Management Dynamics
Purpose
This
written assessment is the first of two,and it provides students with an exercise
to assist in their understanding of two important areas of enquiry in management,
viz.: the issues, concepts, themes and principles associated with business
ethics and ethical practice within organisations and with the roles that
leaders and their leadership, particularly ethical leadership, can have on an
organisation developing, maintaining or further improving its own ethical
culture. As indicated in the lecture on
business ethics (and corporate social responsibility) this issue is attracting
more and more attention by large organisations in terms of what their
customers, other stakeholders and the general public think about them. How do organisations go about putting in
place and then embedding a socially responsible agenda and an ethical
culture? It would seem that the
organisation’s leaders have a role to play; but do organisations with ethical
cultures create ethical leaders or do ethical leaders create, develop and embed
ethical cultures into organisations? In
the lecture on leaders and leadership there was a distinction made between the
leaders who is a person with certain characteristics and traits and their
leadership which is an outward expression of the activities and acts that these
leaders have with their followers. So
are leaders with high moral identity the only ones that can express ethical
leadership or are leaders and their leadership not so closely coupled? These are some of the issues that you will
need to consider when responding to the more specific questions outlined below
in terms of your response to this assessment on ethical leadership. In addition, this written assignment provides
you with an opportunity to demonstrate your level of information literacy, and
your ability to present a cogent and coherent piece of writing that includes
appropriate critical analysis relevant to what is outlined below in terms of
this assessment. THAT IS, MERELY REPORTING WHAT OTHERS SAY DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN
EFFECTIVE ANSWER TO THIS ASSESSMENT.
In your critical analysis you should consider the views of others and
then argue on what you consider is their contribution in terms of ethical
leadership. Completing this assignment will
assist you to achieve learning outcomes 1, 2, and 3 shown in the unit outline.
Assessment
The
importance of ethical leadership is a subject of interest in current management
and leadership research. To some extent
this has been driven by what has been seen as an on-going sequence of large,
dominant and indeed global organisations behaving badly since around the turn
of this century. Many of these
organisations were financial institutions involved in quite questionable
lending practices that ultimately led to the global financial crisis and in
some cases to their own demise. It is
contended that if these organisations had had a more ethical culture then the
practices by a few senior managers may not have led to either their demise or
their significant loss of corporate reputation.
With hindsight possibly leaders with high moral values and good ethical
leadership could have made a difference to the outcomes suffered by these
organisations. Based on the discussion
in the lectures on leaders and leadership as well as on corporate social
responsibility and business ethics and the discussions that you had in the Week
2 and the Week 4 tutorials you are develop an essay about ethical leadership
that addresses the following questions:
a.
Do you believe that leaders are hard
wired in terms of their ethical values and so do not or cannot change; or are
leaders able to be flexible so at times will they display ethical standards and
ethical leadership while at others maybe not?
b.
Does an ethical leader have to be both
a ‘moral person’ as well as a ‘moral manager’?
c.
Is it easier to act unethically and
express unethical leadership towards followers than it is to act ethically and
express ethical leadership? For example,
if unethical leadership and the acts related to this leadership rely on not
being found out how realistic is this presumption? Is it the case that in the end you are always
found out?
d.
What role do think Rupert Murdoch played in
establishing a culture within News Corporation that ultimately led its
employees to engage in the practice of phone hacking? Do you consider Rupert Murdoch to be an
unethical leader?
e.
When looking at the statements or letters from your
ASX-listed corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (or Managing Director) and
Chairman, what inferences can you make about whether or not these people
demonstrate ethical leadership within their organisation?
Your response MUST include discussion for the
following sources, viz.:
Brown, ME & Mitchell,
MS 2010, ‘Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future
Research’, Business Ethics Quarterly,
Vol. 20, No. 4, October, pp. 583-616.
Amernic, J & Craig, R
2013, ‘Leadership Discourse, Culture, and Corporate Ethics: CEO-speak at News
Corporation’, Journal of Business Ethics,
Vol. 118, No. 2, pp. 379–394.
In addition to the required sourcesshown above, you
should use AT LEAST TWO other
references that you have found. A superior
answer will also include some real world examples as part of the evidence that
supports your claims and arguments. The
format of this assessment item should follow a discussion essay format with a
brief introduction, a body and a brief conclusion
You also need to support any claims that you make
by using relevant research literature, concentrating on peer-reviewed or
scholarly sources. Note that newspaper
articles and Wikipedia are not considered scholarly sources due to issues about
peer review of the material presented.
However, you can use newspaper articles and Wikipedia to obtain a
general understanding on a topic that you are researching. Where
scholarly sources are used then appropriate citing and referencing of these
sources should be completed as part of your submission.
Length
1000 words (± 100
words). Given the short length of this
assessment item you should aim to be clear and concise in your writing in order
to adhere to the word limit. Avoid lengthy descriptions, particularly of any
material presented in lectures, in your text or from other sources. Do not use direct quotations but rather
briefly paraphrase what is discussed in your sources.Note this word count does NOT include the words used to
compile your ‘References’ section at the end of your submission.
Format
Given the assessment asks for a response to
specific questions, it is not strictly a discussion essay but you still need to
follow the essay format for this assessment.
As stated above, acknowledgement of any information sources must occur
through using an in-text citation as well as a reference entry in the
‘References’ section at the end of the essay for each source used.
Presentation
1.
Make sure that you insert your assignment into this
assignment template before uploading to the Turnitin assignment drop box.
2.
As you are
adopting an essay format for this assessment, you should NOT use headings or sub-headings.
3.
Entries
should be put into the footer where requested by this template.
4.
The font to
be used for this assignment is either Arial or Times New Roman script, 12 point
font size, 1.5 line spacing, and left justified.
5.
You also
need to familiarise yourself with the Academic Misconduct Policy regarding
plagiarism and collusion.
