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Similarly, in the case of soft drinks, it never says that it contain a chemical which is harmful to human kind.
For example, a 1996 survey by the Ethics Resource Centre of 1324 employees of 747 American Companies found that 48% of employees surveyed said they had engaged in one or more unethical and/or illegal actions during the past year.
The common questionable behaviour involved cutting corners on quality (16%), covering up incidents (14%), abusing or lying about sick days (11%) and lying to or deceiving customers (9%). Some 56% of workers reported pressure to act unethically or illegal on the job.5
So, to foster awareness that strategic decision have an ethical dimension, a company must establish dimension, a company must establish an organization climate that emphasizes the importance of ethics.
The purpose of the business ethics is not so much to teach the difference between right and wrong, as to give people the tools for dealing with moral complexity - tools that they use to identify and think through the moral implication of strategic decisions.
The problem, however, is that although most managers rigorously adhere to such moral principles in their private life, some fail to apply them in their professional life, occasionally with disastrous consequences.
Besides establishing the kind of ethics climate in an organization, managers must be able to think through the ethical implications of strategic decisions in a systematic way.
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5. "Nearly half of worker take unethical actions - Survey", Des Moins Register (April 7, 1997), p. 18B.
* Contributed by: -
Dr. R. P. Verma,
Ex. H.O.D. & Dean, Commerce and Business Management Dept.,
Arabinda Bhandari,
Strategic Management Researcher,
Ranchi University, Ranchi.
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