KALİTE YÖNETİMİ

Four responsibilities are: Economic Responsibilities, Legal Responsibilities, Ethical Responsibilities, Philanthropic responsibilities. The correct answer is "D".

Understanding of quality in management thinking has been changing and evolving in time.  According to Garvin (1988, cited in Kok, et. al. 2001: 285), there are four distinguishable periods in the development of quality thinking. Quality has been related primarily to the products or services and their performances in the first stage. In the second stage, the focus shifted from production line to the process. In the third stage, the focus has moved from process to system. The fourth stage can be called as the Total Quality Management (TQM) stage, in which quality has become a more strategic issue and the focus is broadened towards the quality of the organization and its relationships with its environment such as customers, suppliers, competitors, and society at large.

Recent interpretations of TQM refer to concepts like organizational learning, business ethics, social responsibility, and governance, which go beyond improvement of productionrelated processes. Moreover, the rising importance of the product liability concept has made CSR a crucial aspect of quality.

Improving the organization’s ethical climate is essential to avoiding failures in the organization and enhancing the quality of its operation. This may be accomplished through various means. Of utmost importance is the need for top management leadership. The behavior of managers has the most important influence on the ethical behavior of their subordinates.

Ethics can be defined as the principles, norms, and standards of conduct governing an individual or group. In this definition, the word “conduct” is important. If the management focuses on conduct, ethics becomes an extension of good management. Leaders identify appropriate and inappropriate conduct, and they communicate their expectations to employees through ethics codes, training programs, and other communication channels. On the other hand, an ethical behavior in business can be defined as ‘‘behavior that is consistent with the principles, norms, and standards of business practice that have been agreed upon by the society’’.

Ethical problems remain a major concern in the workplace. Despite a heightened emphasis on business ethics following the scandals earlier this decade, a significant number of employees say they still witness questionable workplace behavior. Here is the percentage of employees who say they observed certain behaviors in the previous year, according to a survey of 2,852 workers by the Ethics Resource Center (Questionable Workplace Behavior as Reported by Employees,” National Business Ethics Survey- 2009, cited in DuBrin, 2012: 80):

• Lying to employees (19%)
• Engaging in conflicts of interest (16%)
• Lying to outside stakeholders (12%)
• Engaging in health and safety violations (11%)
• Producing poor product quality (9%)
• Stealing (9%)
• Sexual harassment (7%)

A standard way of understanding ethical decision-making is to know the philosophical basis for making these decisions. Here, four types of philosophical basis directing ethical behaviors will be introduced: Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics

People in organizations may face ethical dilemmas from time to time. An ethical dilemma is a problem or issue that confronts a person, group, or organization and that requires a decision or choice among competing claims and interests, all of which may be unethical (i.e., against all parties’ principles). Decision alternatives presented by an ethical dilemma usually involve solutions that do not satisfy all stakeholders. In some situations, there may be a resolution to an ethical dilemma that is the “right” thing to do, although none of the stakeholders’ material interests are benefited.

Compliance with ethical codes is essential to create and sustain a climate where ethical behaviors flourish. So, what is this code of ethics? A code of ethics is a formal statement of the company’s values concerning ethics and social responsibility; it clarifies to employees what the company stands for and its expectations for employee conduct.

According to TQM guru Deming, management’s principal goal should be creating “consistency of purpose”. Achieving such consistency requires that management and the firm as a whole become quite clear and articulate about the firm’s goals. Since acting well requires critically examining beliefs and commitments, being explicit about them is a crucial first step toward behaving ethically.

Carroll (1991:39-42) conceptualized four levels of corporate social responsibilities. These four responsibilities do not exclude each other; in fact they are interconnected. Carroll depicted the relationship among them in his Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility (See Figure 2.2). The pyramid demonstrates that a socially responsible organization should act with respect to law, hold ethical values and demonstrate its virtues by acting as a good corporate citizen, along with making profits. Four responsibilities are as follows: