The relationship between managerial ethical profiles (MEP) and individual, organisational and external factors influencing the ethical decision-making of healthcare managers in Australia

摘要

Whether the community is looking for “scapegoats” to blame or seeking more radical anduddeeper causes, healthcare managers are in the firing line whenever there are woes in theudhealthcare sector. The public has a right to question whether ethics have much influence onudthe everyday decision making of healthcare managers. This paper reports on the findings ofudempirical research conducted on the influence of ethics and other factors on the decisionudmaking of 441 health care managers in Australia. Results from this study indicate thatudhealthcare managers in Australia draw on a range of ethical frameworks in their everydayuddecision making, which in this study form the basis of five corresponding managerial ethicaludprofiles: knights, guardian angels, duty-followers, defenders and chameleons. Results fromudthe study also indicate that the range of individual, organisational and external factorsudinfluencing decision making can be grouped into three major clusters or functions. Crossreferencingudthese functions and other demographic data to the managerial ethics profilesudprovides further analytical insight in to the characteristics of the managerial ethical profiles.udSummarizing, as they do, existing strengths and weaknesses in managerial ethical decisionudmaking, identifying these profiles not only can contribute to increasing organisationaludknowledge and self-awareness, but also has clear implications for the design andudimplementation of ethics education and training in large scale organisations such as healthudcare systems.