Question

Find a real life example and apply the 8 steps to sound ethical decision making suggested by Trevino and Nelson. Your explanation may be similar in format to the Moody and S&P case in “Case Discussion 2” in the lecture, but you must not use any of the cases from the lecture slides.

Answer 1

Linda K. Trevino and Katherine A. Nelson developed the sound ethical decision making in 1995, which they found to be ethical in all form of business decision making. There are various ways to understand the theory by using it in any business decision making . There are 8 steps involved the Ethical Decision making theory which are as below:

1) Gathering the facts.

2)defining the ethical issue.

3)Identifying the affected party.

4)Identifying the consequences.

5)Identifying the Obligations.

6)considering your charcter and integrity.

7)thinking creatively about the potentially actons.

8)check your intuitions.

we can also understand the situtaion with a problem for example, a student in his graduation planning to opt for a a new course of which he has no knowledge about.suppose Ram is a 2nd year student of xyz college in commerce field and wants to opt Acturial science as his additional course.Applying the ethical decision making in this the steps would be as follows:

1) the student(RAM) in the first step would probably gather all the information regarding the new course i.e Acturial science he would opt for. The informations would be of various types such as the duration required, the course fee, the knowledge required, and the other details as would be required for opting the course.

2)Define the Ethical issues: ethical issue mainly consist of lying, accepting and offering bribes etc, but in this case Ram should ask himself whether he should be ethical towards his college curriculum and studies. whether opting for the course would not disable him from attending the college lectures and he would not involve himself in bunking of classes.

3)Idntifying the affected parties: In this case the party that would be affected of Ram's decision would be Ram himself, and in some cases would also involve his parents and teacher, his decision might affect his college academics for which teacher could be a little worried.

4)Identify the consequences: In every case in whatever we do, we always think about the consequences that are involved in the activities we do. Hence, in this situation, Ram has two consequences such as passing the acturial paper and becoming and pursuing a job in Acturial Science field and second one would involve failing the paper which would then lead him to pursue a totally different career.

5)Identify the obligations: the obligations to be identified are a must, in this case Ram has an obligation of passing the paper along with the college curriculum.

6)consider you character and integrity: How people would judge your character and integrity is a tool which would help you in making the best decision of all. The question of how the people would react is the basic of all which plays an important role in decision making and and makes us re think about the decision.

7)Thinking creatively about potential actions: In the above case Ram could Creatively allot his time and energy to be deployed in both the cases.

8)check your intutions: In this Case Ram should check his intuitions and inorder to place a correct decision for the above options and make himself sure abut his act.

Thus, we see how the ethical decision making theory suggested by trevino and nelson can also help us in decision making in real life.