ETH 5900 Module 1 Written Assignment: Personal Ethics, Relativism and a Supplier's Gift Example

A Jade Paperweight in the Mail: Personal Ethics, Relativism and a Supplier's Gift

Student Name

Master of Science in Management, Thomas Edison State University

ETH-5900: Ethics for Managers

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

A Jade Paperweight in the Mail: Personal Ethics, Relativism and a Supplier's Gift

The Sources of My Ethics

Byars and Stanberry (2018) describe personal ethics as the values a person brings to work from family, faith, education and experience, and business ethics as the application of ethical reasoning to commercial life. My own ethics come largely from my father, who ran a small hardware store and refused to sell a customer something the customer did not need, and from eleven years in purchasing, where I have watched trust between buyers and suppliers save money and broken trust cost far more. I hold three commitments at work: I will not let personal benefit influence a purchasing decision, I will treat suppliers the way I would want to be treated and I will be able to explain any decision to my company's owners in public.

Ethical Reasoning and Ethical Relativism

Ethical reasoning means judging actions by principles that can be stated and defended, such as consequences, duties, rights or virtues, and testing them against objections. Ethical relativism is the view that right and wrong are only what a culture or individual happens to approve, so there is no standard by which to judge across cultures. Two different claims are often blurred. Cultural relativism is a description: practices do vary, and gift customs in particular differ widely. Ethical relativism is a conclusion: that because practices vary, none can be judged better than another. The first is plainly true. The second does not follow from it, and it has an awkward consequence: if it were true, a culture that accepted bribery or child labor could not be criticized, even by its own reformers. Rest (1986) described ethical action as four steps, recognizing that a situation has a moral dimension, judging what is right, deciding to act on that judgment and following through; relativism tends to stall the process at the second step by suggesting there is no answer to find.

The Dilemma

Our company buys most of its printed plastic film from a family-owned supplier overseas we have worked with for nine years. Last December, a package arrived at my home, not my office, containing a carved jade paperweight with a note thanking me for "our long friendship." A similar piece sells for about $600. Our contract with the supplier comes up for renewal in March, and a domestic film maker has offered a competing bid. Our company policy limits gifts to $75 and requires disclosure of any gift.

The supplier's sales director, when I raised it, explained that year-end gifts to important partners are customary in his country and that refusing would be insulting. A colleague told me that "when in Rome" applies and I should simply keep it.

Applying Ethical Reasoning

A relativist answer, keep it because it is customary, misses what matters. Donaldson and Dunfee (1994) propose integrative social contracts theory as a middle path between relativism and imposing one culture's rules on another. Communities may set their own norms, which the theory calls "moral free space," but only within "hypernorms," principles so widely shared that they bind everyone, and only when the local norm is authentic, understood and freely accepted by the people it affects.

Two tests apply. First, is giving modest gifts to business partners an authentic local norm? Yes; it is widely practiced and openly acknowledged in the supplier's country. Second, does this particular gift conflict with a hypernorm or with the norms of the other community involved, my company? Here the answer changes. A $600 gift sent to my home just before a contract decision looks less like a token of friendship than like an attempt to influence a purchasing choice, and the principle that people entrusted with others' resources should not let personal benefit sway their decisions is widely shared across cultures. My company's community has also set a clear norm, the $75 limit with disclosure, which I accepted when I took the job.

My Decision

I disclosed the gift to our owners the day it arrived, with a photograph and the supplier's note. With their agreement, I wrote to the sales director thanking him warmly, explaining that our policy does not allow me to accept a gift of this value and that the paperweight would be displayed in our reception area as a gift to the company from his family. This honored the relationship, avoided insult and removed any personal benefit before the renewal. The contract was then decided on price, quality and delivery, as it should have been.

Conclusion

Recognizing that cultures differ does not settle what is right. Ethical reasoning lets a manager respect local custom while still asking whether a particular act, in its context, serves the people who trust her. This decision met my three commitments: no personal benefit, fair treatment of the supplier and a choice I could explain in public.

References

Byars, S. M., & Stanberry, K. (2018). Business ethics. OpenStax.

Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T. W. (1994). Toward a unified conception of business ethics: Integrative social contracts theory. Academy of Management Review, 19(2), 252-284. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1994.9410210749

Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral development: Advances in research and theory. Praeger.