Tuesday, June 23, 2009

How To Resolve Ethical Dilemmas In Business


In the current era of ever-growing competition and limited financial resources, entrepreneurs and business managers constantly encounter certain dilemmas related to business. Most of the times, entrepreneurial managers tend to feign away from ethical issues while taking decisions on dilemmas either due to ignorance or on purpose. In today’s business, the workforce comprises of people who are diverse in their nationality, religion, caste, race, age, education and even socioeconomic status. They are all expected to work together as a team towards the success of the organization. Dilemmas are bound to rise in issues such as downsizing the staff, pollution control, toxic waste disposal, utilization of resources, changes in law and technology, issues related to discrimination, employee rights and even on product quality. All these issues are relatively complex and are difficult to resolve. Entrepreneurial managers have to rely on their individual judgment while resolving all these different dilemmas related to business.
However, before making any decision, one needs to be aware of the ethical issues concerned with the business. There are two different ways of resolving ethical dilemmas in business. While one approach concentrates on analyzing the practical consequences of the decision, another approach concentrates on the action.
Ethical resolution of conflicts requires discussion, analysis, problem solving and decision making. In order to resolve ethical dilemmas, managers need to have interpersonal communication and negotiation skills, conflict resolution skills and critical thinking. Before making any decision, one has to analyze all the positive and negative consequences that are connected with the issue.