chapter - Pearson
chapter - Pearson
chapter - Pearson
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Chapter 1<br />
Organizational Behavior and Management<br />
23<br />
No longer will seniority be the main determinant of pay, as it is in some unionized<br />
workplaces. 29 Deere’s new policy of empowering its workforce has benefits for workers<br />
and for the organization as a whole. Workers recognize the connection between<br />
these changes and their job security. The increases in efficiency and quality enable<br />
Deere to regain control of its share of the agricultural machinery market. And the<br />
satisfaction that workers feel when they have the opportunity to utilize new skills and<br />
develop new capabilities increases their commitment to the company and to helping<br />
it succeed. ■<br />
■ ■ ■<br />
CHALLENGE 3: DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS<br />
AND WELL-BEING<br />
Ethics<br />
Rules, beliefs, and values that outline<br />
the ways in which managers<br />
and workers should behave.<br />
Well-being<br />
The condition of being happy,<br />
healthy, and prosperous.<br />
An organization’s ethics are rules, beliefs, and values that outline the ways managers<br />
and workers should behave when confronted with a situation in which their actions<br />
may help or harm other people inside or outside an organization. 30 Ethical behavior<br />
enhances the well-being (the happiness, health, and prosperity) of individuals,<br />
groups, and the organization, and sometimes the environment in which they operate.<br />
31 Ethical behavior can enhance well-being in several ways.<br />
Ethics establish the goals that organizations should pursue and the way in<br />
which people inside organizations should behave to achieve them. 32 For example,<br />
one goal of an organization is to make a profit so that it can pay the managers, workers,<br />
suppliers, shareholders, and others who have contributed their skills and<br />
resources to the company. Ethics specify what actions an organization should engage<br />
in to make a profit. Should an organization be allowed to harm its competitors by<br />
stealing away their skilled employees or by preventing them from obtaining access to<br />
vital inputs? Should an organization be allowed to produce inferior goods that may<br />
endanger the safety of customers? Should an organization be allowed to take away<br />
the jobs of U.S. workers and transfer them overseas to workers in countries where<br />
wages are $5 per day? What limits should be put on organizations’ and their managers’<br />
attempt to make a profit? And who should determine those limits?<br />
The devastating effects of a lack of ethics is illustrated by the way an airline<br />
crash occurred when managers and workers acted unethically and put profit before<br />
safety. The Ethics Insights in this and other <strong>chapter</strong>s show how managers respond to<br />
the ethical challenge. (See Insight 1.5.)<br />
INSIGHT E T H I C S 1.5<br />
THE VALUJET AIRLINE CRASH DISASTER<br />
In On May 11, 1996, a cargo fire broke out on a ValuJet flight<br />
from Miami to Atlanta and the plane crashed into the Florida<br />
Everglades, killing all 105 passengers and five crew members.<br />
This crash was not an accident, however; it occurred as the<br />
direct result of unethical behavior of a company’s employees’ putting profit over<br />
public safety.