1. Different Views of Ethical Behavior
“Ethics is a philosophical term derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning character or
custom.” (Sims, 1992, p. 506) Ethics has been rooted in many cultures and religion as well as a
popular, traditional topic of studies and researches. According to Nelson & Wilson (1984), ethics
is defined as “. . . an assigned standard of appropriate norms of moral behavior in the context of a
personal or social value system.” Thus, ethical behavior is what perceived and accepted as
“good” and “right.” But how can we determine something is good or bad, right or wrong when
each single person has his/her own take? In order to do so, we need to look at different views of
ethical behavior to fully understand them under different angles, particularly including
utilitarianism view, individualism view, moral-right view, and justice view.
Utilitarianism View
The idea of utilitarianism is brought up by the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill,
which it views ethical behavior is what brings the best value to the most people. In accordance to
natural law (as known as universal law), no matter what kinds of animals or vegetation, usually
the minority must follow the majority either emotionally or forcefully. It is how the nature
works.
Nonetheless, there are some cases that strongly question, “Is utilitarianism always
ethical?” Let’s take an example. Philosopher Richard G. Henson brought up a very interesting
and controversial idea about utilitarianism in his article “Utilitarianism and the Wrongness of
Killing.” The name says it all. He worriedly wondered if it is truly ethical to kill somebody, even
if it is for the purpose and benefit of the majority (Henson, 1971, p. 320). Is it really “right” to
give a murderer the highest punishment––death sentence? Is it undoubtedly “right” to punish a
killer by killing him/her because s/he killed some others? It is still in debate until now.

2. When it comes to business, utilitarianism is still also something that leaders and
managers should contemplate. A recent story is Sony, when it had to massively lay off its
employees working in foreign branches in order to stabilize and reconstruct the company which
is currently experiencing a hardship (Grandoni, 2012). Is it unethical for Sony to do so?
Personally I believe no in this case. It has to do what it takes. There is no other way for Sony to
survive and continue its business in this harsh economy if it did not do that.
Individualism View
Individualism is a common term which favors one’s self over group’s interest. In ethics,
individualism view of ethical behavior stresses on self-interest and encourage one to act on his or
her own benefits. The idea is that a group as a whole would be best off if each person in the
group can maximize his or her success and happiness. Basically, help yourself before you help
others! But doesn’t it sound selfish, does it? It really does, at least to some degree. From
management point of view, no manager wants to see their employees become full of themselves
and not caring about other people and the organization as a whole because it can easily lead to
ineffective teamwork, disunity, and goal conflicts.
Traditionally, individualism has been the lodestar and life orientation for many persons,
especially in Western countries when you can enjoy yourself and freely do whatever you want
for personal desire. Nevertheless, today a lot of people have shifted their notions to something
less selfish, less unethical and more united called “common good,” which is essentially the
mutual purposes that the entire society is pursuing. Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez in their
article “The Common Good” have raised awareness of “. . . replacing the current ‘ethic of
individual rights’ with an ‘ethic of the common good.’” Also in that article, the two authors
explained, “Individuals can become ‘free riders’ . . . since they know that so long as enough

3. other people conserve, they can enjoy the benefits without reducing their own consumption”
(Andre & Velasquez).
A common proof showing how individualism can easily cause troubles in business is
startups, when entrepreneurs––employers work so hard to try to take off their business, but their
employees just want to preserve their own safety and stillness, such as a job security for the
whole life. That is a huge problem in human resource management when my brother first started
his own company. On the one hand, employers look at unmotivated, haft-hearted, and get-it-done
employees as unethical. On the other hand, employees often look at their uppers as greedy, bossy
and of course, unethical as well.
Moral-right View
Moral-right views ethical behavior is what maintains the fundamental rights of all human
beings such as the right to liberty, privacy, free speech, etc. Often, many people got confused
about the meaning of “moral right” and “legal right.” This misunderstanding was addressed in
the article “The Concept of a Moral Right and its Function,”
“One might think that to have moral right is just for it to be true that morally one ought to
have a legal right. This is not the case. We speak of a moral right when it is not thought
that there should be a legal right, for instance, when we speak of the moral right of a child
to equal treatment in a family” (Brandt, 1983, p. 29).
This difference is something that managers should pay attention to and be able to
distinguish since moral right and legal right can sometimes become conflict. A good example of
this is same sex marriage. In the past, same sex relationship is perceived as something
unacceptable but nowadays, it is gradually accepted and considered moral, which I personally
support. But imagine a situation when a same-sex married couple from WA must move to work
in a branch in Brunei, where any same-sex acts are recently banned with the highest sentence if
violated – death penalty (Nichols, 2014). Should the company hire this couple? Morally yes and

4. there is no doubt in my mind that it is ethical, but legally, still need further consideration.
Another good example would be marijuana, particularly in Washington State. Today in
Washington, it is lawful for everyone over 21, except police officers, to smoke marijuana, but is
it “right” for a babysitter or an elementary teacher who directly interact, face-to-face
communicate with kids to do that? Personally I do not think so, and I believe many others do not
as well. It is legally right, but morally and ethically not.
Justice View
Justice View is based on the idea that ethical behavior should treat people equally, fairly,
and impartially. There are four dimensions that help shaping this view including Procedural
Justice, Distributive Justice, Interactional Justice, and Commutative Justice.
Procedural Justice is first introduced by Thibaut and Walker in 1975 for the purpose of
fairness and resolving disputes. Procedural justice is the degree to which how fair policies and
rules are implemented to all individuals. It could be considered as the most important quality in
Justice View because “. . . fair procedures were used when resolving conflicts increases our
satisfaction with those outcomes that go against our own self-interest” (Forrest, 2002). In
particular for business managers, creating and remaining a procedural environment actively
benefit the entire corporation. It was proven in a study that “. . . procedural justice enhances
subsidiary top managers’ compliance directly and indirectly, through the attitudes of
commitment, trust, and outcome satisfaction” (Kim & Mauborgne, 1993). In the case of a layoff,
procedural justice is also helpful to deal with the severe degree of negative results on those who
are laid off, who are not laid off, and lame ducks––who will soon be laid off. “When procedural
justice was perceived to be low, individuals reacted more adversely to the extent that outcomes

5. were perceived to be negative” and vice versa, concluded by a group of researchers (Brockner et
al., 1994).
Distributive Justice, referred by a study about the root of morality, “. . . concerns how
individuals and societies distribute benefits and burdens in a just or moral manner” (Hsu et al.,
2008). In other words, distributive justice ensures each individual receives equal treatment
without being influenced by genders, races, ethnicity, ages, background, or any other criteria.
Procedural and distributive justice are the most two common topics in justice that are regularly
discussed; there are even two schools––procedural justice school & distributive justice school––
often debate which one an organization or a society should stress, and many scholars are not in
favor of distributive justice. For instance, the article “Distributive Justice: What the People
Think” gave an interesting statistical proof about incomes in regard to distributive justice,
“If incomes were more equal, life would be boring because people would all live in the
same way (61 percent agree, 39 percent disagree) and ‘Incomes cannot be made more
equal because it’s human nature to always want more than others (82 percent agree, 18
percent disagree)’” (Miller, 1992, p. 565).
However, I believe procedural justice and distributive justice should go hand in hand.
When it comes to business management, procedural justice acts as an objective factor while
distributive justice acts as a subjective factor. Let’s take an example by a survey about pay raises
for employees. The survey, which was conducted on the reactions of 217 employees, suggests
that distributive justice accounted for more satisfaction with pay than procedural justice did, but
procedural justice was more beneficial in employees’ attitudes about trust in supervisors and
organizational commitment (Folger & Konovsky, 1989).
Interactional Justice involves the degree to which people treat one another with dignity
and respect. Interactional justice is often perceived as a form of procedural justice, but in fact,
interactional justice is about the exchange between employees and supervisors whereas

6. procedural justice is about the connection between employees and the employing organization
(Cropanzano et al.). Also in another study, the role of interactional justice in organizational
management was clearly stated and affirmed, “. . . interactional justice affected directly and
positively the perceived quality of the leader-member exchange, while procedural justice
affected directly and positively employees’ perceived organizational support” (Greenberg &
Cropanzano, p. 97).
Commutative Justice, mentioned in the book The Rise and Fall of Economic Justice and
other papers, “. . . required that exchanges be of things of equal value” (Macpherson, 1985, p. 9).
In the article “Risks, Wrongs, and Responsibility: Coleman’s Liberal Theory of Commutative
Justice,” Gerald J. Postema quoted the definition about commutative justice of Jules L.
Coleman––a scholar of law and jurisprudence––is “the dimension of justice that arises from and
governs transaction between individuals” (Postema, 1993, p. 861). Thus, the idea of
commutative justice is mostly associated with economy and business activity. A simple example
indicated the application of commutative justice is business transaction of equitable pricing of
goods. Essentially, the sense of not trading a highly functional item with a useless object is what
commutative justice refers to, and that is how commutative justice guides economies as well as
shapes economic management. However, under social and humanity perspective, commutative
justice is quite unfavorable and viewed as unethical, even Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his
concern that economic activities should also be guided by distributive justice, not solely by
commutative justice (Hudson, 2014).
Four views of ethical behavior above are neither totally right nor totally wrong. But from
my point of view, Justice View should be the most suitable one for management because it views
everything and everyone under an objective eye, disregarding personal feelings or subjective

7. factors. The three other views are still affected by subjective factors to some degree and I think it
is inappropriate when it comes to management. It might sound a bit extreme but it is necessary
for managers to apply a rigid standard when making decisions.
Cultural Issues in Ethical Behavior
As we can see above, ethical behavior is a puzzling subject and to make matter worse,
cultural issues in ethical behavior makes it even more complicated. Cultural issues in ethical
behavior can be divided into two schools representing two levels of ethics and morality in
relation to cultures: Cultural Relativism and Ethical Imperialism.
Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism claims culture is “. . . the principle source of the validity of a moral
right or rule. In other words, the presumption is that rights (and other social practices, values, and
moral rules) are culturally determined.” (Donnelly, 1984, p. 401) Cultural relativism has been a
traditional doctrine when it comes to ethical behavior with the famous saying, “When in Rome,
do as the Romans do.” But is this notion still appropriate to date? The book Bioethics: An
introduction to the History, Methods, and Practice challenged cultural relativism with a very
interesting example,
“In some societies, people believe the earth is flat. In other societies, such as our own,
believe the earth is spherical. Does it follow, from the mere fact that people disagree, that
there is no ‘objective truth’ in geography? Of course not; we would never draw such a
conclusion because we realize that, in their beliefs about the world, the members of some
societies might simply be wrong. There is no reason to think that if the world is round
everyone must know it. Similarly, there is no reason to think that if there is moral truth
everyone must know it.” (Jecker et al., 2007, p. 122)
It is crystal clear that there are some obvious facts that cultural relativism cannot solve. It
is when ethical imperialism comes in and confronts the appropriateness of cultural relativism in
the world today.
Ethical Imperialism

8. Ethical imperialism is defined as “. . . the imposition of one field’s rules onto another
discipline” (Schrag, 2010, p. 9). Ethical imperialism assures there are some absolute truths with
universal values that people cannot use customs or cultures to deny. A hot potato about this
concept is the use of child labors, especially in some poor countries in Asia. Is it right or good
for a 13-year-old child to work 16 hours a day in a factory with low safety and perhaps no
protective gear (Blodget, 2012)? To me and definitely to most people, legally, morally, and
ethically no!
To more strongly support ethical imperialism, a research on ethical beliefs of 52
managers in South Africa and Australia, concluded that “. . . despite differences in socio-cultural
and political factors there are no statistically significant differences between the two groups
regarding their own ethical beliefs. Results thus support the view that culture has little or no
impact on ethical beliefs.” (Abratt et al., 1992) Somebody might argue that each culture has its
own customs and traditions; we therefore cannot shape up mutual or common right behaviors.
Nonetheless, there are still some values that all cultures have in common and greatly appreciate,
such as children or honesty or safety. “How could a group survive that did not value its young?”
“Could a society exist in which there was no prohibition on murder?” (Jecker et al., 2007, p. 126)
Those values are undeniably common and all cultures should follow and practice.
We are living in a flat world when one action of an individual can have a dramatic
influence all over the world. Personally I strongly support ethical imperialism since its concept is
to pursue common values that any cultures can follow and each single person can be benefitted
based on those common values. The idea of cultural relativism is not completely wrong, but it
did not successfully figure out a solution for some major problems related to cultures. A recent
news that just happened few weeks ago is a Sudanese woman got sentenced to death for being a

9. Christian (Elbagir, 2014). The custom and traditional religion in Sudan does not allow her to do
that and in my view, it is cruel and inhuman. But luckily, thanks to the intervention all over the
world, from thousands of individuals and numbers of international organizations, she was freed.
If we just strictly and robotically follow cultural relativism, what would happen? I think
everyone knows the answer.
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