Business Managers (Management in Technology Ethical Argument)

In the field of Management, Ethics is like your business presentation card.
"Ethics is a set of values, principles, and rules that define right and wrong conduct."

But what is right? and what is wrong? What is wrong for me my be right for you.
The key to this questions is inside cultural values. Cultural values exist in our self's consciously and unconsciously. These values are reflected in our society's morals and customs.

The reason I try to explain the significance of cultural values is because they are directly related to ethics in our work place. A manager in North America might have a different ethical concepts of what a manager in Venezuela or Afghanistan might have.

In North American culture the expected fundamental values include honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, respect, reliability, fairness and loyalty. These are some of the ethics that are expected from employees when representing their organization.

One of my beliefs is that Managers have a social responsibility no matter how much revenues might decrease. They have amoral obligation towards the people they serve. However, some CEOs and managers might not share the same opinion. Such is the case of Halliburton's managers in Iraq while serving as a food subsidiary for the United States Military.

Halliburton manager's supplied rotten food to the U.S. military dinner camps in Iraq. In addition to the spoiled food, there were claims that the company supplied contaminated water to civilians and troops. Furthermore, Halliburton Company workers received kickbacks from an Iraqi company.

Camp Anaconda in Iraq  -Chow hall- 

This sort of behavior and corruption is an embarrassment to the rest of hard working managers, which their ethics rise above and beyond. Their ethics, just plain and simple did not exist. They had no interest in providing a reliable service. Their sense of respect for other people did not existed. They did not exercise honesty and Integrity; and their loyalty was to them self's. They care about profit no matter who was hurt along the way.

This photo was taken in Iraq December of 2004

Thanks to the good ethics and moral conduct of some, these sort of activities were reported by some of their own employees. These employees had a strong sense of ethics and moral values. They did not hesitate in reporting the wrong conduct. They risked their jobs for the benefits of many others.

Sources Cited

Hellriegel, D., Jackson, S. E., & Slocum, J. W. (2005). Management: A competency-based approach. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western.