Dublin Business

School

19th Semester 2023

Business Ethics and
Research Practice

2023
 Introduction: Juan Pablo
Fravega
Currently: Client Solutions Consultant for
‘PharmaSupport’
Past: CEO NaturHouse Ireland, Procurement and
Marketing Manager for ‘Haven Pharmacy’, Purchasing
manager at ‘All Care’ and ‘Uniphar’
Lecturing Experience: DBS, ISB and IBAT: Ops Mgt,
Marketing, International Business
Education: Sociology degree from UNCuyo, Post
Graduate diploma in Local Government from UNCuyo
Post Graduate diploma in Social Research Applied from 4

University of Limerick, MBA from TSD

.
 Introduction: Juan Pablo
Fravega
25+ years experience: Commercial, Marketing, Export and
Procurement Manager
Operation Manager
Business Manager
Retail Area Manager
Start up experience (Funder of Pharma Support and Co-Funder
of Natur House Ireland)
Industry: Retail, Pharmaceuticals, Health Care, Wine Industry
.

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 Contact Information

 Juan Pablo Fravega ([email protected])

 Available for meeting at City Centre
Campus at agreed times. (zoom)
 Do feel free to contact with problems,
questions, etc.
 - I AM HERE TO HELP YOU!

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 Let’s Make it
Interesting!!
One Voice is Boring.....!!
 Interaction is key, with discipline!
Use of case studies for discussion
and consolidation of learnings
Bring your thoughts and experience to
the Class
 Let’s Make it
Interesting!!
 Use your camera and mic
 Use the chat function to connect with your
class mates
 Ask questions
 Focus
 Breakout rooms
 Let’s Make it
Interesting!!

 Use your DBS e-mail Address

 Mute your mic if your room is noisy
 Class starting sharp on time
Breaks
 Keeping a reflective dairy or
research notebook

 What is the weekly topic (for reflection)?

 Why is this knowledge important to manage a
business organizations?
 What you have learnt (3 key points)
 How it relates to your work?
 Were your expectations achieved?
 Introduction
 Who Are You?
 Why are you here?
 What do you want to achieve?
 What is your favourite brand and why?
 What do you want to know/learn?
Class: Unethical Behaviours
in Organizations and Human
Nature

2021
 Learning Objectives
Define ethical issues in the context of organizational ethics
Examine ethical issues as they relate to the basic values of
honesty, fairness, and integrity
Delineate misuse of company resources, abusive and
intimidating behavior, lying, conflicts of interest, bribery,
corporate intelligence, discrimination, sexual harassment,
fraud, financial misconduct, insider trading, intellectual
property rights, and privacy as business ethics issues
Examine the challenge of determining an ethical issue in
business
 Introduction
“How many of you would like to work for an
ethical organization?”
“How many of you work for an ethical
organization?”
“How many of you want to work for an ethical
boss?”
 “how many of you work for an ethical boss?”
 Ethical Business
Is this an oxymoron?
 Introduction
All organizations can be of high integrity.
But doing so requires planning and
continuous effort because of competing
pressures and human fallacies.

This course is aimed at helping students to

create and reinforce high-integrity
organizations and to become managers of
high integrity.
 Introduction
Every year has its own unique set of high-profile business
scandals and tragedies.
In 2015, it was Volkswagen for an emissions testing fraud.
In 2016, Wells Fargo employees, in the pursuit of stretch
goals, falsified thousands of customer transactions. In
2017, Uber’s macho workplace culture contributed to
severe sexual harassment. Why must businesses
continually duplicate the ethical mistakes of Lincoln Savings
and Loan Association (1980s), Long-Term Capital
Management (1990s), Enron and Arthur Andersen (2000s),
and Wells Fargo (2010s)? They are different forms of the
same ethical problem—fraud.
 Every day example
 For security reasons, a bank branch manager
knows the first three numbers to the cash vault
and the assistant manager knows the second
three numbers. This way nobody knows all six
numbers. Unexpectedly, the branch manager is
unable to arrive on time to jointly open the vault.
 Every day example
 Customers will be waiting for service. Should the
branch manager violate policy and tell the
assistant manager the first three numbers to the
vault? Should the assistant manager accept the
numbers? For the sake of customer service, they
did. The bank’s security cameras filmed the
assistant manager, opening the vault on his own.
Both he and the branch manager were fired,
despite years of admirable service.
Ethical dilemmas
 Ethical Awareness
 People make ethical decisions when they
find an ethical component in a particular
issue or situation.
 Failure to acknowledge or be aware of
ethical issues is hazardous to an
organization.

Ethical issues involve a group, a problem, or an opportunity that

requires introspection and investigation before a decision
can be made.
 What do we mean by ‘ethics’?

 Ethos (Latin) – Culture or Custom (i.e., it is

social or shared) Ethika (Greek) – Character
(i.e., it is personal to the individual)

 Ethics is concerned with the question of how we

can successfully live and work together in ways
that can make us happy as individuals and in
groups of all sizes.
The Historical Flow of Civilization and
Business Ethics

Four Key Societal Indicators:

 Poverty
 Health
 Education
 Democracy
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 The philosophical foundations of the
systematic study of ethics

 Plato
 Socrates’ student
 Established the ‘Academy’ in Athens
 Searching for Unchanging Truth
 ‘What is the Good Life’?
 The ‘Theory of Forms’
 Teacher of Aristotle (384 BCE)

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 Aristotle’s
argument
 All things have an ‘in-built’ purpose (a telos)
 All human life, then, has a purpose, but what is
it?
 We need to find two things
Our telos
Our means for achieving our telos

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But how can we determine what virtue is?

 The golden mean

Too much or too little of anything is bad for you
Virtues lie on the mean between the extremes of
emotion and character
Too much of one thing (e.g., anger) is vice resulting from excess
Too little of one thing (e.g., cowardice) is vice resulting from
deficiency
Virtue arises from an appropriate amount of something (e.g.,
courage)

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The three main traditions influencing
business ethics

1. Deontology (focus on duties and rights)

2. Consequentialism (focus on effects or
consequences)
3. Virtue ethics

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 Deontology
Immanuel Kant (1724-1824) focus no developing a
rational ethics which would be:

Categorical – unconditionally applied to all maxims

Universal – applicable to all circumstances
The categorical imperative:
Act only on maxims that you can will to be applied universally
to all
Always treat others as people in their own right and never as
means to obtain other ends
 Consequentialism
 Utilitarianism most popular and well-known
version.
 View that actions and policies should be
evaluated on the basis of the benefits and costs
they impose on society

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 Virtue ethics
 Virtues are:
Settled dispositions
Habits of character
Assist us to:
have appropriate feelings and attitudes in any social
context
make prudent decisions and exercise judgement
Learned through:
 Role models
 Practice
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 Virtue as practice
 We rarely have the time or opportunity to think
about what the best thing to do is before acting.
 A good person does not have to think about what the
right thing to do is.
 To become good you have to practice being good by
cultivating the habits of goodness. Only then will you
find yourself doing the right thing almost
automatically.
 If you practise thinking about what you want to be
and doing what is necessary to become that person,
when you are tested you will be able to do the right
thing without thinking.
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 The Historical Flow of Civilization and
Business Ethics

 Business ethics evolve over time.

 Concepts of right and wrong change

over time.

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 Capitalism
and Ethics
Capitalism has been criticized for:

 Disproportionately benefiting the wealthy

 Exacerbating economic inequality in terms of resources
and income
 Reinforcing populist perceptions that globalism only
benefits the elite
 Creating greater social injustice
 Contributing to inefficient cronyism and misallocation of
corporate resources 32
 Why we study
ethics in business?
 To learn about problems from the past in order to create
a better future for all.
 The teachings of Business Schools have been implicated
in past crises (such as the Global Financial Crisis).
 The business has massive potential to address and solve
a number of social, environmental and economic
problems.
 Accreditation bodies increasingly demand Business
Schools report ESG (environment, social and
governance) metrics.
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 "The Fable of the Bees": The central idea of Mandeville's
work can be summarized by his famous statement,
"Private Vices, Public Benefits." He argued that many
vices and self-interested behaviors, such as vanity, greed,
and luxury, actually contribute to the overall prosperity
and functioning of society.
Business Ethics Under Capitalism

35
 From Regulation to Ethical
Encouragements

 Wages and Compensation: Minimum and

Living Wages:

 minimum wage.
 Poverty level and minimum wage.

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 Key Question
 “What do we need to know to
create an ethical organization?”
 Process
 First, managers must recognize and identify the moral
problems. Moral imperfections are not limited to a
handful of renegade CEOs, financiers, or subordinates.
We are all morally imperfect people, and, by extension,
every organization is morally imperfect.

 Second, managers must understand the causes of

organizational moral imperfections. Many people who
behave unethically believe they are doing the right thing
based on how they view the world or frame the trade-
offs.
 Process
 Third, managers must have a vision, and
understand the benefits, of a morally healthy
organization.

 Fourth, managers must understand and

implement strategies that will result in achieving
the vision of a morally healthy organization
Formula of Human
Behaviour

B= P x C
 Ethical Issues
at Work
 A well-managed organization is a
community on a common mission.
 Ethical behavior is a personal choice.
 Ethical behaviour at work is a personal
choice influenced by an individual’s past
behaviours and current workplace
environment.

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Daily Occurrence of Ethical Issues

 Every decision can be analyzed through

ethics.
 All decisions initiated by motives.
 Ethical dilemmas: conscious or
unconscious.

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 Managers should do the
following:
 Recruit individuals who demonstrate and sustain
ethical behavior over time
 Orient new employees to the organization’s code
of ethics, code of conduct, and ethical decision-
making framework
 Respect employee and customer diversity
 Report ethical misbehaviors
 Foster ethical leadership
 Managers should do the
following:
 Design work goals and performance appraisals
that reward ethical behaviors
 Engage and empower employees to achieve
superior performance
 Manage the organization’s interactions with the
natural environment
 Conduct meaningful community outreach
 Ethical Issues
at Work

 Ethical analysis considers an action

sequence.
 Ideal ethical situations have good motives
and result in good consequences.

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 Ethical Issues
at Work
 An action sequence consists of the motivation behind the
act, the act itself, and the consequences of the act.
 Sometimes, good motives can generate bad consequences.
 When evaluating these less-than-ethically-ideal situations,
some people place greater ethical weight on having proper
motives, such as idealists, whereas others place greater
weight on achieving favorable outcomes, such as
consequentialists or pragmatists.
 Ethical Issues
at Work
Table 1 Five Common Unethical Behaviors

1. Misuse of company time.

2. Abusive behavior.

3. Employee theft.

4. Lying to employees.

5. Violating company Internet policies.

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Costs Associated With Unethical
Behaviors
 Legal costs
 Employee theft costs
 Monitoring costs
 Bankruptcy

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 Should Government Intervene?

 Governments should intervene to

mitigate the effects of market failures in
only two cases:
1) The market failure causes serious harm.
2) The benefits of intervention will exceed the costs
of doing so.

49
 Moral Culture and
Modern Managers
 A market’s long-term success lies in prudent
managers’ willingness to follow basic moral
norms to regulate the conduct of business.

 Values like transparency, loyalty, and fairness go

beyond what the law is able to provide to
regulate behavior within each institution.

50
Moral Culture and Modern Managers

 A healthy market requires trust to avoid duplicity

and exploitation.
 A successful economic culture will always rely on
honesty, justice, and fair play to take precedence
over self-interest.
 Overreliance on efficiency and opportunism will
yield that lack of ability for managers and the
institutions to self-moderate their behaviors.

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 Without Morals in the Marketplace

 Lack of adherence to strong morals and virtues

will result in lack of confidence in the
marketplace.
 Lack of trust inhibits the capital formation that
fuels economic growth.
 Efficiency should never trump ethics in terms of
priorities of the marketplace.

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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (1 of 6)

Unintended Unethical Behaviors

Person may have insufficient knowledge.

Sometimes ethics are ambiguous.
Outcomes could result from misaligned
management.

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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (2 of 6)
Choosing Between Competing Values

Truth versus loyalty.

Individual versus community.
Short term versus long term.
Justice versus mercy.
Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (3 of 6)

Intentional Unethical Behaviors:

People provide justifications for behaving

unethically.
Society for Human Resource Management and
the Ethics Resource Center study.
Stanley Milgram’s shock experiment.

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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (4 of 6)

Failure to Report Unethical Behaviors

6 reasons for not reporting unethical

behaviors.
Failure to report can cost lives and money.

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The top reasons for not informing a manager
about unethical behaviours were the
following:

Fear of being labeled or viewed negatively by

others, such as being considered a troublemaker,
tattletale, or complainer
Fear of damaging relationships with the person
committing the unethical act
Fear of retaliation or punishment from the person
committing the unethical act
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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (4 of 6)
 Fear of negatively affecting the life of the
person committing the unethical act
 Fear of being blamed for the problem
 Belief that management would not act on
the issue if informed

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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (5 of 6)
So, Why Be Moral?

Some seek to make as much money as

they can.

Ethical companies outperform unethical

ones.
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 Why Do Good People Behave
Unethically? (6 of 6)

So, Why Be Moral?

Personal benefits of being moral.

There will be bumps.

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 Recent cases
in Ireland and abroad

 Davy Inside trading case

 Apple Tax case Ireland vs EU
 Mortgage tracker scandal
 Competitive Advantages of Ethical
Organizations
Table Competitive Advantages of Being Ethical and Trustworthy

Ethical organizations are more likely to

1. Attract and retain high-quality employees, customers, suppliers, and investors

2. Earn goodwill with community members and government officials

They are more likely to have

3. Greater trustworthy information for decision-making

4. Higher product and service quality as well as employee productivity

5. Less employee theft and less need for employee supervision

6. Increased flexibility from stakeholders in times of emergency

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