A few words on Organizational Ethics:
Joanna Lowder
11-8-13
Organizational ethics training should be part of new employee orientation as well as ongoing training to ensure a culture of ethics can be established. The ethics policy should be designed with root cause analysis in mind so that the focus is on asking tough questions and beginning the process of problem solving. Employees should be made to feel that there is a safe environment for them to come forward with concerns about possible ethics infractions and every effort should be made to protect the whistleblower if an organization expects to have a successful ethics program. Of course, an organizational ethics program can only be successful if ethics are a part of the organization from the top down. If top management is not perceived as ethical, there is little chance of success of actually establishing a culture of ethics in the organization. Hannah Clark quotes Odell Guyton as saying, “It’s a ‘requirement’ for good governance says Odell Guyton, who has been director of compliance at Microsoft since 2001. He says the position allows him to ask tough questions” (Clark, 2006).
According to Griffin, there is a useful framework for ethical decision making. There are three main parts; data gathering, analysis, and judgment. The first step is to gather facts about the situation. Secondly, there are four ethical norms that can be applied such as, how the situation affects others and the third process, is the summary of these norms. Lastly, the decision is made about the ethical nature of the situation (Griffin, 2013, p. 96).
References
Clark, Hanna. (2006, October 23). Chief Ethics Officers: Who Needs Them? Retrieved November 7, 2013, from Forbes.com Web site: http://www.forbes.com
Griffin, R.W. (2013). Management (11th ed.). Mason, OH, USA: South-Western Cengage Learning.
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