Managing people Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Managing people - Essay Example The purpose of writing this paper is to identify the ethical policies and practices of an organization, its benefits and effects on stakeholders, and how people at the managerial level play their role in developing and implementing organization’s ethical policies and practice. Corporate level managers and executives are facing a lot of pressure from the external forces to maintain their ethical records. External forces may include government, legislative bodies, consumers, and employees etc. The objective of adopting ethical principles and practice is to provide ground for the development of modern ideas of doing work and collaborative efforts for business activities. Traditional concept of doing business aiming higher profit and enrichment of shareholders is no more successive because business ethics are now important aspect that every manager has to deal with (George 1982). Ethical managers believe in the fulfilment of following aspects: Achievement of corporate social respo nsibility Development of fair trade policies with business partners Ethical leadership, supervision, and control Community development Mutual cooperation (with employees and other stakeholders) Fair production and distribution Environmental protection Communal enterprise Fulfilling social rights, employee empowerment, and work life balance (Crane and Matten 2007). Managers who believe in serving ethical behaviour and practices gain more and achieve higher degree of cooperation and trust from their stakeholders. Adoption of ethical values results in higher revenues due to positive sentiments amongst general public and higher demand from the customers. It develops strong moral as well as financial support from ethical investors, and increases brand awareness and brand recognition. Moreover, ethical behaviour increases employee satisfaction, commitment, and their loyalty towards job and finally, it generates better corporate image and goodwill for the business (Andreasen 2001). On the other hand, managers may also face some drawbacks or disadvantages by adopting ethical policies such as higher costs for promoting corporate image and compliance with the fair trade policies with suppliers without quality compromise. Another disadvantage can be the development of false or wrong expectations among stakeholders. Organizations also lose their freedom to maximize profit. For example, an organization transfers its manufacturing facility to an underdeveloped country for less costly production due to the availability of cheap labour. Practices like child labour, poor work safety, and low wages are acceptable in that country, but all these may not be permissible in organization’s ethical policies and practices, therefore managers and other executives would compromise on profitability giving higher consideration to the values that the company holds for the society it operates in (Andreasen 2001). According to Milton Friedman, â€Å"primary and only responsibility of business is to make money† (Duska 2007). This statement can be true to some extent and most of the supporters of this view suggest that self-interest of an organization seeking profit automatically benefits the overall society. It is true that all profitable businesses provide benefits to their shareholders but stakeholders may or may not get their share. Stakeholders basically are those people or groups who directly or indirectly get benefits from organizations. Stakeholder includes shareholders, employees and their families, the