Trends in Organizational Behavior

Essay by wee-haaUniversity, Bachelor's June 2006

download word file, 4 pages 4.0

Downloaded 194 times

It would seem that trends exist in the study of all things. Therefore, organizational behavior should be no different than any other subject. Trends exist within organizational behavior as well. This paper will be concerned with two of the trends that exist in organizational behavior. These two trends are: The influence of ethics on decision making and the impact of technology on work-related stress. Using research, this paper will examine some of the facts behind both of these trends.

Ethics and Decision Making

What is decision making? Decision making is a process that each individual person undertakes daily. It involves the basic standards of critical thinking which includes: perception, assumptions, arguments, logic, and problem solving. "In the process of decision making, there can be no greater standard to use as a guide than ethics" (McDowell 1). If this is the case, what is ethics?

Ethics is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as "the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession".

The problem with ethics is diversity. Diversity is a key element in organizational cultures in the world today. However, ethical ideas vary in individuals as a result of diversity. Ethics are taught as people grow. This means that one's ethical values can be influenced by a number of factors. Ethnicity and demographic location are just two of the many factors that can influence a person's ethical values. Each individual person perceives ideas differently according to the subjective experiences that may have shaped that person's ethical code of conduct. This is not to say that people can not agree though. In general, ethical values tend to be very similar but not exactly similar for each individual. Most people agree that murder is wrong and should be punished. However,