appropriately. - Board Motivation: Eager to exert oneself on behalf of shareholder: identify as director/shareholders Board Leadership: - Separation of the Chairman and the CEO - Reduction of conflict of interest - Non-executive chairman can serve as a valuable sounding board - Time and effort for both jobs are high Week 6 - Ways to build trust: - Similarity: when you point out similarities with a person then that makes people show more interest and cooperation. - Mere exposure effect: People prefer things they are familiar with, but should not over-expose them to something also - Physical presence: just being in the physical presence with other people; online environment a bit difficult to build trust - Reciprocity: do favours and ask for favours - Small talk - Self disclosure: being vulnerable about your passions and interests while also being a bit self deprecating. Teams: - Diversity typically has negative effects on social integration, communication, conflict, satisfaction and commitment - Stereotype threat is generally harmful Stereotype Content Model Social Cognition Dimensions: Warmth and Competence  - People perceived as warm and competent have uniformly positive emotions and behaviours, whereas those who lack this elicit uniform negativity. When one is low on one and high on another they elicit predictable, ambivalent affective and behavioural reactions. - Warm traits include friendliness, helpfulness, sincerity, trustworthiness and morality. Competent traits include perceived ability eg: intelligence, skill, creativity and efficacy. - Warmth has more weight in affective and behavioural reactions than competence - Warmth and competence correlate more positively with people judging Individuals - Whereas it displays a negative correlation for groups - Why is there unshared info sometimes? Group Polarisation: tendency to make more extreme decision when in a group than when alone - Causes - Confirmation bias - Common Knowledge Effect - Dependence on on expert - Desire to fit in; conformance pressure Benefits of Informational Diversity  - Leaders must set up the right process, structure, norms and goals. - Determine team members' knowledge and expertise. - Suspend initial judgement; wait for evidence - Don’t rely solely on majority - INclude someone who explicitly signals differences - Create psychological safety and norms for disagreement Week 7 Enablers: what makes it easier for us to speak up and act on our values A few enablers: - Allies: people within your organisation or an expert in more extreme circumstances - Mentors - Selection and sequencing of audiences: who will speak first, offline, one-to-one and group conversations - The critical importance of information: gather data on the diff kinds of argument, identify allies, better understand reasons and rationalisations - Questions not statements: be open to discussion with questions and dont make conclusive statements and this should be the case especially with allies - Framing: redefine the issues at hand, change the way you look at the issue to make change happen - Understand the ‘interests’ of others: what is at stake for the rest? Avoid irrelevant arguments and to reveal the need to identify alternate audiences Week 9 What should firm’s do when there are social problems like child labour? - Standards for the company for eg against child labour in their code of conduct/policies  - Understand the second-order consequences to an action - Understand teh cultural context where social issues like child labour exist - When local norms and practices don't meet the company’s internal standard then how to deal with it - The importance of whether or not the company should walk away from such issues or if they should actively engage with problem and bring about change - The importance of viewing the problem from a systemic rather than a programmatic perspective. Why should companies do CSR? - Pragmatic reasons: use power/influence responsibly, costly to not do CSR with the power of social media, constructive engagement and involvement of stakeholders. - Ethical Reasons: if a company is operating it should be ethical, may involve proactive policies, practices both normal and beyond legal or regulatory requirements driven by corporate values and even short term bottom line impact. - Strategic reasons: recognise independence between business and society, firm should analyse 2 things: - Is the firm’s value chain causing harmful social impact - Where can the firm do good by providing opportunities to create shared value for both the biz and society? Types of CSR: - Philanthropic responsibilities: do things like donation or charity foundations - Ethical Responsibilities: go beyond legal responsibilities to avoid harm and do what’s right - Legal Responsibilities: operate within regulatory and legal requirements - Economic Responsibilities: without financial viability, firms cannot exist. Week 10 What’s a crisis? - Tradition View: event that destroys or affects entire organisation - Strategic View: a decisive moment, a turning point for better or worse - Crisis are defining moment Trust Radar Expertise: Commitment: Empathy: - During times of crisis assigning blame to another party doesn’t help and may worsen the perception - The usual tendency is to narrow focus on expertise, and ignore transparency, commitment and empathy Week 11 How to approach a crisis? Week 13