ABSTRACT
One of the tasks of managers is to choose new employees from a pool of applicants. If there is one open position and there are several applicants, then a valuable resource (the job) will be awarded to one applicant and denied to others. Anyone who has anxiously awaited the results of their application and interview for a job knows that what happens here matters. There are consequences that make the successful applicant happy and satisfied, and the unsuccessful applicants unhappy and dissatisfied. The manager who has the open position may be constrained in various ways by company policies in choosing a candidate. As long as the manager makes the choice, he is making a decision, in the role of manager, that has ethical implications both for the new employee and for the rejected candidates. In this chapter, we examine the ethical implications of this choice and some of the common kinds of situations that raise moral concerns in making the choice. We will show how each of the three major approaches to ethics can be used to analyze the manager’s decision.
