Conflicting Responsibilities

Joseph L. Badaracco

Background Note | HBS Case Collection | July 1991 (Revised June 1993)

Conflicting Responsibilities

Abstract

Presents a framework for resolving issues in which managers' responsibilities--to shareholders, employees, other stakeholder groups, and to their own values and commitments in life--conflict with each other. The framework analyzes these issues in terms of duties, consequences, personal values, and practicality. Provides an analytic framework for a course or module on business ethics, that brings together basic considerations in moral philosophy with practical pressures, perspectives, and concerns of business executives.

Keywords: Ethics; Employees; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations;

Format: Print

5 pages

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Citation:

Badaracco, Joseph L. "Conflicting Responsibilities." Harvard Business School Background Note 392-002, July 1991. (Revised June 1993.)

This note focuses on managers’ responsibilities—economic, legal, and ethical—to investors. In capitalist and some socialist economies, these responsibilities traditionally have been grounded in fiduciary duties and are typically part of the common law or statutory law or are incorporated in civil codes. But, as this note will show, fiduciary obligations are deeply intertwined with economic and ethical responsibilities.

When we think of human behavior, especially from a moral perspective, we often rely on explanations based on character. We think that good decisions and responsible behavior require people with integrity and strong character and that immoral behavior originates within people with little integrity and weak character. However, important research in recent decades strongly suggests that situational factors often dominate character in ethical decision making—for leaders and for members of their organizations. This note summarizes the recent research, shows its implications for the basic steps in ethical decision making, and provides a basis for in-depth discussion of the character-versus-situation question.

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Conflicting Responsibilities

Abstract

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