QUALITY MANAGEMENT, ETHICS,

AND CORPORATE SOCIAL

RESPONSIBILITY
It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. —Alfred Adler

MAJOR TOPICS
. Definition and Overview of Ethics
. Trust and Total Quality
. Values and Total Quality
. Integrity and Total Quality
. Responsibility and Total Quality
. Manager’s Role in Ethics
. Organization’s Role in Ethics
. Handling Ethical Dilemmas
. Ethics Training and Codes of Business Conduct
. Models for Making Ethical Decisions
. Beliefs Versus Behavior: Why the Disparity?
. Ethical Dilemmas: Cases
. Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Engaging in insider trading, accepting a higher commission

for selling an inferior product, accepting gifts
from suppliers, and hiring a friend or relative instead
of a more qualified applicant—these are all examples
of ethics violations that are common in today’s workplace.
Yet, nearly universal agreement exists that business
practices in the modern workplace should be
above reproach with regard to ethical behavior. Few
people are willing to defend unethical behavior, and
for the most part, business and industry operate within
the scope of acceptable legal and ethical standards.
Ethical behavior is particularly important in a total
quality setting in which trust, integrity, and values
figure prominently in everyday human interactions.
DEFINITION AND OVERVIEW
OF ETHICS
Ethics is about doing the right thing within a moral framework.
In other words, it is the practical application of morality.
What is ethical in a given situation is decided by applying
the values that comprise the prevailing moral framework.
The fundamental question that arises in any ethical dilemma
is this: If I believe in a given standard of right and wrong, how
should these beliefs guide my actions, behavior, attitude, and
decisions ? The ever-present challenge, of course, is not just
determining what is right but also following through and
doing what is right.
Human Factors That Contribute
to Unethical Behavior
Breaches of ethical conduct are, unfortunately, common in
today’s hectic, hypercompetitive global business environment.
The most common impediment to ethical conduct is
simply human nature. Human beings tend to behave according
to the principle of perceived personal interest . An unfortunate
fact of life is that it will often appear that a person’s
personal interests are best served—at least in the short run—
by an unethical choice. Factors that contribute to this type of
misguided perception include greed, impatience, ego, fear,
expedience, ambition, and need.
Driven by greed, a CEO might decide to deliver a large
lot of manufactured goods he knows are defective. Driven
by impatience, a person might push her employees to perform
a job in an unsafe manner that could lead to accidents
and injuries. Driven by ego, a person might claim credit for
superior work that was actually performed by someone else.
Driven by fear of retribution, a person who knows his boss
is lying to stockholders might simply ignore the fact and
look the other way. Driven by expedience, a person might
cut corners in ways that could lead to tragic results. Driven
by misguided ambition, a person might lie on her resume,
adding a degree she has not completed. Finally, driven by
the need to pay the mounting hospital bills for his sick
child, a person might use a company credit card for personal
expenses.
In all of these cases, people made unethical choices
based on misguided personal interest. Even though one
might, understandably, feel sympathy for the individual who
was struggling to pay mounting hospital bills, the choice he
made to misuse a company credit card was still an unethical
choice. Doing the wrong thing, even for the right reasons, is
still wrong. Extenuating circumstances do not alter what is
right or wrong, just as understanding why a person makes an