Ethical issue, or issues, affecting the construction indistry today Research Paper

Ethical issue, or issues, affecting the construction indistry today - Research Paper Example These problems are getting more serious everyday because proper framework is not present to avoid ethical issues. In this essay two of the most prevalent ethical problems in the construction industry will be discussed that is use of low quality material and employee related issues. Use of Low Quality Material The use of low quality material is prevalent in construction industry because it is difficult to account for the materials beings used in constructions of buildings, houses, roads or bridges. Contractors and firms can use low quality material without any chance of being caught by the relevant authorities and this is why compromising quality is quite common in the construction business. The main focus of the construction companies is on cost cutting and as they attempt to crib expenses they are enticed to use low quality materials in their constructions. The article by Yosoff et al. (2006) explains that construction companies are prone to quality issues. The article explains how construction firms are coming under enormous pressure from authorities to mend their ways and therefore they are trying to adopt total quality management. The ethical issues like use of raw material are prevalent in the industry because of absence of any international standard. This leads to subjective decision making where room for unethical practices exist. It is also suggested that focus should be on changing the culture of construction industry in order to improve quality standards in the industry. Top level management should see quality management as essential and only then malpractices can be eradicated. Construction industry is also more likely to get affected by ethical issues because it spans over a large geographical areas. Especially in the developing countries construction is happening at a great speed therefore it is difficult to track problems. The use of low quality material in industries only gets noticed when there is a calamity. The earthquake in China revealed tha t low quality bricks were used in many buildings which caused many deaths and injuries (Krishnan, 2011). Use of low quality material also exists because people are poor and cannot afford to comply with safety standards (2011). Human Resource Management Issues Constructions industry is also known to deal with human resource in unethical ways. Many problems have been seen including low wages, lack of better safety standards and long work hours. These problems are a violation of employee ethics but they are ubiquitous in construction industry. This is because mostly unskilled workers are employed in construction firms therefore managers have a higher degree of bargaining power and can force workers to work for longer hours at a lower wage. The ethical issues the industry is facing are growing because no framework is present to reduce these problems. There is a divide between organizational and individual needs in construction industry (Yankov & Kleiner, 2001). This causes many employee related problems in the construction industry. Construction firms are reducing the number of skilled employees and are hiring unskilled worker who cost less for companies. The relationship between less skilled workers and management are destined to be volatile because they both have different preferences. Low skilled worker can only be motivated to work hard by giving monetary benefits while managers are trying to reduce costs all the time. This forms the basis of ethical issues related employees in the construct

Organizational Philosophies and Technology Paper Essay - 2

Organizational Philosophies and Technology Paper - Essay Example 1). A company's approach to the use of technology to help set and manage ethical standards and guidelines can have a tremendous influence on the type of work environment or culture a company promotes. The extent to which there is an overall laid back attitude toward ethics, or a serious one, or the extent to which employees feel trusted and comfortable in their work environment, all has a lot to do with a company's decisions about how it chooses to deploy technology to establish and maintain ethical behavior. Businesses must tread carefully when making these decisions, for they risk unintended repercussions that might result from an overly zealous attempt to manage employees' ethical behavior, such as low morale and job satisfaction that lead to reduced productivity and costly turnover. In addition to managing ethical guidelines, companies today are increasingly turning toward technology in order to perform human resources functions. Many of the administrative aspects of human resources have become automated and transformed into self service functionality by technology. These include management of such routine HR activities as benefits and leave management. This too can have an impact on company culture by forging an atmosphere of high efficiency and cutting edge capabilities, or else can lead employees to feel isolated without personal HR service. Ultimately, whether a company chooses to deploy technology as a means of monitoring employee activities and behavior, or to facilitate their execution of routine functions, the potential repercussions must be weighed against to anticipated benefits of such technology. Unfortunately, the former are often not as easy to predict as the latter. Setting Ethical Standards via Technology "The need to address ethics in companies that deal with information technology has increased over the past several years as more and more transactions are handled using information systems" (Stanwick & Stanwick, 2001, para. 2). Technology has raised employee ethical concerns in the areas of property rights and obligations, policies pertaining to company proprietary as well as customer information, and employee privacy and monitoring (para. 5 - 9). Companies today are leveraging technology more than ever before to communicate expectations for performance and behavior to employees. Most companies have intranets containing a wealth of information regarding policies and procedures to which employees can refer when they have questions. For example, workers can often retrieve employee handbooks, review HR procedures and processes, view and make changes to tax information, benefits elections, and so forth. Online learning has become another key venue for communicating with employees about appropriate behavioral and performance expectations. In the wake of the corporate accounting scandals of a few years ago, many companies have required employees to take e-learning classes on how to ensure legal compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. These types of courses often provide guidance on what to do when presented with various types of ethically challenging scenarios, and give the company an opportunity to clearly communicate ethical standards and guidelines to every employee. Technology has also given companies the ability to track