Fostering Ethical Work Environments

Introduction

The current assignment aims to underline the impact of Workplace ethics, misconduct and abuse of power, especially in the context of business dissertation help. These days the workplace is laced with a series of concerns due to inequality in power. In similar regards, it becomes important to understand that such behaviour is not favourable enough to support a culture of growth within a business organization. The current assignment thus works on conducting a deep research and segregating the things that fall under the act of misconduct or abuse of power. The assignment additionally underlines the aspect of leadership and ways it can be implemented for ensuring better work related environmental policies for enhancing the level of productivity. The objective of the essay is to ensure proper implementation of work place ethics is mentioned without any possible misuse of power.

Literature

There is a common sense of approach in regards to Workplace ethics, misconduct and abuse of power. For instance, if an individual arrives late in the morning, this would be considered as a minor issue and can be resolved in an informal way. However, if this behaviour is repetitive and harms the organizational culture and policies, then it demands disciplinary action. As influenced by Ishak, Haron and Ismail (2019, p. 408), professional misconduct is unprofessional or unethical behaviour that fails to meet the professional or ethical standards accepted by a particular profession. Following are the things that are considered to be misconduct:

Continuous lateness

Not completing the task on time

Doing the work in a wrong way

Not following the procedures properly

Gross professional misconduct is an employee’s behaviour which can destroy the relationship between the employee and employer. The conduct need to be of gross negligence and entitles the employer to dismiss the employee, immediately without any notice. Following are the list of gross professional misconduct:

Theft or fraud that often harms the company image or the property

Serious misuse of company’s name or property

Brining illegal drugs and alcohol to the workplace

Causing injury or damage through serious negligence

Serious breach of confidence

In case of both gross and minor misconduct, it is important to form dynamic disciplinary policies. The policies should outline the exact definition of both minor and major misconduct and the HR representative should carry out informal discussion to make sure the act is not repeated. The employers are often laced with the prime concern, whether the concerned employee should be suspended. The answers remains simple, if the person poses an evident risk to the business or create a significant influence on the potential witness, then the employer can suspend them. However, if there remains no significant risk of the business they can continue with the job and carry out a risk assessment plan. Russell et al. (2017, p. 253), pointed out the fact that suspension need not be viewed as a sanction. The prime aim of suspension is to remove potential hurdles from the business for maintaining high rates of productivity. A notable difference between gross and minor misconduct is the respective level of sanctions that can be implemented in each case. Thus, it can be conclusively stated gross misconduct can often result in final demotion or a written warning depending on the incident

Ethics in leadership

There remains too much evidence in regards to the ethical breaches to not raise questions the validity of the inflated scores. There exist several explanations for this. Bencsik et al. (2019, p. 63), pointed out the fact, ethical lapses occur mostly when senior executives due to different forces that impinges on them. The tendencies related to unethical behaviour may be latent in case of many leaders there are few scope to express this behaviour while serving the middle levels within business organization. Whatever the reason may be, it is evident that act of dishonesty can destroy the professional career and entire organization in their aftermath, have been carried out by individuals holding senior positions. As observed by Rahim and Lokman (2017, p. 769), unethical behaviour is caused by people holding great power and is often a manifestation of series of elements. In similar regards Valentine, Fleischman and Godkin (2018, p. 135), commented the fact misuse of power is one of the greatest problems in organization and are executed through the following reasons:

High level of power over the subordinate’s destinies makes the junior reluctant to protest

Access to large amount of money with limited accountability and visibility

Absence of operational checks that are present in lower levels

As stated by Guimarães, Cançado and Lima (2016, p. 151), organizations are often subjected to series of ethical and moral constraints. The business organizations need to appoint senior executives and warn them about the potential dangers, which prevents occurrence of further misdeeds. The company can make use of stronger checks and balances. Furthermore, the company can instill suitable mechanism to protect the anonymity of the employees who report ethical breaches carried out within the organization. Organizations should provide a balanced message through the business ranks results and the acceptable ways that can be implemented for obtaining the specified results.

In addition to that the leaders should work on strengthening their behaviour in correspondence to the ethical conduct. As stated by Moon, Uskul and Weick (2018, p. 15), organizations can help; however, it is the duty of the leader to develop an honest approach for conducting business. An ethical leader should harbor the following qualities:

Act of humanity

Trustworthy

Approachable

Listens with intensity

Makes decisions after immense consideration

Acts assertively

Hence, it can be conclusively stated that if every business were to implement the mentioned steps, then the currently operating ethical breaches faced by the organizations could be curbed and the flow related to productivity could be highly maintained. However, people operating at powerful positions feel that they are invincible as if the rules do not apply to them apparently making them feel irreplaceable due to their skills (Vaidyanathan, Khalsa and Ecklund, 2016, p. 554). The following examples exhibit the issue related to power imbalance within the organization and the damage caused due to the same to the employees and the organization

The Weinstein effect

A powerful individual can exhibit terrible consequence if they exhibit toxic behaviour. Citing the case of Harvey Weinstein, the accused was charged of sexual harassment of the women (Worklogic, 2020). The colleagues and associates knowingly carried out meetings in secrecy in order to suppress the complaints non-disclosure agreements were made. The fear was the driving force; as such prestigious organizations could not be defamed with allegations. The culture of silence was not for preserving the jobs. It was often presumed that the people holding high power could do anything they want creating a poor power balance

Pressuring juniors into misconduct

With high levels of power imbalance there is pressure over the less powerful individuals to execute unethical activities and breach of law. A high profile breach of terms and conditions in the profession can be viewed through the ball tampering incident in Australia, resulting in ban of Australian cricket players and a series of resignations from Australian Cricket Boards. Reports suggest that the incident of ball tampering was perceived as players being disconnected from community expectations. The players are often perceived as machines whose prime purpose is to win. The Australian Cricket Chairman was recorded stating that high performance plan was reviewed diligently (Worklogic, 2020). However, there exists no consideration of the ethos of the game or the spirit.

No dissent

Additionally, strong power imbalance possesses the fact that less powerful individuals are not likely to express their views for change when things are seen to take a wrong turn. The risk adverse conditions do not support questions and challenge new ideas. Thus, it can be conclusively stated if new ideas are immediately shut down then this would not support the health organizational culture and maintain the existing ethical gap in the organization. Considering the misuse of power it becomes important to reflect on the individual who is making improper use of power and the social system that allows them to do so. Miner et al. (2019, p.528), noted, power tends to corrupt and great men are often bad men. Furthermore, academic research has shown that people with power are prone to two kinds of behaviors, as follows:

Develop empathy related deficits and are not able to read emotions of others

Tend to behave in an impulsive fashion that can often result in workplace related violations

There exists a series of shocking incidents that underlines the misuse of power. Hence, the context of unchecked power is important. As stated by Ishak, Haron and Ismail (2019, p. 408), authoritarian context makes people behave against the ethics of the workplace and then in return can make them corrupt or abusive in nature. Thus, it is of prime importance to prevent the chances of reoccurrence of such incidents. As pointed by Rahim and Lokman (2017, p. 769), handling the risk related to power misuse demands overt and clear recognition that no person is irreplaceable. In addition to that, it is important to combat the possible factor that allows abuse of power. For instance Moon, Uskul and Weick (2018, p. 15), discovered the fact that lack of cultural diversity can be termed as one of the greatest reasons that promotes misuse of power. Individuals from less powerful groups have more allies and are likely to be present in context of abuse power and feel empowered to prefer truth over power. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that power imbalance is inevitable. Hence, it can be conclusively stated it is important to understand the mentioned aspect of power imbalance, ethical concerns within the business and enhance the level of productivity.

Conclusion

Force and obligation go connected at the hip. Along these lines., it very well may be presumed that individuals need not be so overpowered because of disparity of intensity that they will in general overlook the duty related with the coming of obligation it gets essential to comprehend that power imbalance is probably the best factor that offers adapt to the situation inside the business association regularly broadening up to abuse of intensity in the greater part of the cases.

Reference list

Bencsik, A., Csokas, L. and Seben, Z., 2019, November. What is the role of Ethics in an Ideal Leadership Style?. In ECMLG 2019 15th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance (p. 63). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.

Guimarães, C.A., Cançado, V.L. and Lima, R.D.J.C., 2016. Workplace moral harassment and its consequences: A case study in a federal higher education institution. Revista de Administração, 51(2), pp.151-164.

Ishak, N.K., Haron, H. and Ismail, I., 2019. Ethical Leadership, Ethical Climate and Unethical Behaviour in Institutions of Higher Learning. KnE Social Sciences, pp.408-422.

Miner, K.N., Smittick, A.L., He, Y. and Costa, P.L., 2019. Organizations Behaving Badly: Antecedents and Consequences of Uncivil Workplace Environments. The Journal of psychology, 153(5), pp.528-554.

Moon, C., Uskul, A.K. and Weick, M., 2018. On culture, ethics, and hierarchy: How cultural variations in hierarchical relations are manifested in the code of ethics of British and Korean organizations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48(1), pp.15-27.

Rahim, A.S.A.B.A. and Lokman, N., 2017. The Importance of Integrity Systems in Assessing Malaysian Business Ethical Practices. ICOPS2017 eProceedings, p.769.

Russell, T.L., Sparks, T.E., Campbell, J.P., Handy, K., Ramsberger, P. and Grand, J.A., 2017. Situating ethical behavior in the nomological network of job performance. Journal of Business and Psychology, 32(3), pp.253-271.

Vaidyanathan, B., Khalsa, S. and Ecklund, E.H., 2016. Gossip as social control: Informal sanctions on ethical violations in scientific workplaces. Social Problems, 63(4), pp.554-572.

Valentine, S., Fleischman, G. and Godkin, L., 2018. Villains, victims, and verisimilitudes: An exploratory study of unethical corporate values, bullying experiences, psychopathy, and selling professionals’ ethical reasoning. Journal of Business Ethics, 148(1), pp.135-154.

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