In order to better understand why the above mentioned actions were ethical or unethical, it is best to assess them in light of three ethical perspectives. From the standpoint of the utilitarian perspective, the company is able to seek out those actions which maximize its gains, but in doing this, it must remain aware of the needs of others. More specifically, they can work towards their goals as long as these do not impede with the goals of others (Leiss, 1988). From this standpoint, the behavior of Microsoft was unethical. On the one hand, the organization did follow its own agenda, but on the other hand, in doing this, it stopped other parties from achieving their goals -- while Microsoft strived to maximize its profits, it also created a situation in which its competitors found it harder to develop on the market.
The virtue perspective sees that an individual or an entity should base its decisions and actions on values which create virtue, such as honesty and integrity, and these should be used to pursue the most important goals (Tiberius, 2008). From this standpoint, Microsoft has dedicated its efforts to achieving the goals it considered of the utmost importance, but, as the court decided, it broke antitrust regulations, meaning as such that its creation of virtue was limited to inexistent. This in turn means that the actions of the software company were unethical. Finally, from the angle of the common good perspective, Microsoft's actions are also unethical as the company's pursuit of personal gains has materialized in negative impacts upon fair and friendly competition, as well as consumers' choice.
5. Contributing Factors
Given the situation so far presented, one could wonder about the forces which contributed to the achieved outcome. In this endeavor, one should look at the corporate culture and the act of corporate governance. In this order of ideas, the company was revealed as a strong entity that valued creativity and originality and which implemented a wide series of human resource policies. The aim of these strategies was that of increasing employee on-the-job satisfaction with the final purpose of increasing their performance levels. Some of the actions included the ability of Microsoft employees to purchase corporate stocks, the creation of groups based on common interests or features (such as the gay group or the single parent group) or the implementation of flexible work schedules. On the reverse side however, it requested great commitments from the employees. These were often asked to put in long extra hours. Competition between employees was also intense and the overall environment was dynamic and stressful.
Decisions would often be made top-down and the role of the employees was that of executing the managerial commands. It is highly probable that the internal environment and the corporation's antitrust actions intersected at some stages, but in the opposite direction than initially expected. In this order of ideas, it is possible that the intense competition within the market, where Microsoft strived hard to become the indisputable leader, was transferred within the company, where the employees strived forcefully to be the most valuable organizational acquisition.
6. Ethical Decisions
The antitrust situation within Microsoft can be simply summarized as follows: the young software organization brought in a fresh breath within the society and reached the peaks of success with the aid of its user-friendly applications. In its later existence however, Microsoft's leadership ability was challenged by the emergence of more software developers who wanted a market share. In response to the growing competition, the mature Microsoft engaged in actions...
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