Organizational Ethics – Privacy Issues in Email Regulations

Organizational Ethics – Privacy Issues in Email Regulations
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June 17, 2020
Organizational ethics is perhaps one of the most contested yet intriguing fields of ethics. It espouses a never-ending debate about the need to balance to individual member needs and the collective aims of an organization in a way that it becomes acceptable for everyone. However, it is a common belief that ethics that there is a thin line between what is ethical or not within an organization. In turn, this thin line creates a necessity for an in-depth analysis of the decision-making, collective action, and the respect of individual rights, among others, within the organizational context.
In this article, the author would discuss one of the most common ethical issues that exist in organizations, which is the violation of privacy through email viewing and archiving. This issue arises due to conflicting interests between the management and the employee. To better understand this, the following section would focus on the works of several philosophical thinkers such as Kant, Plato, and Mill, among others. Nonetheless, the author believes that even though all of the six philosophers would view this act as ‘ethical,’ it would still be best to increase transparency in enforcing email regulations.
Ethical Issues in Email Regulations
On the one hand, it must be noted that organizational policies that enforce the opening and archiving of email contents are primarily driven by the management’s desire to protect its own business. Since most organizations (especially for-profit ones) maintain trade practices as the core of how they derive profit, then protecting keeping them secret is of utmost importance. In turn, its profitability is also crucial so that its employees would have a sustainable means of living. This is the reason why some thinkers would argue that this action is ethical based on the underlying reasons for such.
For example, Kant might view this practice as ethical based on the principle of non-consequentialism. It is a central tenet in the Kantian philosophy that the morality of an action is not based on its resulting consequences CITATION Ots09 \l 1033 (Otsuka, 2009). Thus, even if the act of looking into an employee’s email might result in privacy breaches, such consequence cannot be considered as immoral in the Kantian view since the act is ultimately predicated on the need to protect the organization.
Another example of a philosopher who would view this as ethical is John Stuart Mill. In his works, Mill strongly argues that morality depends on which action would provide the highest utility (or happiness) for everyone involved CITATION Ebe18 \l 1033 (Ebenstein, 2018). Accordingly, since the profitability of an organization can increases bonuses for the employees and even provide job...