Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

A Manager’s personal value system and the influence it has
on Organisational Ethics
John Anderson, jandersonson@fuchsus.com. Department of Business Management. University of Johannesburg,
South Africa
Lizel Solomon, lbs227@me.com Department of Business Management University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Jean-Marie Mbuya - mjmmbuya@uj.ac.za , Department of Business Management University of Johannesburg. PO
Box 524, Bunting Road, South Africa, + 27-11-559-1958
Maria Bounds* mariab@uj.ac.za. University of Johannesburg, PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa,
+27-11-599 -5599
ABSTRACT
To investigate the impact managers have on
business ethics through their own personal value
systems. Literature pertaining to personal values,
corporate values as well as business ethics. Due to
the study of human behaviour an interpretivist
paradigm was chosen. The nature of the problem is
to understand the relationship between the various
value systems, incorporating governance structures
as well as ethical behaviour and the relative effect
these have on human nature within the business
environment. .
Key words: Personal values, impact on ethics,
managers
INTRODUCTION
Giddy (2015), argues that ethics is a late joiner and
prior to 1970 ethics were not considered as part of
the organisational responsibility. The consideration
was given more to social values and the reputation
of the organisation. Rather, companies saw the
responsibility of behaving in a moral way stemming
from the individual as opposed to the organisation .
Various scandals have seen the light, such as the
$12 million Lockheed bribery case in America –
where the chairman of Lockheed facilitated
payments to representatives of the Japanese prime
minister in order to facilitate the sale of aircraft
(Grace, 2002). Based on literature available,
inference can be made that ethics cannot be viewed
in isolation and that personal value systems impact
behaviour (Catacutan, 2013). Consideration also
needs to be given that each individual prescribes to
a different set of value systems, a notion which
would subsequently impact not only their behaviour
but also their response to various scenarios
(Finegan, 1994; Brumette & Zoch, 2016).
LITERATURE OVERVIEW
Ethics: Paliwal, (2006:3) states that ethics “is a
mass of moral principles or set of values about what
is right or wrong, true or false, fair or unfair,
proper or improper what is right is ethical and what
is wrong is unethical.” Business ethics is
prescribing to moral values that would be right and
fair not just to the organisation but to the society at
large.
Individual value systems: Rockeach (2008:17)
states that, “values are simultaneously components
of psychological processes, of social interaction,
and of cultural patterning and storage.” He then
further argues that people react differently to
situations not because of the lack of certain values
but rather due to how these components, that create
values, are ranked and utilised by the individual and
that this is also true for societies and ultimately
organisations.
Personal ethics are those taught to an individual
from a young age. As people grow up parents,
teachers and mentors teach us to yearn for what is
right, fair and equitable (Catacutan, 2013). These
ethics are engrained into our psyche and are called
upon when making business decisions. The most
conflicted managers will be the middle managers as
they are the ones trying to resolve the profit motive
with the very real and pressing business needs
(Hanson, 2008).
To understand ethics clarity is needed with regards
to the link between a value system and how this
impacts ethical behaviour, as well as the drivers
within an individual which affect the way the
individual responds to any ethical dilemmas.
Corporate value system: The Corporate value
system is only as strong as the executives that make
the decisions as they will ultimately need a strong
personal value system to ensure that the decisions
they make on behalf of the organisation are ethical
(Gosenpud & Werner, 2015; Jones, 2015).
Corporate value systems are therefore enforced
from the top down and the values of the
organisation therefore need to be displayed from
executive level down to the employees. Situations
are impacted by how individuals perceive the
situation based on their individual value system
(Gosenpud & Werner, 2015).
Individuals will therefore act upon a certain
situation based on that value system, which will
hold true for ethical decisions as well. This implies
that ethical behaviour is likely depend ent on values
and a value system (Rockeach, 2008; Jones, 2015;
Gosenpud & Werner, 2015). Abyad (2014) expands
on this concept by pitting personal drivers such as
conscience, natural law and innate moral theory
105