topic 5 the value of work employees responsibilities

8/11/2019 Topic 5 the Value of Work Employees Responsibilities

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CHAPTER 5

THE VALUE OF WORK &

EMPLOYEES RESPONSIBILITIES


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LEARNING OBJECTIVES Discuss the goals and values of career and

workplace decision

Explain the variety of meanings and values

attributed to work

Explain the nature and range of employeesresponsibilities

Explain the agency view of employees

responsibilities

Explain managerial responsibilities Summarize responsibilities of employees

Define self interest and moral obligation

Describe the concept of conflict of interest

Elaborate on the effects of conflict of interest


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Discuss the goals and values of career and workplace

decision

Work is a very important part of our lives and it isnot easily abandoned

Aristotle: necessary for the good life

Martin Luther: the toil of work contributes to a higher

cause

Karl Marx: through work we express our humanity;

labor alienates us from this end


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Means-ends reasoning

To the degree that work is a burden that we must all

endure, business ethics is challenged to articulate

and defend the conditions under which work can

be made fair, just and humane


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The Meanings of Work

The word work has a variety of meaningsA noun

A verb

A job, a profession, a career, trade, labor,

occupation, vocation or a calling


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The Value of Work Why work?

What is work good for?

Instrumental value

Psychic goods

Does business have a responsibility to provideemployees with meaningful work?

Do we have a right to work?


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The Conventional Views of Work

Work is something that must be endured.

- The Classical interpretation of work conceives of

humans as intellectual beings, even though work

is physical.

- The Hedonistic interpretation understands work

as a necessary means for obtaining lifes

pleasures.


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The Human Fulfillment Model Work is the primary activity through which people

develop their full potential as human beings. Telos (Be all that you can be): Psychological

benefits

Social benefits

However, not every job contributes to thedevelopment of the human potential.

What will this work do for me?

What will this work do to me? What kind ofperson will I become through this work?


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The Human Fulfillment Model E. F. Schumacher: Bad work is mechanical,

artificial, divorced from nature, utilizing onlythe smallest part of mans potentialcapabilities

Karl Marx: Under capitalist production,workers inevitably face a life of alienation fromthe products of their work, from the creative

process of work, and from their essence associal creatures


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The Human Fulfillment Model

Pope John Paul II: work is one of thecharacteristics that distinguish humans from the

rest of creaturesonly humans work.

Humans work in order to attain their needs and

wants, but work also shapes humans.

Gregory Baum: It is through labor that peoplecreate their world, and it is through the same

labor that in a certain sense they also create

themselves


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The Human Fulfillment Model

Through work- we exercise our freedom and autonomy inmaking choices

- we develop our talents and exercise creativity

- humans create their society and culture

- we express our nature as social beings


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The Liberal Model of Work

The Liberal Model of Work occupies a middleground between the conventional model and

the human fulfillment model.

- Workers should be free to choose the endsof their work.

- Humans can be significantly influenced by

their work; we should make ethical

assessments of work based on how it affectspeople who perform it


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Norman Bowie One of the moral obligations of the firm is to provide

meaningful work for employees

But what is meaningful work?

Should meaningful work be given an objectivedefinition?

What justification can we find for any normative

objective definition of meaningful work, if work is

subjective?


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Liberal theories of justice argue that individualfreedom is a fundamental and necessary element

of social justice.

Primary goods of work include autonomy,

rationality, and physical and mental health

The liberal model of work argues that individualshave certain rights in the workplace and that

these rights function to protect certain central and

primary goods.


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Business Responsibility for Meaningful

Work

The classical model argues that to thedegree that work is necessary and

physical, it can not be made meaningful

Liberals argue that business has a range ofresponsibilities to provide meaningful work

The Human fulfillment model argues that

employers cannot have the responsibility of

making employees better people


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What do I owe other people? It depends. Workers are employees and the employment

relationship establishes a variety ofresponsibilities that employees owe to their

employers. Managers, while employees, are agents of the

corporation and have specific responsibilities tothe stockholdersand to others.


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Employees as AgentsAgent-principal concept

An agent is a person who act on behalf of anotherperson

Not all agents are employees

Common law in the U.S. historically has treated allemployees as agents of employers, establishing afiduciary responsibility

Agency relationships variety in the latitude ofdecision making


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Employees as Agents Managerial employees have greater discretion

and responsibility than other employees Managerial employees are free from close

oversight

The law holds that employee-agents owelegal duties of loyalty, trust, obedience andconfidentiality to the employer-principal

These duties override employee personalinterests

Is this narrow view ethically defensible?

Why would anyone believe this view?


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Employees as Agents

First, managerial employees in particular play aparticular role within the economic system

Second, managerial employees in particular must

protect the property rights of owners and prevent

economic harms they might suffer from otheremployees


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Employees as Agents

Nonmanagerial employees have aresponsibility to obey only when

employer demands are reasonable,

job-related and do not violate legal orethical duties

We have to consider what

nonmanagerial employees owe totheir employers


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Employees as Agents

The narrow view of employeeresponsibilities is more plausible

when the employees hold positions of

managerial authority In general, managerial employees

have an ethical responsibility to act in

the best interests of their employersto a limited degree


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Employees as Agents

There are cases in which ethicalresponsibilities take second place to role-

specific responsibilities, e.g. physicians

and lawyers But does the role of a manager, like the

role of a physician and a lawyer, serve

social ends important enough that people

in those roles can sometimes be exempt

from ethical responsibilities?


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Employees as Agents

January 1986, the Challenger spaceshuttle explosion

Morton Thiokol and NASA


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Explain the agency view of employees

responsibilities


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Professional Ethics & Gatekeeping

Our responsibilities are a function of therelationships that we have with others

Professionals have very specialized knowledge or

expertise that serves the public good; certification

by some public agency is usually involved

Within the business and economic context, some

professions have evolved to serve important

functions: attorneys, auditors, accountants and

financial analysts

Many of these professionals are paid by the

business that they are responsible for watching

over


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Professional Ethics & Gatekeeping

Real conflicts of interest exist betweenprofessional duties and a professionals self-

interest

But knowing what ones duties are and fulfilling

those duties are two separate issues

What does the word reason mean?

- In one sense, a reason refers to the legitimacy

or justification for acting in a certain way- In another sense, reason refers to a

psychological state in which we act, like

motivation


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Managerial Responsibility & Conflicts of

Interest

Return to Enron- Who are the owners of Enron?

- How many different desires existed in Enron at

the time of the scandal?

- What is the cult of the shareholder? How did it

become the biggest reason behind the

accounting scandal at Enron?


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Interest

Return to Enron

- If the varied interests of various stakeholders

are the interests that a business manager

ought to serve, how does the managerprioritize these interests, and what interests

might inappropriately conflict with these?

- What are the costs stakeholders endured as

a result of managerial decisions?


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Interest

A Kickback is an illegal payment that occurs whena portion of some payment is paid back to thepayer as an incentive to make the originalpayment.

Soft money occurs when financial advisorsreceive payments from a brokerage firm to pay forresearch and analysts services that should beused to benefit the clients of those advisors.


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Trust and Loyalty in the Workplace

To trust someone is to be confident in and rely upontheir judgment when one is vulnerable to their

decisions.

Trustworthy managers develop and maintain

professional competence and expertise

Loyalty, in business, is understood as a willingness

to make personal sacrifices in the interest of the

firm.

- To what degree do employees have a

responsibility to make personal sacrifices for the

firm?

- Ronald Duska ar ues em lo ees have no


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Claims for loyalty by the firm can often be little morethan a disguised way to exploit employeeswillingness to make sacrifices for the firm

However, until and unless the firm is willing tosacrifice for employees, those employees havelittle reason to demonstrate loyalty to the firm


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Is the case different for managerial employees?- Sherron Watkins

- Andrew Fastow

If loyalty means willing to sacrifice ones own

interests by going above and beyond ordinary

responsibility, then we ought to be suspicious

of calls for employee loyalty.


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Honesty, Whistleblowing & Insider Trading

Honesty: Are there situations in which dishonesty iscommon and acceptable?

There are three reasons to explain the ethicalresponsibility to be honest: Dishonesty undermines the ability of people to

communicate

Honesty and trust create essential preconditions for allcooperative social activities

A dishonest person must have more than one identity,which undermines his integrity


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A bluff can only work as a bluff if the person beingbluffed believes that it is true (is being deceived).

While a dishonest act can have beneficial social

consequences, routine dishonesty erodes the

trust that seems essential to social cooperation.


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A whistleblower is an employee or other insiderwho informs the public or a government

agency of an illegal, harmful, or unethical

activity done by their business or institution.

- Whistleblowing puts the employee at risk

- Whistleblowing pits responsibilities to third

parties at odds with employees

responsibilities to their employer


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Richard DeGeorge argues three conditionsmust be met before whistleblowing is ethicallypermissible:

- There must be a real threat of harm that

needs to be addressed- The whistleblower should first seek toprevent the harm through channels

- The whistleblower, if possible, should

exhaust all internal procedures for preventingthe harm


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Insider Trading generally refers to thepractice of buying or selling securities

on the basis of nonpublic information

that one has obtained as an insider.


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Three arguments are cited in ethicalcriticism of insider trading:

- Property rights

- Fiduciary duties

- Unfairness claims

topic 5 the value of work employees responsibilities

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