Free Business Dissertations - Corporate Ethics: Motivation & Justification As A Corporation Is A Legal
Corporate Ethics: Motivation & Justification
As a corporation is a legal ‘entity’, it does pay taxes and has certain other organisimal-type characteristics, it is easy to forget that the smallest common denominator of behavior is usually a single individual choice. As a corollary, the phrase the people make the organization, not the organization the people warrants consideration.In the corporate context, people may exhibit elements of crowd psychology as noted by Gustave LeBon’s seminal work indicating lowered inhibitions. Alternatively, individuals may choose courses action based upon the assumption that they are not observed as the famous example in Plato’s Republic in which an invisible person would be thought to want to commit various crimes knowing that he would not be caught. Thus, in consideration of corporate ethics, there is a recognition of both external and internal factors in the subsequent motivation and justification of a behavior.
Motivation!
Why do people do what they do? The utilitarian version of the ultimate goal of human existence is it is the goal of an organism to simply pursue pleasure and avoid pain.>From a behavioral perspective, this explanation makes great deal of sense in that studies have shown, with proper conditioning, people can be made (or, made to want) to do most any task. A key part of this prior statement should be emphasized: that is, the behaviors that are of concern, though perhaps mightily influenced, are a choice and the discussion which follows is largely concerned with beliefs that originate within oneself and not externally imposed.Admittedly, in many cases the proverbial carrot is dangled by someone else but, one must first want the carrot and persist in doing so to the extent that one makes plans and considers the consequences of attempting to get it.
In seeking to understand why people act the way they do, one begins a discourse that is perhaps the very essence of psychology. But, as in any review of such a potentially thorny issue, it is helpful to ‘step back’ to explicitly define what sort of behaviors are done prior to seeking the rationale for such action. Though there are many notable examples of unethical and improper behavior, it is worth mentioning at least of few of them so as the give substance, style and a context to the matters at hand:
The Manville Case Over 50 years prior to the case receiving widespread public attention in the 1980’s, the company’s medical department brought evidence of potential serious pulmonary health issues in the workers who handled the company’s primary product, asbestos. Top management buried this evidence and did nothing, a feat which the medical department remarkably also did when later confronted with the issue (Gellerman 1986, pp. 85-86).
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