Understanding the Rule-Following Behavior of Professional Managers at a Workplace: An Ethical Approach

Abstract

The roles and corresponding obligations of professional managers at a workplace appear to be well-established and if at all a conflict in competing obligations arises, then the concerned manager is generally advised to consult and apply rules as they exist in the form of various laws, policies, and guidelines in the country, in the profession or in the industry, and in his organization. These three levels of rules are formulated in a complementary manner to help explain the working of an organization to managers and other people so that they may understand and arrive at judgments to appropriately act in the given fact situations. However, the rule-following of managers, it is argued, ought to be ethically correct for their own sake and for the sake of an ethical environment in the organization. The managers, for this purpose, are required to rationally interpret the rules for their correct applications in fact-situations instead of just following the rules. They ought to look for a rational interpretation of rules in such a way that they do not compromise their managerial responsibilities as it is a question of understanding not only letters of rules but the spirit of rules. This managerial approach becomes possible, the argument continues, in understanding the nature and purpose of rational interpretation of rules because there are, for example, various other shades of interpretations possible such as blind or malicious obedience to rules, which apparently distort the rule-following of managers.