Leading and Managing People

Business ethics has become an important aspect of modern business as it helps a business to stay ethical while operating by acting as a guideline or framework. Although there are businesses ethical issues faced by various firms in the operations with the use of effective leadership and management the companies and organization can overcome such problems benefiting the following in an evident manner.

Task 1

In this section there will be discussion over the potential ethical risk that has happened on previous occasions and that can affect the current procurement agency operation in the context of accountability, transparency and employee conduct.   It should be mentioned that through the use of current case studies the potential risks that exist within procure agency operation can be evaluated in an evident manner. Below are some examples procurement agency scandals that have happened in the past few years:

1. Recently in England an NHS official was sentenced to 3.5 years of jail for taking bribes of nearly £80,000 for granting a tender of an IT contract that was worth £1 million. The name of the conspirator was Peter Lewis and he was the director of informatics in the Royal Surrey County.  It was seen that this individual took a bribe from a person to make sure that the IT tender contract was given to him and the bribe was directly paid to his bank account. 
2. In recent years one case within the University of Buffalo has become very famous in which a maintenance supervisor of the dorm room of University of Buffalo accepted a bribe of $100,000 to give the tender contract of painting the rooms. The supervisor named Dean A Jerry took the bribe from his friend Joseph LoVerto for granting him the contract of the painting rooms.

Both of these cases show some serious concerns and ethical risks that can affect the operation between the Governing body and PA operations of Orion Analytics. Hence the following risks can be evaluated to show the understanding over different types of ethical risks that are associated with the operations of the firm and they are as follows;

1. Accountability: Accountability refers to the responsibility that the Procurement agency will take to operate for the governing body which is the royal family.  The risks that the agency may not take their responsibility and do not show accountability for the operation is not ethical and can affect the ethical operations of the firm. If the procurement agency which is Orion Analytics is not responsible while using the financial resources as well as physical resources provided by the government then it can cause financial damage to the following.  Unethical use of financial resources will affect the accountability of the procurement agency to responsibly use the resources in order to conduct the operations (Barry, 2016).
2. Transparency: Transparency is an important element that must exist between the Procurement agency and the government which is the royal family. Reporting the financial and operational activities in the operations is to be done to maintain the transparency and flow of information between the PA and the government. Unethical reporting such as overvaluing expenses, resetting higher cost and faking operations is unethical and may lead to unethical operations by the firm.
3. Employee ethical conduct: Employee count is the way procurement agencies manage their employees. It is important that the firm properly and ethically manages its employees to create a positive and ethical work environment. If the PA is not able to conduct its employees in an ethical manner it can lead to unethical behaviors of employees which will further create issues for the firm by increasing unethical events within the operations.

Task 2

The ethical risks that have been identified above must be mitigated by Orion Analytics in order to make sure that they are able to get the trust needed from the royal family to enter a contract of procurement agency. In this section the options and procedures of how the company will manage these ethical problems will be discussed to make sure that the royal family is convinced that the firm will effectively manage different ethical problems and conduct PA operations ethically and efficiently. The ways management to manage the ethical problems is as follows;

1. Accountability:  In order to effectively manage the accountability problems that have been indicated in the case studies above the company will set ethical norms and principles that will help the firm in operating in an ethical and responsible manner. The first option or procedure that the company will implement is that the company will set the standards for responsible use of financial and physical resources so that the organization effectively manages and uses the financial and physical resources to operate in an ethical manner. The firm through this policy will make sure that there is no excessive or unethical use of resources that has been allocated by the governing bodies.  The second option that the company has chosen is to delegate the responsibility to employees for using resources with accountability. Through doing this the PA will be able to make sure that employees and agents are held responsible for unethical or unnecessary use of resources. This will ensure that the element of accountability is embedded within the operational activities of the firm (Robertson et al. 2017).
2. Transparency:  In order to make sure that there is proper flow of information and communication between the PA and the government body which is the Royal family the company will remove the transparency barrier making sure that the operational and financial activities of Orion Analytics is transparent. This will decrease the chance of unethical activities such as false reporting, overvalued invoices and false claim of expenses that are fraudulent errors.  This will also make sure that a trustful relationship between the governing body and the Procurement agency is developed. For this purpose Orion Analytics has chosen to go for the option of implementing the ethical system of reporting the information and data related to the operational and financial activities of the firm. It is important to understand by implementing these ethical policies the company will be able to effectively provide detailed information to the governing body to help them assess the ethical operation of the PA making sure that their trust is increased in an efficient manner (Kaptein, 2017).
3. Employee ethical conduct:  It is important that the company makes sure that its employees and workforce operate in an ethical manner and that the following are also treated equally in every context. Now for the purpose making sure that the employee operate in an ethical manner the firm has gone for the option of ethical training to make sure an ethical working habit and workforce is developed that performs every PA operations in an ethical manner decreasing the chance of unethical conducts such as taking bribe, misrepresentation of information and alterations of operational activities. This helps the organization in effectively making sure that it is able to create ethical working conditions and the second policy that the company will take is to reward the employees for their ethical conduct in order to motivate them for ethical conduct. The firm will also ensure that employees are treated fairly and equally in the operations. The policy will make sure that all the employees of the firm are fairly and equally treated and given opportunities to operate within the company.  The table below shows the different categories in which the ethical conducts are to be maintained and the options of policies that the firm will use is also provided.

Category	Options	Option A	Option B
Accountability	Ethical and responsible use of resources Delegation of authority and holding employee accountable	4	6
Transparency	Ethical reporting of operational and financial events and activities	10	0
Employee ethical conduct	Ethical training of the employees and workforce Rewarding employees for ethical operations	5	5

Table 1: Option assessment matrix

(Source: self generated)

Task 3

In order to effectively manage the ethical operations and in order to assure the royal family that the operation of the PA will be ethical in nature. The company should use the Ethical leadership model which will ensure that ethical operations are conducted by the firm and the trust of the governing body increases over the firm.

Figure 1: Ethical leadership

(Source: Xu et al. 2016)

As the image above shows that in ethical leadership the leader focuses on values of respecting others, serving others, showing justice, manifesting honesty and building community (Xu et al. 2016). This method or model of leadership is very suitable for the current scenario as it helps the management to focus on ethical values before conducting the PA operations. This will increase the ethical operation of the firm and will also help the firm gain trust from the royal family.

Looking at one of these case studies as an example it can be said that change management of leadership can be used to initiate ethical changes required by the NHS to make sure that the operations conducted by the employee and personnel are ethical in nature. Using leadership change management will help the firm in implementing ethical framework and guidelines and will restrict and train the employees of the firm from taking bribes or conducting any other unethical operations that affect the ethical environment of the organization (Engelbrecht et al. 2017).

Looking at the learning’s that have been gained it is recommended to Orion Analytics that through the use of ethical leadership models and above stated ethical theories the company will be able to effectively increase the ethical operation of the firm. This will also ensure that the trust and relationship with the royal family can be increased through efficiency.

Conclusion

Concluding in the light of above context it can be said that through the use of effective strategy and ethical leadership model Orion Analytics can increase the trust of the royal family over the PA operation of the firm. In this way the royal family or the governing body of the Middle Eastern State can also operate with an ethically sound company.

You may also like similar pages such as Leading and Managing Organisational Resources, Leading Organization Changes | Business Study, Management Practice

References

Barry, N., 2016. Business ethics. Springer.

Engelbrecht, A.S., Heine, G. and Mahembe, B., 2017. Integrity, ethical leadership, trust and work engagement.

Kaptein, M., 2017. The battle for business ethics: A struggle theory. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(2), pp.343-361.

Robertson, D.C., Voegtlin, C. and Maak, T., 2017. Business ethics: The promise of neuroscience. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(4), pp.679-697.

Xu, A.J., Loi, R. and Ngo, H.Y., 2016. Ethical leadership behavior and employee justice perceptions: The mediating role of trust in organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(3), pp.493-504.