Introduction
Being Your Best Self decision-making process is an essential element for all people who live in modern societies and want to be treated fairly and equally. Becoming a person who aspires to be their best self can be difficult since it implies rejecting certain habits which previously negatively affected their decision-making. Nevertheless, individuals are not the only stakeholders who can benefit from being their best selves. The decision-making process related to this approach can also positively affect various organizations, including transnational companies, by helping them design policies which are more morally sound. Yet, to ensure the development of the decision-making process, which is consistent with the Being Your Best Self approach, one, both a person and a business, needs to follow certain key steps.
Morality
The first step to developing the Being Your Best Self decision-making process is making morality a priority. Society can function properly only if every member of it tends to espouse a moral behavior and expect others to treat them in the same way (Ellemers et al., 2019). In other words, morality is one of the key elements which protect society from chaos, and it entails establishing certain norms and rules which everyone must follow. Otherwise, severe consequences, including those predetermined by laws, may ensue for those who decide to violate moral principles. Companies, and especially, their leadership are not exempt from adhering to morality and must observe all norms related to it. Businesses which refuse to make morally correct decisions risk losing clients and their best employees.
Rationalisms, Justifications, and Distractions
The second step to developing the Being Your Best Self decision-making process is discarding rationalisms, justifications, and distractions. The three aforementioned phenomena are often employed by people and businesses in order to conceal their immoral actions. Rationalisms involve making attempts to justify one’s controversial actions by explaining using logic, for instance, by saying, “Everybody does it” (Mulder & van Dijk, 2020, p. 2). Justifications occur when people or companies try to respond to accusations and explain their actions, thus decreasing their guilt. While distractions emerge when individuals decide to change the course of a conversation to avoid being confronted about their immoral behavior. Companies also use distractions; for example, they can shift a narrative or conduct a marketing campaign which would distract people from discussing their controversial actions.
Moral Awareness (MA)
Thus, the third and key step for ensuring the Being Your Best Self decision-making process is gaining moral awareness. The notion of moral awareness constitutes an ability of a person or company to identify and understand the ethical aspects of their decisions. Today, businesses are the main entities which have to adhere to high standards of accountability for their actions. As a result, leaders at different companies have to determine whether their organizations’ corporate philosophy is ethical. Recently, NestlĂ© attempted to copy the Impossible Burger trademark by naming its product “Incredible Burger,” which the court eventually called an attempt to confuse consumers (Light, 2020). Such an activity demonstrated that NestlĂ©’s leadership ignored ethical principles and did not have any moral awareness; therefore, the company needs to make ethical decision-making a part of its philosophy.
Acculturation and Enculturation
Being Your Best Self decision-making process also involves cultural awareness as an indispensable part of ethical behavior. Companies, especially the transnational ones, often employ the methods of acculturation and enculturation in their business processes. Acculturation in business refers to an act when a company imposes its cultural norms onto foreign customers through products. Such a method cannot be considered ethical because it does not take into account local customs and standards. Enculturation is a process when businesses familiarize themselves with the cultural norms of a foreign market (Byars & Stanberry, 2018). Yet, despite the fact that such an approach is more ethical, it often entails translation mistakes or copying of local products. Thus, a company which enters foreign markets has to establish a mutual dialogue with local clients and employees to increase its cultural awareness.
Accountability and Prevention of Discrimination
The final steps of the Being Your Best Self decision-making process imply ensuring accountability, as well as prevention of any type of discrimination. The issue of the wage gap between men and women is topical because it demonstrates the lack of ethical decisions in modern societies. Nevertheless, governments around the world and companies have embraced certain policies in order to establish gender pay equality. Accountability and prevention of discrimination can be achieved with the help of laws governing the process of paying men and women equally. Such measures will stimulate employers to assume moral responsibility for their own actions and will make them realize that they directly affect the lives of people around them (“Being your best self,” n.d.). Thus, Being Your Best Self decision-making processes must always rely on accountability and avoidance of discrimination.
References
Being your best self, part 4: Moral action. (n.d.). Ethics Unwrapped. Web.
Byars, S.M., & Stanberry, K. (2018). Business Ethics. OpenStax.
Ellemers, N., van der Toorn, J., Paunov, Y. & van Leeuwen, T. (2019). The psychology of morality: A review and analysis of empirical studies published from 1940 through 2017. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 23(4), 332–366. Web.
Light, L. (2020). Nestlé’s trademark confusion may cost the company credibility. Forbes. Web.
Mulder L. B. & van Dijk, E. (2020). Moral rationalization contributes more strongly to escalation of unethical behavior among low moral identifiers than among high moral identifiers. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1-76. Web.