QUESTIONS 1. What were the organizational ethical leadership problems that resulted in Columbia/ HCA's misconduct? 2. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of FICA's current ethics program. Does this...

Ethics
Business Ethics
Hospital Corporation of America
Learning from Past Mistakes
Ethics
Introduction
Ethics form an essential element of a business. It leads to righteousness in businesses.
The HCA is one such organization that required to revamp its ethical policies in order to suit the
present day businesses as well as comply with the present legislations, rules and regulations. It
ecomes essential that there be appropriate levels of growth associated with ethics and
usinesses should not concentrate only on profitability.
Corporate social responsibility is very beneficial for the businesses as it involves lot of
factors which help businesses to grow and innovate efficiently. CSR leads to value creation
incorporated into business strategy and developing human capital and integrates business into the
community. As undue compensation leads to increased overheads which are passed over to the
patients and this is considered unethical (Marquis & Houston, 2006).
Classical virtues refer to the set of basis of ethical behavior given by Aristotle consisting
of courage, justice, temperance and prudence forms a basis of governance, ethical practices and
decision making. It states that a decision or judgment should be based on courage to support and
stand by the truth. There should be forethought, good sense and carefulness in a decision along
with temperance.
The organizational ethical leadership problems that resulted in Columbia's/ HCA's
misconduct
The organizational ethical leadership problems that resulted in Columbia's/HCA's
misconduct is lack of internal controls for ethics and lack of corporate social responsibility
programs. CSR is advantageous in case of risk management with the purpose of compliance and
mitigates operational impact and risks. Contribution in CSR leads to healthier external
elationship which helps in developing good relations with stakeholders and increasing their
interest in the company. In this way it is extremely crucial that a business does operate as an
important element of the society and does not focus only on profits. Profits is truly an important
element in a business but ethics and corporate social responsibility should not be ignored for the
purpose of achieving success in business.
The utilitarian approach does advocate that the benefit of the larger mass of people
should be focused on and a decision should be taken based on the interests of the larger mass of
people (Marquis & Houston, 2006). 0Based on this the shareholders do form a majority. Their
interest should definitely be protected. Automation should be implemented. But on the other
hand the employees are also an integral part of the organization's success and retrenchment can
ing in lowering of motivation which results in indirect losses in operational efficiency. So it is
important to try and avoid retrenchment to the maximum possible extent (Marquis & Houston,
2006).
Ethics
In case of HCA, ethics were ignored. Parachute benefits and excess compensation to
executives is a wrong way of appropriation of profits. But the issue is that this happens at the
cost of shareholders and stakeholders interests which is not right. Profits are a crucial element for
all businesses. The implications for the goals of a firm as to whether to maximize the industry’s
profits or to create more value for the shareholders through a merger are based on the concept of
profit maximization as well as wealth maximization. If all for-profit firms act to minimize the
cost of risk and thereby maximize shareholder value, this will also minimize the societal cost of
isk. The reason for this is that the shareholders and stakeholders belong to the society and the
economy will be benefitted in this manner. It should be ensured that the ethics are strong enough
to not create conflicts between the policy of the organization and the interests of the shareholders
(Clarkson, 1995).
The American economy is based on the principles of equality, justice and rights. These
form the basis of the American economy. The four basic principles justifying ethical reasoning
can justify equality, justice and rights to be the characteristics of the American economic system.
These principles form the basis for reasoning and help decide if a decision is appropriate or not
ased on its utility, compliance of rights and duties, justice and fairness and caring (Marquis &
Houston, 2006).
Strength's and weaknesses of HCA's cu
ent ethics program
The cu
ent ethics program of HCA is supported by an ethics committee and it has an
infrastructure where in it is possible to
ing in better sensitivity among the employees for ethics.
But at the same time the weakness of the cu
ent ethics program is that it is not strong enough to
e well implemented. Business ethics refer to the usage of right practices and decisions in
usiness....