Running head: ETHICS REFLECTION PAPER
Ethics Reflection Paper
Lester Moore
University of Phoenix
Ethics Reflection Paper
Strategic planning is a tool used by management to assist organization in doing a better job. The plan is used to develop the best way the organization will deal with environment circumstances, and ensure that the organization employees are working toward the same goals. This paper will discuss the role of ethics and social responsibility play in developing a strategic plan with the consideration of the organization stakeholders needs. This paper will also cover how my personal ethical perspective has evolved over the course of the Master of Business Administration program, and where I now stand concerning ethical behavior and social responsibility in the workforce.
There’s a question of rather or not decision makers should be responsible only to the shareholders and increasing profit, or do they have a broader responsibility to society beyond the maximizing of profits (Wheelen & Hunger, 2006, p. 56). Wheelen and Hunger (2006) stated, Milton Friedman stated: “there is one and only one social responsibility of business to use its resource and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” (p.57). and Mintzerg, Lampel, Quinn, and Ghoshal (2003) stated, “ Milton Friedman (1962), that the managers of the firm have no moral responsibility except for taking care of the interests of the owners” (p.296).
As a rebuttal to Milton Friedman argument on responsibility Wheelen and Hunger (2006) use an analogy by William J. Byron that compare a person need for food to survive and grow to the needs of a firm the need for profits to survive and grow. Byron states profits are merely a means to an end, not an end in itself; therefore maximization of profits cannot be the primary obligation of business...