Mgt 567 - Ethical Decision Making

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Involved Parties

As the circumstances change and the person who found the iPOD tells his friend, not the friend is involved. The friend has to make the decision if the iPOD is not turned in does he/she notify the instructor about the iPOD. The ethical decision is to turn the iPOD into the instructor or school official and let them take the procedure set forth when something of value is lost and found. In trying to decide whether the decision to keep the iPOD is ethical or not, the finder must put themselves in the place of the person who lost the iPOD and what would you want to someone to do if that was your iPOD. Finding and keeping this iPOD will have to decide if keeping this property is ethical or unethical. If the finder focuses on the wrong thing, the fact that they found the iPOD and did not steal it, they may fail to see the information necessary for them to make an ethical decision (Hartman, 2011). A step in ethical decision making is to identify and consider all of the people affected by a decision (Hartman, 2011).

Several different anomalies can play out from the friendship perspective. I would explain that taking something without it belonging to you and never intending to return it is considered stealing. There are no laws that govern the idiom “finders keepers, losers weepers.” If something is found without traceability or identification the finder has the right to keep it. It is the opposite if the item can be traced back to the owner. People are expected to return it but not lawfully enforced. I believe in karma so I would tell my friend to turn it in to the instructor and perhaps they could figure out who the Ipod belongs to by asking the rest of the classes.

The student government would frown upon the outcome if the Ipod is kept. They try to keep an upstanding and honest perception among the student body. If a decision had to be made for the keeping of the Ipod they would probably put the keeper on some type of probation or send out a warning to the student body that dishonesty would not be tolerated at the school.

Conclusion

The end result of the situation would be to locate the owner of the iPod and return it. We have to look at the situation in its entirety and remember that the decision has to be one that will be a win-win for all involved parties. In doing so the outcome of the decision makes everyone ok and keeps all ethical principles and morals intact.

Reference:

Hartman, L. P., & DesJardins, J. (2011). Business Ethics: Decision making for personal integrity and social responsibility (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Koehn, D. (2002). Ethical Issues in Human Resources. In N. E. Bowie (Ed.), The Blackwell guide to business ethics (pp. 225-243). Oxford: Blackwell ISBN 0-631-22123-9.