Introduction
In general, managerial ethics is understood as a discipline of applied ethics, "part of business ethics - applied normative ethics, which deals with the intersection of ethics and economics in all spheres of the economic system", whose ultimate goal is "humanization of the economic sphere" (Remišová, 2011, p. 134). In a narrower sense, the understanding of managerial ethics differs from several points of view, depending on how we define management itself, whether as a management system and process, a scientific discipline, a collective entity performing management processes or an individual entity, i.e. professional manager, whether we define managerial ethics at the institutional and organizational level or at the individual and professional level. According to Sedlák (2009, p. 385 and 386-387), "managerial ethics are the principles that guide managers' decisions and behavior according to what is morally right or wrong" and managerial ethics "concentrates on how our relationships are and should be with our employees, customers, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, distributors and neighbors, i.e. with members of the communities in which we operate". In this article, we will be based on this professional definition of managerial ethics and we will focus only on the first level, on the management relationship of the manager to the employees, and we will try to clarify, justify and defend the application of the principle of cooperation as an ethical approach in managerial work.
Importance of cooperation from an economic point of view
As Adam Smith already recognized in his famous work The Wealth of Nations, which became the foundation of modern economics, human labor is the real source of value; "according to Smith, the source of the wealth of nations is the total amount of labor expended and its productivity" (Lisý, 1999, p. 35). Not the amount of money and precious metals (mercantilism), nor the area of land (physiocratism), but specific human labor is responsible for the level of wealth of society. Human work as "conscious human activity aimed at creating certain values" and "always carried out in a certain social environment" (Nový, 2006, p. 204). This basic economic determination of work as a valuable activity does not lose any of its validity, even in the current economic conditions of highly developed mechanization, automation, digitalization and versatile use of information technologies in the economy and in the work process. Current technologically developed working conditions that intensively and massively displace human work, i.e. they reduce its relative ratio to machine work, but they can successfully obscure the categorical nature of human work by their action and make any opinion stand out about the meaning and place of human work in the economic process, often relegating it to the edge of interest.
It is equally important to emphasize not only the inherent productive nature of human work, but also the inherent fact that human work does not take place in its solitary, private, individual form, but always as an integral part of a larger social system of cooperation and division of labor. Work always "takes place in a certain social environment - in a certain historically concrete society, within which a person reproduces the material conditions of his life and his life in general through work" (Nový, 2006, p. 204). It is the phenomenon of the social division of labor that is an essential factor determining the level of labor productivity, which was actually well recognized and emphasized by the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, i.e. that "labour productivity depends on how the division of labor or specialization is developed" (Lisý, 1999, p. 35). Just as it leads to increased labor productivity and specialization, the division of labor also establishes the necessity of cooperation. In principle, the more developed the division of labor is, the more developed is the cooperation itself, its actual necessity and need, caused by the mutual dependence and dependence of the individual articles of the division of labor.
Of course, cooperation takes different forms, and from the point of view of the economy as a whole, a significant part of social cooperation takes place in an indirect and impersonal form, in the form where there are no direct relationships between the collaborators and practically they may not even know about each other, because their cooperative relationship is actually only mediated by the partial results of their work. Here, cooperation is mediated by impersonal economic relations of mutual dependence of individual articles in the social division of labor. In our article, we do not mean this general form of social cooperation, but we focus exclusively only on its immediate form, where individual actors of cooperation are in direct and personal contact, that is, basically on cooperation limited within a certain working group, i.e. on "people of one workplace, united by common activity, internal structure of social roles and unified leadership" (Nový, p. 137). It is the point of view of unified management that is decisive for our focus, because we understand cooperation here from the point of view of managerial management of a certain work performance and work team.
Just as the current technological conditions of work optically devalue the value of human labor, its organizational conditions devalue the inherent value of cooperation. There is a conditioning and determining relationship between technological and organizational conditions, specifically technological conditions of work enable, and to a large extent even force, certain ways of organizing work. Current individualized organizational forms of work and generally widespread flexibilization of the labor market, globalization and virtualization of the labor market, outsourcing of production, incomplete and precarious forms of work, among other things, weaken direct and personal relationships between employees, isolate them from each other, and in a fundamental way weaken the perception of the cooperative nature of work and the value of cooperation. This weakening occurs both at the level of employees and executives themselves, as well as at the level of management. In its individualized and flexible form, a person's work appears to act in isolation, self-dependent and self-determined. In fact, however, the social nature of work is not only preserved, but actually becomes even more intense. The social nature of work becomes apparent especially in crisis situations, when relations in the social division of labor are disrupted at various levels and for various reasons.
Above all, we wanted to clearly show the fundamental importance of human work from an economic point of view and emphasize that, at the basic level, cooperation is not some special ethical value, but results from the thing itself, from the very nature of economic activity. For this reason, the requirement for cooperation and a cooperative approach can successfully appear as a regulatory principle of managerial work management, because it has an immanent basis. The manager should be fully aware of this fact. The success of a manager as a professional manager and the success of his work performance is inextricably linked and conditioned by the performance of his work team. This is not about some normative requirement of management ethics, but about the substantive side of management itself, its own management nature. For example, the professional code of the manager of the Czech Management Association clearly states that "the manager is always aware of the fact that his work achievements and performance are evaluated according to the work results achieved by the work team he leads" (Manager's Code, §2.1). If we proceed from this determination, there should not be a competitive or conflicting relationship between the manager and his subordinates, not from the manager's side.
Cooperation as a principle of managerial work
One of the basic and nowadays increasingly emphasized functions of a manager is his leadership role (leader, leadership), in the sense of which he is "responsible for directing and coordinating the activities of subordinate workers in order to achieve the organization's goals. This managerial role includes several areas of personnel activities, such as the selection of workers, placement, remuneration. The focus of the leadership role is communication and motivating workers" (Majtán, 2009, p. 26). According to Seknička and Putonová (2016, p. 151), "the leader is expected to cultivate the culture of the organization and instill trust in others" and "leadership is different from normal management procedures precisely in terms of the ability to win over and excite people to achieve goals in the company." It is in this function and the role of the manager as a professional manager that the value of cooperation has its greatest penetration and application in everyday managerial work. Cooperation or "cooperation means that people communicate, participate in situations, react to each other, see themselves as important participants in the proceedings, usually agree with what is important in their environment and achieve common or complementary goals" (Znebejánek, 2013, p. 97). The material need to fulfill common goals and the manager's direct responsibility for the timeliness and quality of their fulfillment is the material basis on which the value of cooperation in managerial practice rests.
From the point of view of managerial ethics, cooperation appears as a normative requirement for the manager to apply the principles of cooperation in his management work on two basic levels: the first concerns the manager's relationship with his subordinates, the second concerns the work team itself and its internal relations. In the first case, it is required that the manager does not view the employees in a powerful and autocratic manner as his "subordinates", whom he manages with directives and prohibitions, but in principle approaches them as his co-workers, whom he involves in management and decision-making processes according to the given possibilities and circumstances. In the second case, the manager is required to fundamentally and actively monitor the quality of cooperation in the managed work team, to purposefully support and improve the level of cooperation with his management work and his managerial approach. From the point of view of the specific content of managerial work, the application of the principles of cooperation concerns all personnel activities, through the selection of workers, their deployment and placement in the organization and organizational structure, the creation of work teams, up to the evaluation and remuneration of the work performed. In all individual activities, the manager should monitor and evaluate the employees' abilities to cooperate, or the actually demonstrated level and quality of cooperation.
Normative emphasis on cooperation is directly related to what is referred to as "visionary and team leadership" in management theory, where "leadership is increasingly placed in the context of teamwork" and the manager's work as a team leader is characterized by two principles, "management of external links and assistance with team processes" (Majtán 2009, p. 323). In this sense, the manager should focus on managing the team's relations with the external environment, also within the given organization, in order to relieve the workers of this activity, at the same time ensuring a unified approach to the external environment and thus enabling greater work concentration and team cohesion. From that point of view, it is a managerial mistake if the manager leaves the management of external relations to the employees themselves, or even individualizes this management, not only burdening them with work, but also creating space for misunderstandings, rivalry and conflicts in the team.
As a form of social relationship, cooperation has many different forms. One of the basic and essential differences is whether it is voluntary cooperation, where individual actors cooperate without any coercion and without the intervention of an external authority, or whether it is a so-called forced cooperation when "cooperation is not entirely voluntary, but is often forced by a third party or institutionalized as a result of a previous arrangement" (Znebejánek, 2013, p. 98). It is obvious that in this case it is a forced cooperation that is given by the institution of the company or organization, the goals of the employees are individual, primarily existential, and cooperation within the given organization is a means for their fulfillment, the goals of cooperation are secondary, not primary. "The work group is a specific case of a small secondary and formal group. Formal and secondary because it is set up in an institutional way and intended to fulfill the company's goals and objectives" (Mikuláštik, 2015, p. 274). Not the intentions and goals of the employees. When applying the principles of cooperation, the manager should be fully aware of this basic fact, not obfuscate it in the populist style of "we are all in the same boat and pulling the same rope", one can naively expect that cooperation in the team will develop spontaneously and automatically, because forced cooperation requires significant and constant organizational and motivational efforts, precisely on the part of the manager. Here, managerial work should act as an organizational fluid creating and enabling effective cooperation. The ideal is to operate in such a way that forced cooperation becomes at least partially voluntary, so that employees adopt and identify with work goals, so that they take the initiative to cooperate with each other. But for that, suitably set conditions are necessary on the part of the manager.
A full-fledged emphasis on cooperation in managerial work presupposes the consistent application of the basic requirement of managerial ethics in the area of the manager's behavior towards his subordinates, "to get rid of narrow economy in communication with colleagues" (Majtán 2009, p. 398). In this sense, the manager should not look at his subordinates only through the prism of certain economic and current indicators, but look at them holistically within the framework of working relationships and in the long term, monitor and evaluate their work performance in the context of the team, perceive their past work merits and see their future potential. Applying the principles of cooperation in managerial work means targeting and prioritizing the quality of working relationships as a means of achieving efficiency and increasing work performance. In general, "unfavorable relationships have a negative effect not only on creativity in the workplace, but also on overall performance" (Jurová, 2013, p. 22). It is "working relationships, their quality, that create a framework that significantly affects the achievement of the organization's goals and the work and life goals of individual workers. Correct, harmonious, satisfactory work and interpersonal relationships create a productive climate that has a very positive effect on individual, collective and organizational performance" (Koubek, 2010, p. 326).
Orientation on working relationships means putting managerial emphasis on employees, as we find, for example, in traditional Japanese management, in which one of the dominant features is "primary orientation to people, based on the philosophy that the core of organizational management is interpersonal relationships" (Sedlák, 2009, p. 95). confirmed that for most highly productive groups, the manager using a worker-oriented style of management. Productivity data clearly demonstrated that subtle or general control (worker-oriented) is more effective than a management style with strict or constant control (work-oriented)" (Kassay, 2013, p. 151). It is also possible to point to a five-year research aimed at finding out the factors affecting the performance of employees, the results of which "showed the groundlessness of many basic principles of classical management theory", because it came to the "conclusion that the decisive influence on the growth of worker productivity is not material, but psychological and social factors" (Sedlák, 2009, p. 60). This research was also the impetus for the formulation and development of the theory of interpersonal relations in management. Ch. Barnard, one of the prominent representatives of this theory, tried, also on the basis of his rich practical experience in the field of management and management, to formulate a comprehensive theory of organization management, "according to him, the most essential characteristic of a group is a system of efficiency and cooperation. He was based on the fact that an individual human being has limited possibilities, and therefore the most effective means of overcoming biological and other limitations of individuals is cooperation, the cooperation of people" (Sedlák, 2009, p. 63).
Competition and competitive work environment
An opposing position to cooperation, which can be a serious obstacle in its enforcement, is competition and a competitive relationship. If cooperation as a relationship is characterized by attributes such as consensus, solidarity, or integration, then a competitive relationship is characterized by opposing features such as competition, rivalry, and struggle. In Adler's terminology, at the individual level, it is about the dynamics of a feeling of inferiority and compensation - striving for power or recognition (Marková, Čechová, 2016, Marková, 2012). In general, in the economic environment, "by competition we understand the process of meeting the opposing interests of economic entities appearing on the market" and as such it has its irreplaceable place in it, even sometimes "competition is given the same importance in the economy as oxygen for living organisms" (Jurečka, 2010, pp. 171 and 173). Competition and the competitive environment in a market economy is considered natural and the application of competitive relations tends to expand, "growing market dynamics, intensifying globalization and intensifying competition constantly increase the demands on companies and their management. Companies all over the world are facing the challenge of how to become competitive and even more attractive to their shareholders, customers, suppliers, the environment and employees" (Dytrt 2012, p. 72). Competitive pressure at the level of companies and enterprises has its declared justification in economic rationality.
From the level of the market of goods and services, where individual companies and enterprises compete with each other for customers and investors, the competitive pressure is currently increasingly transferred not only to the external labor market, but also to the internal one, it penetrates into the functioning of individual companies to an increasingly lower organizational level, until the competitive pressure is directly and immediately exposed to employees. Competition becomes individualized and in its individualized form threatens and weakens the conditions of cooperation in work teams. It is "under the pressure of competition and in an effort to achieve the lowest possible costs, organizations not only reduce the number of jobs and workers, but also hire people on short-term contracts and do not even pretend to offer a career. /... /This may be short-sighted, but this is the way many businesses operate today" (Armstrong 2007, p. 189). We have already indicated the generally negative impact of current organizational conditions on cooperation, on the perception and reflection of the cooperative nature of work. The negative consequences are far from remaining only at the reflexive level, but have concrete practical consequences for the work itself. This can be shown on the simple example of employment contracts for a fixed period, which successfully replace and replace classic contracts for an indefinite period, where it is clear that "general fixed-term contracts, especially if they are the same in terms of the length of the period for all employees, regardless of their period of employment in the organization, life stage and social situation /.../, are directly undermining the deterioration of the employee's relationship with the employer" (Koubek, 2010, p. 330). The form of the employment relationship alone significantly influences, determines and limits the employee's relationship with the employer, i.e. also the attitude of the employee within the given working relationships. If cooperation requires trust and motivation, the application of fixed-term contracts is rather a manifestation of mistrust and has a demotivating effect.
Enforcement of the so-called flexible forms of work become a serious obstacle in the application of managerial approaches oriented to cooperation, they limit the possibilities of managerial work and often show it in the sphere of control and transmission of orders. For example, in companies with a high turnover rate of executive employees, it is difficult, if at all, for a manager to successfully enforce the principles of cooperation and build a cooperative work environment. Cooperation requires a certain degree of stability and predictability, which flexibilization directly disrupts. The extended flexibilization of work is officially justified primarily by the need to reduce costs, but it is clear that, at least in part, it is preferred by the management as a means of increasing competition between employees and applying negative motivation. Here, competition becomes its own principle of managerial work, manifesting itself in the setting of relations between employees, in the method of selecting and deploying workers, in the creation of work teams, but also in the quantification and formalization of criteria for individual evaluation of work. However, at the work management level, excessive application of competition can have negative consequences for the overall performance of the work group. In competitive relationships, employees are less willing to cooperate and participate in the fulfillment of common goals, naturally and understandably, instead, they tend to individualize and compete, to assert themselves individually, even at the expense of the whole and common work performance. From the point of view of an individual employee, one's own individualistic (egoistic) point of view can be successful, although even here there are situations when "individual rational decision-making that does not respect the cooperative strategy can turn into self-destructive under certain conditions" (Smreková, 1998, p. 110). From the point of view of the manager, who in relation to higher levels of management, or owners or shareholders, is responsible for the work performance of the entire team in the entire breadth of its tasks, such a perspective is insufficient and unsatisfactory. As a manager responsible for a certain work team, the manager should not adopt and monitor the perspective of individual performance, but should primarily monitor and improve the level and quality of team cooperation. Moreover, "high work capacity and expertise may not always be the best prerequisite for a certain position, as long as it is a position in a team" (Mikuláštík, 2015, p. 283). The inherent cooperative nature of work requires workers who are able to cooperate, who are able to be a functional and effective part of a certain work unit, and from the point of view of this functionality, the manager should evaluate individual work capacity.
Competition in itself means conflict at a certain level, and the application of competitive relations is a grateful source of conflicts and conflict situations, although "conflict in itself is not a pathological phenomenon", but a natural and common part of human life in all its forms, nevertheless it is true that "in a work group, conflicts always disrupt work morale and cause a decrease in work performance, because the attention and efforts of workers are diverted elsewhere" (Nový, 2006, p. 160). Resolving interpersonal conflicts in the workplace takes time and energy, both on the part of management and on the part of executives, and from a strictly economic point of view it represents a waste of valuable resources. Also from this point of view, it seems to be a more effective management strategy to prevent conflicts, to create a less conflicting and more cooperative work environment.
Conclusion
Considering the current economic, technological and organizational conditions of work, it is often easier and less difficult for a manager to establish a competitive environment in the work team than to build and maintain a fully cooperative environment. Monitoring and applying the principles of cooperation in managerial work really requires considerable organizational effort on the part of the manager. However, ease and simplicity are not virtues that the management profession would follow or appreciate. Work performance and success is what is valued and expected, and in the case of a manager, his professional success is directly linked to the performance of the workplace managed by him, i.e. with the work output of a certain functionally integrated unit. To the extent that the performance of this unit is determined by the degree and quality of cooperation of its individual links, ultimately by the cooperation of its individual workers, to the extent that the manager as a professional manager is required to monitor and support this cooperation. In such a case, its success is directly conditioned by its ability to establish and maintain a cooperative working environment, its organizational ability to change forced cooperation into voluntary cooperation, in which the workers themselves actively and proactively work together to achieve common goals. In such a case, the manager's ethical approach to workers and his orientation to the quality of working relationships is a key prerequisite for the mentioned ability.
Author: Mgr. Ciprian Turčan, PhD. Department of General and Applied Ethics, FF UKF in Nitra
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