Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Ethics of Participation and Its Impact on Organization’s Competitiveness: Managerial Issues in Some Lithuanian Companies
Raminta Pučėtaitė

ABSTRACT. The paper provides argumentation for implementing ethics of participation in an organisation, explores its beneficial effects and shows how ethical principles are assisting increating the atmosphere that fosters certain qualities of human resources which provide competitive advantage to companies. The main arguments for its institutionalisation are related to promotion of human and social welfare, increase of employees’ responsibility and self-respect. It is also realisation of stakeholders theory in practice. Besides, the work presents findings of a pilot survey “Ethical Issues of Human Resource Management” conducted in 2001-2002. They reveal rudiments and stereotypes, which are typical to many countries in the post-socialist region, preventing Lithuanian organisations to achieve advantages of applied ethics. The relations between lack of discourse ethics, prevalence of vertical relations model in organisation management on the one hand and attitudes towards leadership, common decision-making, team working, care on the other hand are shown. The paper also suggests ethics-based means to overcome them.

KEYWORDS: participation, ethics of participation, human resources, decision-making.