Key influences of unethical conducts during business plan reviews

Key influences of unethical conducts during business plan reviews; a deeper look at ethics, sustainability, and social impacts by Dr. Paul Akinnola 1 CHAPTER ONE 1.0 Introduction This paper presents an overall picture of a typical workplace problem and carried out literature study including interviewing a number of participants to formulate arguments for the study. It challenges the discourse around what constitutes ethical or unethical conduct and discussed the approach I have adopted in the course of carrying out the research. It also presented the challenges and opportunities that I came across over the course of the research. The paper also detailed the methodology I have used and the proposed plans of actions for addressing some of the challenges of the study. 1.1 Background into the Research Problem The business plan development process of an organization is the engine compartment of the organization and helps us to formulate the processes used to execute projects. It presents an opportunity for stakeholders to see how they are invested in their capital and expense funds in the year and it helps to shape future investments in other key areas. Over the course of this study, the ability to consider all stakeholders views was a challenge. Some internal stakeholders often have considered their own interest over that of a corporate interest and this posed some challenges and crisis during review phase. It is cogent to implement robust ethical practices and build framework that can strengthen alignments of an organizational business process if they must meet their strategic goals (Donaldson, 1989). One of the primary reasons why I felt the need to work on this research problem was to address areas of misalignments in firms, especially in areas where the gaps in the development of business practices is weakening the confidence levels of primary stakeholders and to bring back those values back in leaders in the discharge of their duties i.e., integrity, honesty, and good faith to the company. Developing a carefully mapped out road map to address this problem is therefore critical for this research study. 2.0 Critical Literature Reviews As I research into the critical literature study, I took learnings from multiple research articles and journals and used that to frame the problematizing phase of the research study. One of them was managers do not necessarily have to recognize their role within their own organization and should 2 not be obliged to uphold the highest ethical values and expectations (Pearson, 1998). This assertion was a total objection for me as a manager and scholar practitioner. Managers who meet to deliberate on business plans, have a responsibility to uphold their positions of authority and defend corporate values ethically and with integrity. Managers are expected to ensure that those who do not follow these norms are promptly reported and questioned by senior management level. Another the key discourse in the research processes was also that managers of same cultures are in most situations weigh their personal interest above collaborative interest and by so doing cause uproar when there is no one to challenge especially when acting unethically or making unfair considerations during decision selections. Brockner and James (2008) argued that leaders are the first to go persons when it comes to taking actions to uphold positive changes. If these principles are being followed, one can argue that leaders can maintain the highest caliber of ethical practice and formulate effective business plan processes. Continued business results, accountability, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) can only be functional when processes that obscure them are addressed. One of the arguments put forward by Pearson (1998) was that managers must see every challenge situation as a call to do something to address the threats it brings. There must always be a driving force that propel leaders to do something, one of which is being ethical and accountable to the people they lead or serve (Svensson et al., 2008). Weick (1998) arguments was also in the same light. When business plans processes are weak, then there is a higher degree that the variations would be larger than expected. i.e., selected projects would have weak forecast, weak accruals and actuals will differ by large margins during closeout reviews. This large variation threatens sustainability and weakens the ability to yield expected financial results. The degree of variations is what Flyvberg (2002) had called a failure of the performance indices for mega projects. In other words, organizational performance can only be largely influenced by the amounts of actions that the leaders take to uphold ethical and moral behaviours. Cennamo et al. (2009) offered the need for organizations to develop strategies that also helps them prioritize external stakeholders’ interest. Freeman (1984) also argued that while stakeholders’ interest is highly critical, it is important that when business plans and strategies are put in place, they systematically consider all key interest and select those that will help the organization do well vis-à-vis reflect the triple bottom line objectives (economic, social and 3 environmental). This is an area that many organizations have not been able to do well at, but have the capacity to be better. Development of a robust business plan processes is vital for any organization, is a demonstration of the ability of the organization to maintain its economic abilities and remain sustainable. They are essential key visions that must be harnessed if an organization must establish a positive image (Driscoll and Crombie, 2001). In the same vein, when they are weak, either due to lack of a process or a process not led by leaderful leaders but by those whose personal interest overshadow the corporate goals, then, the organization performances will dwindle and will eventually weaken its stakeholders’ confidence. One way to deal with this is to understand the ethical behaviours that shape leaders and managers’ interests and pushes them not to stand up for what is ethical. Some insightful questions to consider are; do they understand the level of trust placed on them, are they under intense pressure to act unethical by a few others, or has the organization failed in its approach by setting them up for failures, by assigning them roles that really should not be their responsibility (Thornton, 2009). These and many more insightful questions are what reflexive practitioners must do to establish confidence in stakeholders. The same arguments were put forward by Korthals (2008) that managers must be put through a verification and validation process, similar to what one can call a QA/QC process. This identifies what the issues are, when and how to catch them and how promptly they can be prevented from reoccurring. Business process must be robust enough and should entails vetting the projects that absorbs large amounts of mark-ups and threatens the need to do the right things when it comes to selection phase. The argument here is that when organizations want to achieve greater accountability, there is an onus on them to implement effective business plans process, that not only sets the conducts that is expected of leaders, but presents an effective way through a thought-provoking action process (Dutton and Jackson, 1987). As Freeman (1984) has argued, it is a call for actions, but more beyond that, is the ability to bring out the behaviours that can influence those performances corporations want from their leaders. 4 2.1 Integrative Learnings for use in Professional Practice In a bid to establish the rights and wrongs, we often fail to recognize what makes absolute sense during implementations of project plans and strategies. When we look at a 5–10-year plan for many organizational businesses plans process, one of the main struggles is they have not found a structure that can help them identify those projects that will yield better outcomes and lead them out of their own wicked dilemmas. The learnings from this study have helped me to identify how workplace problems can be dealt with and what structure can be adopted within an organization to get them to where we want to be. Managers who make business decisions that governs the financial well-being of a company must reflect constantly what their actions are, and how they can affect the society (Cunliffe, 2004). Macdonald (2010) called it a sense of ethical relativism in which every individual though possesses set of personal differences, are still motivated by a need to embrace others diversity of thoughts to meet the expected objective. Some of the basis of these arguments is a need to allow everyone who participates in the decisionmaking process, to reflect and conceptualize a plan that they can use to support their business plan process (Macdonald, 2010). In essence, if a firm were to adopt a robust integrative plan, it would entail formulating a process that works not only for the present, but for the future challenges. The entire process will require critical thinking, proactive approach, and self-reflections on leaders. 3.0 Organizational Challenges and Steps to Address Research Problem One of the key challenges during the course of this research study estimation during project and business planning phase, the use of decision analysis to detect projects that should carry higher contingencies and are of immediate need, over a range of time will help improve our business performance. Integrating business analysis and reporting groups into decision evaluations is vital. Many are often not present in several of these meetings or are considered less important in the decisionmaking phases. It is important to add value to the information and data that is available to stakeholders during assessment reviews and to bridge that gap, a business analyst will provide the 5 solution. This will also build the confidence of external stakeholders who are involved with the projects. The organization business leaders need gain full understanding of the scope of the projects under review and implement a process that address how execution strategies would be shaped, into the larger overall plan. The need to establish strong alignments during reviews was a challenge and it was considered paramount to reduce personal biases in the decision-making process. Effective stakeholder management of business plan process requires a through strategy implementation which requires a complete and total alignment, Allio (2011): Critical Highlights of participant responses to the study were: • Business plan problems is largely a failure on the part of the mid-level managers or a complacency on their parts. Immediate interventions are needed by senior level management to reshape things. • Personal interest and biases are factors that we want to avoid. Leaders must act as true company leaders and true economic agents far above personal interests. • The level of gaps seen in the development of business plan processes has become increasingly problematic over the years for those tasked with developing and executing the projects that follow. Immediate actions call for collaborative efforts on those who can help address the problem. 3.1 Path forward regarding the Research Problem The focus here is to understand how learning through the lenses of ethical obligations, sustainability and social impact can help improve the bottom-line goal of an organization economic/profitability, social and environmental. With the learnings from this module and the support and insightful questions I received from participants of the study, I have developed indepth knowledge of the subject on sustainability, ethical conducts, and social impacts as it connects with the research problem. I took the concept of transparency, dialoguing and building upon effective stakeholder management to drive out some of the ambiguities I have noticed in business plan process. They are: 6 • Develop an organizational process that discusses how projects can be selected from early phases rather than late in the process and have multiple review steps to improve ethics. • Evaluate the longer-term strategic aspirations for the organization and relate it to the long term reposition of the organization. This will enhance sustainability. • Evaluate further the process to formulate an effective metrics where all identified operational work is vetted before they make it down to the annual business plan? • Establish those metrics that measure short and long-term successes and use that to leverage on our weak areas? • Continue to refine the rich picture for the organization business plan to establish a contextual framework for not only current use but future use. • Meet and present to management the use of same cultures in business planning selection meetings that allows diverse cultural backgrounds during business plan process reviews. • Discuss decision analysis criteria at the onsets of project starts even before the major approvals with key stakeholders. • Facilitate an environment that will position our business managers and leaders to be held accountable for their actions through effective corrective and disciplines process. Conclusions and Recommendations The reflections I have gathered from this course has improved my thinking and perspectives on what organizations should do, to ensure that business plan approaches begin to work well for the organization. Organizations can realize their fullest potentials by eliminating any unethical behaviour that drives business down, increases downtime hours and weakens sustainability. Managers and leaders of organizations must fully demonstrate moral virtues of justice, fortitude and temperance and be fully committed to it. These factors generate long term sustainable benefits for the organizations, boost productivity, boost their corporate image and generate new work for the organizations. 7 References Allio, R.J. (2011) ‘Reinventing management purpose: The radical and virtuous alternatives’, Strategy and Leadership, 39(4), 4-11. Badaracco, J.L. (1998) 'The discipline of building character', Harvard Business Review, 76(2), 114-124. Brockner, J. & James, E.H. 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