Ethical decision making for managers - could models from medical ethics help them think about what they are doing?

Abstract

The «polycrisis» was the focus of the 2024 research conference organized by the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN). The leading question was: how can individuals and organizations develop more ethical, transparent, and adaptive decision-making practices in the face of the cri- sis? Decision makers must possess a set of skills to make ethical decisions: they must be able to examine the (scientific and legal) facts in order to make ethical decisions, think critically and in a broad context, and take responsibility for their decisions. Responsibility literally means that they can respond to the question, Why did you act in this way? Which means that they should be able to justify their actions. This article determines whether decision-making models established in medical ethics can assist managers in reflecting on their actions. But first we need to know what we are actually dealing with when we talk about the polycrises, and how it might be related to economic and political decisions or organizational practices. This article therefore begins by describing three macro- level crises that have significant implications for ethical decision-making in business and politics: the planetary crisis, the technological crisis, and the global justice crisis. The short investigation into the underlying causes and interconnections of these crises reveals that the capitalist economic system is a significant contributing factor. The article then moves on to the meso (educational institutions) and the micro level (decision makers) with the following questions: what role does ethics play in the education of future decision makers at business schools and could decision-making models used in medical ethics also help (future) managers to make ethical decisions for which they can take responsibility? A small research done by two students at the Swiss FHNW School of Business (HSW) shows that ethics is not a significant component in education at business schools today on the one side. On the other side, a brief survey indicated that students of the HSW perceive ethics to be a highly pertinent subject matter in practice. They found the training in ethical decision-making to be beneficial, particularly following the fundamental course in ethical theories and principles. This article presents such an ethical decision-making model in the final chapter. However, many questions remain unanswered: for example, whether and how students apply what they have learned in practice. Knowing how to act ethically does not mean that one acts ethically. In view of the crises that are being driven by our economic system, we should ask ourselves whether such ethical decision-making models could also be introduced in companies, just as they have been introduced in large hospitals.