Are there any organisations or fields that you wouldnt work for because you have moral objections to their operations and projects?
Petroleum, nuclear, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical, chemical, etc.
How much weight does the organisation, the individual works for, carry when it comes to your opinion of them? Will you treat two people the same if one works in the tobacco industry and one in social services?
Have you ever encountered any practices at work that have challenged your moral values? How did you handle the situation?
Finally, can/do organisations that we work for shape our morals? For better or worse?
I do believe organizations do have an impact on our level of morality. But then the scale is so different for everyone that its hard to draw the line where something is going downhill on the morality scale.
To me, I dont judge individuals on where they are working purely because they might not have the same morality scale as me. For example, someone working in a Tobacco company, I have issues with the company producing Tabacco , perhaps with the management , but not with individual people working in it. They are just doing their job. Its the governments and the regulators that need to set the standard .
Similar example is the weapons industry. If someone is working in it, I wont class them as wrong. But I will not choose to work in that industry for moral reasons. I will also not support them if ever things come up with regulators of the industry. That is what my stance would be.
Now if someone comes along who is working in a weapons industry , for example, v/s , someone who is working in a social care job, I do feel I am going to bend towards respecting the one working in the social care job , because they are serving humanity on a personal level .
Interesting question and one that I’ve thought about.
Are there any organisations or fields that you wouldnt work for because you have moral objections to their operations and projects?
Petroleum, nuclear, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical, chemical, etc.
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I didn’t apply for an onsite daycare job at a racetrack because I was opposed to the idea of working in a racetrack. I would never work for company that produces/sells alcohol or arms/weapons.
I don’t have any objections for working in a petroleum company and currently work at financial institution (so the whole riba issue is one that I’ve personally made peace with).
Interestingly enough, while I object to alcohol, tobacco, arms/weapons - the reality is a lot of othe jobs touch on these. For example, a money manager at a financial institution may invest in those industries, an accountant with a public accounting firm may have to audit one of these companies - so where/how do you draw the line?
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How much weight does the organisation, the individual works for, carry when it comes to your opinion of them? Will you treat two people the same if one works in the tobacco industry and one in social services?
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There’s no denying that it does matters a little. But more in terms of a person being viewed as having a greater sense of civic duty versus my viewing someone as being civically neutral. To better explain that - if I knew a double masters finance-degree holder who could be earning $500K a year chose to work for a not-for-profit because he wanted to serve his community - I would highly respect the civic-mindedness of that person. In contrast, if I knew the same person had 5 job offers and chose to work for an alcohol-products company because it was the most lucrative, I’d think a little less of them. Everyone else - their occupation would probably not impact my view of them.
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Have you ever encountered any practices at work that have challenged your moral values? How did you handle the situation?
I’ve not had a lot of conflicts between my values and work expectations, the only example that comes to mind is not applying for the on-site daycare job at a racetrack. I’d like to think that I could/would walk away from a job/organization that compromised my beliefs, but I can’t be sure.
Finally, can/do organisations that we work for shape our morals? For better or worse?
I think there is an impact - sometimes we mold ourselves to fit into the work environment and make compromises we hadn’t initially expected of ourselves.
I have had an experience whilst working at an international firm where I had to recruit executive level staff at Europe wide Betting business. Being in a blue chip environment, it can become extremely hard to say no, it can backfire big time, but for me , Alhumdulillah after a bit of an issue they did manage to understand what the stance was and they then retreated me from that client and shifted me to another.
If I had been employed at a smaller business , I wouldnt have been able to get it my way.
Having said this , I have personally refused an offer of work at a local Tobacco company but I had to compromise on my values years ago when I was forced to recruit for them at a smaller level At that time, I was at the starting point of my career and didnt have the choice to pick and choose but I regret that loads.
This is something that I have encountered in my career. I am not sure it’s related to morality or not but for me it was a big personal conflict.
I was part of a team which was introducing Islamic Banking in Pakistan in early 2000’s. To be effective we had to take classes to understand the basic concepts of Shariah and have regular discussions with re-known Islamic Scholars. As we were suppose to design product offerings that are as per the Shariah rulings we also had to do a lot of research on our own. This was the first time Islamic Banking was being introduced in Pakistan so I was very happy that I am being a part of this initiative and then I get to interact a lot with Islamic Scholars and ask questions to clarify concepts related to Financial Management specially Riba’ etc. I had been working in traditional banking industry (Interest Based) which my dad never approved of as it is interest based so that was another positive factor.
Our team was being lead by one of the prominent Mufti in Pakistan whom every body knows. Any ways when we were designing the products I realized that something is not right. These products were so called ISLAMIC in concept but they were not shariah compliant in terms of implementation. It only seemed like an effort to tap in to a niche market and earn profits. I was told by the management that they also want to survive in the industry as there is no other bank working in this arena currently so the Islamic principles cannot be implemented to their entirety.
That was dilemma for me on a personal level as when I was in traditional banking the consumers were aware it’s unislamic practice so I was not totally responsible for the Gunnah. But in Islamic banking selling something to the consumers who have put their trust in us thinking that it is as per Islamic rulings what they were doing, the Gunnah will be on us not on the consumers. And I didn’t wanted to be a part of that.
I left Banking Industry after that totally despite the fact that it was a very lucrative industry in Pakistan at that time but I never felt regret about that. I am not an Islamic Scholar and it was a personal decision but I did felt morally obligated to the consumers.
At that time, I was at the starting point of my career and didnt have the choice to pick and choose but I regret that loads.