Unethical Decision Making in Organizations

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/unethical-decision-making

Introduction

### Course Review: Unethical Decision Making in Organizations **Course Overview:** The Coursera course titled *Unethical Decision Making in Organizations: A Seminar on the Dark Side of the Force* delves into a pressing issue faced by many organizations today: the circumstances that lead good individuals to make unethical decisions. This course is not just an academic exploration; it provides practical insights and strategies to safeguard both individuals and organizations against the subtle forces that foster unethical behaviors. **Course Structure:** The course is structured over seven weeks, each focusing on a unique aspect of unethical decision-making in organizational contexts. 1. **Week 1: Ethical and Unethical Decision Making** - This week sets the stage by examining fundamental questions surrounding ethics and human nature. It discusses historical perspectives on evil and introduces philosophical frameworks, especially the insights of Immanuel Kant, as essential tools for navigating ethical dilemmas. 2. **Week 2: Introduction to Unethical Decisions in Organizations** - Using a well-known fairy tale and the Ford Pinto case, this week emphasizes the profound influence of context on decision-making. The concept of ethical blindness is introduced, laying the groundwork for understanding how context can distort moral choices. 3. **Week 3: The Power of Frames: How People Construct Their Reality** - Here, participants will explore the concept of framing and its role in unethical decision-making through case studies like Enron and Lehman Brothers. The discussions on language highlight its impact on perception and decision-making. 4. **Week 4: The Power of Routines** - This week focuses on how routines and heuristics can lead to ethical blindness. A case study from a military context underscores the significance of simplifying information processing and decision-making. 5. **Week 5: The Power of Strong Situations** - This module anchors on social psychology principles, revealing how individuals are often swayed by their immediate environment and the influence of others. Classic experiments in social psychology are referenced to illustrate these effects. 6. **Week 6: The Power of Institutions** - The influence of time and institutional contexts is scrutinized. This week also discusses how ideologies can shape and perpetuate ethical blindness within organizations. 7. **Week 7: The Wind of Change: How to Fight Ethical Blindness** - The concluding week shifts to proactive strategies for combating ethical blindness. Participants will explore defensive mechanisms both as individuals and organizational leaders. **Quality of Content:** The content of this course is both rich and thought-provoking, offering a blend of theoretical frameworks and practical applications. The exploration of historical and cultural contexts enhances understanding and makes the subject matter relatable to real-life scenarios. The incorporation of case studies not only makes the learning engaging but also grounds theories in practical examples that resonate with today's ethical challenges in the corporate world. **Instructor Expertise:** The course is led by knowledgeable instructors who are well-versed in ethics, organizational behavior, and decision-making. Their expertise shines through in the way complex concepts are broken down into digestible lessons, and they are adept at facilitating discussions that provoke critical thinking. **Who Should Take This Course:** This course is highly recommended for professionals in leadership positions, HR executives, and anyone involved in organizational governance. It is equally beneficial for students of business, psychology, and sociology who wish to deepen their understanding of ethical dynamics in organizations. **Final Recommendation:** I wholeheartedly recommend *Unethical Decision Making in Organizations* for anyone looking to understand the intricacies of ethical decision-making within the corporate landscape. This course offers invaluable insights that can not only enhance your professional competence but can also empower you to instigate positive ethical change within your organization. By learning to recognize the forces that contribute to unethical decisions, you will be better equipped to navigate the complex moral landscape of today’s working environment. Join this course and become a part of the solution in fostering ethical decision-making in organizations!

Syllabus

Week 1- Ethical and unethical decision making

Have you ever asked yourself the following questions ? Why do human beings act in an illegal and unethical way? Why and under what conditions do we become evil? What motivates harm doing and what is the explanatory power of human nature and human culture? What is the evil anyway? And why is this relevant for us in our daily life? The first week will give you an introduction to the historic evolution of our modern understanding of evil, looking at how evil has been discussed in different times and cultural contexts. Furthermore, in this first week, we will discuss how you can deal with situation in which you have to make ethical decisions and how the theories of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant provide us a tool box for such situations.

In this week, we will first reflect upon the wisdom of a famous fairy tale in order to understand the power contexts have on individuals. Subsequently, we will zoom into one of the most famous corporate scandals, the Ford Pinto case which demonstrates the power of context over decisions similar to the fairy tale. Finally, we will present our model of ethical blindness, which not only provides a conceptual framework to better understand these two cases, but also builds the backbone of the whole course.

In this third week, we will examine how framing can contribute to unethical decision making. After having introduced you to the concept of framing in general, we will use it to interpret the Enron scandal. We will then discuss the recent Lehman Brothers collapse along one particular element of framing – the language we use in organizations. Building on this case, we will finally go deeper into the link between decision making and language and discuss how language influences what we can see and how we decide.

In this week, we will first look at how people and organizations (can) simplify information processing and decision making, namely by using heuristics and by establishing routines. Subsequently, we will examine key driving forces of ethical blindness in organizations and finally demonstrate the risk associated with powerful routines in a case study on innovations in a military context.

In this week, we will shift the focus to the environment of the decision maker and we will start by inspecting the immediate context. People are often in situations that have a strong influence on how they think and behave. Most of this influence comes from the presence of other people. The scientific discipline in which such effects are studied is social psychology and so we will look into some classic social psychology experiments.

In this week, we will start by examining the impact of time on decision making. Subsequently, we will discuss the third contextual layer that we posit in our model of ethical blindness: the institutional context in which organizations are embedded. We will analyze this layer in more detail and discuss the impact of ideology on ethical blindness.

After having discussed for six weeks the forces that promote ethical blindness, we will now concentrate on defence strategies. This week, we will examine how we can fight against ethical blindness as individuals and as leaders in organizations.