Authority to Decide

While I remain uncertain as to whether the beneficiary of an action bears any responsibility for the ethics of that action, it seems clearer that a party who has input into a decision bears some degree of responsibility for the influence they have over the decision-maker.

This is to be differentiated by the degree to which a decision-maker considers himself to be constrained or compelled in his ability to make a decision due to the influence exerted upon him, which is a related by separate topic that bears further consideration. For the present, I am considering the other party, which exerts influence upon the decision maker.

It seems less arguable that a party who exerts influence upon a decision bears some degree of responsibility for the decision itself. Influence, itself, seems to stem from the perceived ability of the influencer to punish or reward the decision maker for his decision that is in the interests of the influencer. The punishment or reward functions as an added consequence to the decision-maker and is taken into account among the factors of consideration.

However, the decision to inflict a punishment or grant a reward is, in itself, a matter to which ethical consideration must be applied. The point of exerting influence over another person is to affect the outcome of their decision - an influencer does not seek to punish or reward for its own sake, but as a means to affect the outcome of a decision and subvert the independent process of the decision-maker. In effect, the person who exerts influence is attempting to make the decision, and therefore bears responsibility for the outcome of a decision that results from the influence they exerted.

In the context of business, this is most common in authority relationships, such as that between supervisor and subordinate. The subordinate is not authorized to make a decision, but yields to the will of his superior, due to the ability of the supervisor to reward or punish. While the subordinate has the ability to refuse an order (again, the condition of "being influenced" has been deferred for later consideration), it is the intention of the superior to preempt the employee from making a decision contrary to the desires of the superior. In effect, the superior has made the decision as to what action should be undertaken, and the subordinate is merely deciding whether to comply with this decision.

My sense is that this remains abstract, and a more concrete example is in order: an employee in the role of a buyer, who is allegedly responsible for determining from which to purchase a given product for use in the business, is ordered by an executive to purchase from a specific supplier. In such an instance, it would not be entirely accurate to assert that the buyer is making an independent decision - but rather the decision of which supplier to use is made by the executive, and the authority of the buyer is removed to the executive whose orders have influenced the decision.

In such an instance, the executive should rightly be held responsible for the consequences of the decision - though it may be argued that the buyer would be responsible for a separate decision - to accept or refuse the order he has been given.

Influence, authority, and orders are substantial factors in decision-making within an organization - but they may also be substantial factors in making any decision in a social environment: the executive in the previous example may have been influenced by a regulator, who was influenced by a politician, who was influenced by his constituency. So the chain of influence may be a significant factor in determining the appropriate party who can be said to have made a decision.