Identify and briefly describe the three main drivers of unethical strategies and unethical managerial and business behavior and identify which stakeholders are impacted by unethical behavior.
Three categories of managers stand out with regard to their prevailing beliefs in and commitments to ethical and moral principles in business affairs: the moral manager; the immoral manager, and the amoral manager.
By some accounts, th population of managers is said to be distributed among all three types in a bell-shaped curve, with immoral managers ar moral managers occupying the two tails of the curve, and the amoral managers, especially the intentionally amoral managers, occupying the broad middle ground.
The moral case for social responsibility boils down to a simple concept: Its the right thing to do. The business case for social responsibility holds that it is in the enlightened self-interest of companies to be good citizens and devote some of their energies and resources to the betterment of such stakeholders as employees, the communities in which it operates and society in general.
The apparently large numbers of immoral and amoral businesspeople are one obvious reason why some companies resort to unethical strategic behavior. Three other main drivers of unethical business behavior also stand out:
erzealous or obsessive
•ursuit of personal
• . in wealth and other selfish Interests.
eavy pressures on compan managers to meet or beat earnin.. tar. s.
• company culture that puts the profitabilit and business forrnance ahead of ethical behavior The stance a company takes in dealing with or managing ethical conduct at any given time can take any of four basic forms:
• The unconcerned or nonissue approach.
• The damage control approach.