Outsourcing, Leadership, Change and Ethics

Individuals have a legal right to privacy, in particular a right to control certain information about themselves, to shelter aspects of their lives from public scrutiny, and to make personal decisions autonomously, free from illegitimate influence. Shaw and Barry seem to assume that we also have a moral right to privacy and argue that organizations shouldn't infringe on an individual’s personal sphere unless they can justify that infringement.

A firm is legitimately interested in whatever significantly influences job performance, but there is no precise definition of “significant influence.” Organizations may be invading privacy when they pressure employees to contribute to charities, do volunteer work, or participate in wellness programs.

Information-gathering on employees can be highly personal and subject to abuse. The critical issue here is informed consent , which implies deliberation and free choice. Deliberation requires that employees be provided all significant facts concerning the information-gathering procedure and understand their consequences. Free choice means that the decision to participate must be voluntary and uncoerced.

Polygraph tests, personality tests, drug tests, and the monitoring of employees on the job can intrude into employee privacy. The exact character of these devices, the rationale for using them to gather information in specific circumstances, and the moral costs of doing so must always be carefully evaluated.

Health and safety remain of foremost moral concern in the workplace. Employers have a moral obligation not to expose their workers to needless risk, and employees have a right to know about and refuse hazardous work. The scope of occupational hazards, including shift work and stress, and the number of employees harmed by work-related injuries and diseases are greater than many people think. Enforcement of existing regulations has too often been lax.

Management style greatly affects the work environment. Managers who operate with rigid assumptions about human nature or who devote themselves to infighting and political maneuvering damage employees’ interests.

Day-care services and reasonable parental-leave policies also affect working conditions. Despite the genuine need for and the ethical importance of both day care and flexible work arrangements for parents, only a handful of companies make serious efforts to provide them.

Studies report extensive job dissatisfaction at all levels. Various factors influence satisfaction and dissatisfaction on the job. Redesigning the work process can enhance the quality of work life, the well-being of workers, and even productivity.

The employment contract creates various obligations to one’s employer. In addition, employees often feel loyalty to the organization. Conflicts of interest arise when employees have a personal interest in a transaction substantial enough that it might reasonably be expected to affect their judgment or lead them to act against the interests of the organization.

When employees have financial investments in suppliers, customers, or distributors with whom the organization does business, conflicts of interest can arise. Company policy usually determines the permissible limits of such financial interests.

Insider trading refers to buying or selling stocks based on nonpublic information likely to affect stock prices. Insider trading seems unfair; it can injure other investors and undermine public confidence in the stock market. In practice, determining what counts as insider trading is not always easy, but it typically involves misappropriating sensitive information. Some writers defend insider trading as performing a necessary and desirable economic function.

Proprietary data refers to an organization’s information that can't be used by others without permission. Increasingly, problems arise as employees in high-tech occupations with access to sensitive information and trade secrets quit and take jobs with competitors. Proprietary-data issues pose a conflict between two legitimate rights: the right of employers to keep certain information secret and the right of individuals to work where they choose.

A bribe is payment in some form for an act that runs counter to the work contract or the nature of the work one has been hired to perform. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits corporations from engaging in bribery overseas. Bribery generally involves injury to individuals, competitors, or political institutions and damage to the free-market system.

The following considerations are relevant in determining the moral acceptability of gift giving and receiving: the value of the gift, its purpose, the circumstances under which it is given, the position and sensitivity to influence the person receiving the gift, accepted business practice, company policy, and what the law says.

Employees have duties to their employers, and they may also have more specific obligations based on the business or professional roles and responsibilities they have assumed. In addition, they have the same elementary moral obligations that all human beings have—including the obligation not to injure others and to be truthful and fair.

Balancing our obligations to employer or organization, to friends and coworkers, and to third parties outside the organization can create conflicts and divided loyalties. In resolving such moral conflicts, we must identify the relevant obligations, ideals, and effects and decide where the emphasis among them should lie.

Whistle - blowing refers to an employee’s informing the public about the illegal or immoral behavior of an employer or organization. Whistle-blowers frequently act out of a sense of professional responsibility.

According to Norman Bowie, an act of whistleblowing can be presumed to be morally justified if it is done from a moral motive; if the whistleblower has, if possible, exhausted internal channels before going public; if the whistle-blower has compelling evidence; if the whistle-blower has carefully analyzed the dangers; and if the whistleblowing has some chance of success.

Prudential considerations based on self-interest can conflict with moral considerations, which take into account the interests of others. Some sacrifices of self-interest would be so great that moral considerations must give way to prudential ones. But employees must avoid the temptation to exaggerate prudential concerns, thereby rationalizing away any individual moral responsibility to third parties. Legislation and changes in corporate culture can reduce the personal sacrifices that whistle-blowers must make.