Multidimensional moral decision making

When confronted with moral dilemmas, top managers use various ethical theories to help them decide how to proceed

 
During the past few years, issues such as globalisation and stakeholder activism have created challenging problems for business managers. To advise managers on tough decision, ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontological ethics and theories of justice and rights are introduced in most business ethics books and taught in management education. However,  it seems that these theories are not usually explicitly utilised by managers in their everyday discussions about the ethics or morality of business decisions. Therefore, this article looks at the role of ethical theories in managers’ decision-making, and highlights the changing role of these theories in decision-making processes during the past decades.
 
Every moral decision-making situation forces a business manager to choose guiding principles according to which the final decision is made. Based on ethical theories, choosing the most fitting theory and following its principles might seem to be the appropriate option for a manager pondering what to do in a certain situation. However, most ethical decision-making situations are complex and sticking to one ethical principle may prove to be impossible or inadequate.

Johanna Kujala

Johanna Kujala is a senior research fellow and university lecturer in the School of Management at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research interests include stakeholder relations and value creation, multi-voicedness in stakeholder strategising and managerial moral decision-making. She has written and co-authored several papers on management ethics, stakeholder relations and strategising.

Anna-Maija Lämsä

Anna-Maija Lämsä is professor of human resource management at the School of Business and Economics in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where she also teaches courses in organisational leadership and organisational ethics. She has published three textbooks and is involved in executive training and development.