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Jennifer Post University of Phoenix Introduction Organizational change is when companies are undergoing or have undergone a transformation to some degree. While implementing change into a business environment, many issues arise that test ethics and morals alike. In today’s world, organizations must introduce change in their business in order to advance and compete with the fast moving business world around that surrounds us. Companies must carefully introduce changes while at the same time considering the ethic implications of the changes introduced (Remnant, 2008).
The list of changes that can be made within a company is endless and continually being added to. Examples of changes that companies can introduce include; the introduction of new technologies, conduction of mergers and acquisitions, a company downsizing as a result of redundancy, restructuring of operations, introducing a new production line, outsourcing of business services to an outside provider, introduction of new programs such as training reward schemes or performance evaluation (Shoeshine, 009). This paper discusses the various types of changes and the ethical challenges it poses for the organization.
Ethical Issues While Implementing Changes Introducing change into the organization is done with hopes that it will improve the companies’ business processes. However, any type of change has its consequences for both the organization and the employees. (Haskins, 2010). Every employee with react to the change differently, some for the better, and others for the worse. The changes that pose the ethical issues for the organization include some of the allowing. Introduction of New Technologies, when a company brings an advanced new technology system in order to be more productive or efficient.
The goal in mind is to do more with less. Some examples of ethical implications from the changes that must be faced when introducing new technology are that some employees will fear that they will either lose their Jobs because the new technology being introduced will perform their tasks or cause management to cut costs and replace employees with new employees that are more familiar with the technology. Mergers or Acquisitions is next on the list. This is when a business decides to combine their Dustless processes Walt tense AT competitor Tells, or Duty an excellent Dustless (Shoeshine, 2009).
The ethical implication of the changes that arise from mergers or acquisitions in the business include; employees risk losing their Jobs due to human resource restructuring measures, employees are forced to face a completely new environment and structure, employees might also face a workload increase or decrease causing stress at work and in their personal lives. Consumers may also be effected with a fear of monopolies and exploitation. Downsizing, this is brought up when there is law demand for the companies’ products at a set cost.
Downsizing brings to light a loss of Jobs, which increases the unemployment rate and in turn effects the economy as a whole for both the working and unemployed. (Haskins, 2010). On top of that, while the organization downsizes in employees, the production requirement does not, leaving the same amount of work to be done with less manpower to achieve the task. Another form of change comes from introducing a new product line. As a result of arrest demands or diversification measures, changing the product line increases profit as well as market share value.
The ethical implications from introducing a new product line may include employees requiring training in the new product. Individual organizations have to decide if the risk of spending money on training will surpass the profit of the new product. The organization may face resistance from employees that are stuck in their ways and do not believe the new product will be successful. If the new product does not do well on the market, shareholders are likely to withdraw heir shareholding from these companies causing a possible collapse of the company (Shoeshine, 2009).
Outsourcing business services to an external provider also poses ethical issues because employees may see this as the company being incompetent and unable to handle the task on their own (Basher & Faze, 2007). The biggest ethical implication from outsourcing is that employees within the organization who feel competent to perform the outsourced service will feel neglected and overlooked. Another fear is that shareholders may feel that some business services that have been outsourced an be performed by the same organization outsourcing the services.
This may cause them to see it as funds that may as well be profits being transferred to other organizations. If a company begins to outsource services to other countries, there will be social implications such as unemployment as well as a reduction in economic output. In order to keep the moral up within organizations during and after times of change, Companies will try to introduce reward schemes or performance evaluation schemes. This is done as a way of rewarding employees according to their individual bevels of performance as well as checking the overall contributions of employees into the organization (Butts, 2006).
The ethical implications from introducing reward schemes as well as performance evaluation schemes include greed and animosity amongst employees. Employees that perform poorly will feel as if their earnings are drastically reduced, due to the idea that they are being paid based on their individual performance. Employees that will be evaluated poorly will feel a sense of Job insecurity or will have to attend training on the areas that they have scored poorly, all the while other employees are advancing. Mom smartness malign Tell Tanat some reward schemes will stand to benefit employee’s efforts because if they perform better, they will be rewarded highly. This will please some shareholders and may upset others. Conclusion Business ethics during the introduction of change into the organization should be evaluated and measured throughout the entire process. Change is Just that, a process and must be viewed as such by all parties involved. The most universal attribute that comes with change is fear. Balancing what is best for the organization, the employees, and the stakeholders is ere hard however also vitally important.