Managing an Ethical Dilemma

Figar Nadica () and Đorđević Biljana ()
Additional contact information
Figar Nadica: University of Nis, Faculty of Economics, Serbia
Đorđević Biljana: University of Nis, Faculty of Economics, Serbia

Economic Themes, 2016, vol. 54, issue 3, 345-362

Abstract: An ethical dilemma is a situation of making a choice between two or more alternatives. An agent is in unpleasant and difficult situation because he/she often needs to make a choice between ethical and unethical alternatives, and when it comes to the ethical alternatives, he/she should choose the best one. Selection reflects to a large number of principals, so this situation causes conflicts between different levels of ethical dilemmas, but also the conflicts within the same level. These conflicts can be solved by applying the hierarchy and priority rules which are incorporated in the procedure and, in particular,in the strategy for solving the ethical dilemmas. Through many case studies this paper points out the importance of an ethical dilemma in making business decisions, the so-called business ethical dilemma. It is the result of the incompatibilities between altruism, egoism and the common good. Neglecting the need for establishing the compatibility not only creates an ethical dilemma, but it becomes deeper, which is firstly manifested through the loss of reputation of the company, then through decreasing the financial results, and, in the worst case, in closing the company. Therefore, an ethical dilemma must be continuously managed.

Keywords: ethics; ethical dilemma; types of ethical dilemmas; strategies; RIMS strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ethemes-2016-0017 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:ecothe:v:54:y:2016:i:3:p:345-362:n:2

DOI: 10.1515/ethemes-2016-0017

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Themes is currently edited by Marija Radosavljević

More articles in Economic Themes from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().