Improving Ethics

  • Model the Way
  • Screen Potential
  • Employees
  • Develop and enforce
  • a meaningful code of
  • ethics
    • Equally distributed
    • Supported
    • Specific
  • Training
  • Reinforce
  • Create structure
  • Eliminate the need for whistle-blowing.
    (Remember Gardner?)

Specific actions that can be taken to improve organizational ethics are listed here.

Behave ethically yourself – no one will take your interest in ethical decisions seriously if you don't act ethically yourself (and it may even encourage unethical behavior)

Screen potential employees – there is a big push recently because of some very unfortunate cases where employees who were abusive in prior jobs ended up seriously harming or murdering their coworkers at their next job.  Therefore, it is important to do what you can, legally, to find out about the person you are hiring by checking references and police records.

Develop a Meaningful Code of Ethics – A company should put in writing what it's expectations are with regard to moral decisions.  These really help employees who may be in a tough situation concerning financially helping the company vs. harming another constituent

What constitutes a meaningful code of ethics?

  • They are distributed to every employee
  • They are firmly supported  by management
  • They refer to specific practices and ethical dilemmas likely to be encountered by target employees
  • They are evenly enforced with rewards for compliance and strict penalties for noncompliance

Provide ethics training – Communicate this code of ethics through training and regular communication

Reinforce ethical behavior – Also, don't let unethical behavior go unchecked – it sends a message that it's ok,

Create positions, units, and other structural mechanisms to deal with ethics – some companies have a chief ethics officer to oversee ethics programs and conduct periodic checks and audits of business practices.  Boeing, for example, has implemented this in response to several breaches of ethics that have cost the company billions of dollars.

Eliminate need for whistle-blowing – organizations can reduce the need for whistle-blowing by encouraging free and open expression of dissenting viewpoints and providing fair grievance procedures and/ore anonymous ethics hot lines.

Back to '1.1: Organizational Behavior'