08 Oct You are the president of a health food manufacturer. Your vice president is frantically informing you of incoming reports from several county health departments confirming links between 100 cases of acute food poisoning and two of your products in completely different parts of the country.

Business Communications

Ethical decisions, as explored in this Module’s Lesson, are a part of the daily workday experience. If you stop to consider what is fair and right, you will see there is opportunity to use ethical thought processes around every bend of every decision. Raising your awareness of perspectives in any given situation enables you to recognize the value of thinking ethically. It is consideration of more than one view that leads to more thorough knowledge and, thus, better decisions with less regrets.

 

Moreover, the ethical thought process matches the critical thought process. You begin by fact finding and work your way up to solutions and alternatives by synthesizing all the information and viewpoints to arrive at a decision that works for everyone.

 

Applying ethics provides structure by which to make tough decisions, too. Plus, when you recognize how much ethics can improve outcomes, you are more motivated to use the ethical thought process consistently, which means you become better and better at it as you do.

 

For this discussion, you will use actual case studies based on ethical dilemmas real businesses have faced to practice applying the steps in ethical thinking. Before moving on to the discussion, review each of these three case studies and decide which one you wish to address; then review the notes to understand and apply each of the ethical-decision making steps in your response.

 

Case Study 1

 

You are the president of a health food manufacturer. Your vice president is frantically informing you of incoming reports from several county health departments confirming links between 100 cases of acute food poisoning and two of your products in completely different parts of the country. How would you deliver the news, showing concern and care to your customers while being careful not to risk admitting liability?

 

Case Study 2

 

Production costs are rising and your company can make more money for shareholders by relocating your plants to a country with lower labor costs and fewer regulations. How do you inform employees that they will lose their job unless they would like to relocate to Mexico or South Africa?

 

Case Study 3

 

Choose any story from local business news network, CNBC (Links to an external site.). Use your critical thinking to identify the potential bad news within the story. How would you effectively deliver that bad news to those involved?

 

Discussion Question

 

First:

 

Identify and briefly summarize the case study you chose.

 

Explain your decision by identifying and addressing each of the steps in the ethical decision-making process.

 

Second:

 

Evaluate and make suggestions to your peers about their strategies. Did they miss or misuse any of the steps? Is their decision ethical? Why or why not?

 

DQ2 hile supporting your opinion with the details of your own experience is certainly valuable, an effective message requires more than your own experience. After all, your audience may not know you personally, so why would they trust your experience? Supporting your opinion meaningfully requires evidence.

 

In Module 4 we examined the value of using evidence to persuade. Evidence is not only important for the purposes of convincing or supporting details, though; it is also a matter of ethics.

 

It is the evidence, explanation, and information the audience does not already have that make a message worth knowing. If your message consists of common knowledge, that means the audience has it, too. Failing to appreciate your audience’s time and needs and failing to contribute to your industry’s advancement each pose an ethical dilemma.

 

Further, to be transparent in your business communications means being as detailed as possible in presenting both the good and the bad, with evidence to support your assessment. In your Audience Analysis assignment, for example, you presented your audience with the weaknesses of your product or service, but then also offered your intended plan for overcoming those weaknesses. To leave out that your business has any flaws is unethical, as a consumer has a right to all the information necessary to make an educated decision about whether or not to buy or buy in.

 

Finally, finding the right kind of support for your ideas is a reflection of your own reputation. When the audience can confirm your knowledge through the use of valid and reliable sources, they can be more confident in the ideas and suggestions you present as a result of that knowledge. In the end, that makes them more likely to seek you out as a valuable resource, and more likely to trust you as an ethical one.

 

It is for all these reasons that effective messages must strive to go beyond superficial by using evidence as support. While the library is filled with such sources, we tend to use the internet for the majority of research. The internet could be useful since the information is often quite current and easy to understand, but it could also be dangerous.

 

For example, the creators of Wikipedia themselves admit this website, which often comes up first in an internet search, does not always share reliable information. Wikipedia is an open source, which means anyone with an internet connection can change the facts. Therefore, it is important to use cation with internet sources, as delivering a message with incomplete, incorrect, or biased information may perpetuate ignorance, which can lead to negative outcomes like discrimination or slander – more ethical dilemmas! To ensure the information you use to build your knowledge and share with others is accurate, a reputable source is also the most ethical source.

 

Discussion Question

 

How do you decide if a source is reputable?

 

What are some examples of the kind of evidence that is relevant for effective and ethical communication?