Modelling Ethical Decisions 269 X Modelling Ethical Decisions Reggie Davidrajuh University of Stavanger Norway 1. Introduction The collapses of Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, Martha Stewart’s stock sales, etc. have made us aware of the seriousness of ethical implications of business decisions. These days, business decision makers must incorporate ethics in their business decisions. However, confronting ethical dilemmas and making ethical decisions are not easy as:  There are no magic formulas available to help the decision makers solving ethical dilemmas they confront  When confronting ethical issues, huge number of variables (from sociology, psychology, economics, business, laws & regulations, etc.) that have to be considered. Hence, without any computing aid, it is not easy for decision makers to make an ‘optimal’ solution Thus, this chapter proposes an autonomous system to help decision makers incorporate ethics in their business decisions. In order to develop such a system: Firstly, it is necessary to make a system model of ethical business decision-making in the networked economy: what are the elements and environments involved in the decision- making process, how the elements are connected or related to each other, how the elements, environments, and the interconnections can influence each other, etc. Secondly, a validation of the model has to be done; is it possible to realize the model as a computing system, as a set of services; whether suitable enabling technology is available to realize such a system? Will it be possible to program the system? Etc. 2. Why a computing system to assist ethical decision making? Despite the growing interest in ethical decision-making, there is considerable disagreement about the appropriate way to define business ethics, and business ethical leadership, and the ways to assess the ethical decisions (Yukl, 2006; Heifetz, 1994). Generally, ethical business decision making is such a difficult process, so much that business leaders use their moral standards to evaluate their ethical decisions as good or bad depending on what extend to which the outcomes of their decisions violate basic laws of society, denies others their rights, endangers the health and lives of other people, or 17 www.intechopen.com