Ethical Behavior
Ethical Behavior
Introduction [Saleem]
Mayank
PROMOTING AN ETHICAL CLIMATE: SOME SUGGESTIONS AND
STRATEGIES
Recent literature has suggested several strategies for promoting ethical behavior in
organizations (Adler and Bird, 1988; Burns, 1987; Harrington, 1991; Raelin, 1987;
Stead etal., 1990). First, chief executives should encourage ethical consciousness in
their organizations from the top down showing the support and care about ethical
practices. Second, formal processes should be used to support and reinforce ethical
behavior. For example, internal regulation may involve the use of codes of corporate
ethics, and the availability of appeals processes. Finally, it is recommended that the
philosophies of top managers as well as immediate supervisors focus on the
institutionalization of ethical norms and practices that are incorporated into all
organizational levels.
One of the most basic of management principles states that if you desire a certain
behavior, reinforce it. No doubt, how ethical behavior is perceived by individuals and
reinforced by an organization determines the kind of ethical behavior exhibited by
employees. As a result, if business leaders want to promote ethical behavior they must
accept more responsibility for establishing their organization's reinforcement system.
Research in ethical behavior strongly supports the conclusion that if ethical behavior
is desired, the performance measurement, appraisal and reward systems must be
modified to account for ethical behavior (Hegarty and Sims, 1978, 1979; Trevino,
1986; Worrell et al., 1985). According to Nielsen (1988, p. 730):
In many cases, mangers choose to do, go along with or ignore the unethical...because
they want to avoid the possibility of punishments (or) to gain rewards.
Organizations and their managers must understand that the above recommendations
are key components in the development and maintenance of an ethically-oriented
organizational culture. Organizations can also enhance an ethically-oriented culture by
paying particular attention to principled organizational dissent. Principled
organizational dissent is an important concept linking organizational culture to ethical
behavior. Principled organizational dissent is the effort by individuals in the
organization to protest the status quo because of their objection on ethical grounds, to
some practice or policy (Graham, 1986). Organizations committed to promoting an
ethical climate should encourage principled organizational dissent instead of
punishing such behavior.
Organizations should also provide more ethics training to strengthen their employees'
personal ethical framework. That is, organizations must devote more resources to
ethics training programs to help its members clarify their ethical frameworks and
practice self-discipline when making ethical decisions in difficult circumstances.
What follows is a useful seven-step checklist that organizations should use to help
their employees in dealing with an ethical dilemma (Schermerhorn, 1989; Otten,
1986):
(6) Double check your decision by asking: "How would I feel if my family found out
about this? How would I feel if my decision was printed in the local newspaper?"
** Do not automatically opt for a "strong" culture. Explore methods to provide for
diversity and dissent, such as grievance or complaint mechanisms or other internal
review procedures.
** Insure that a whistle-blowing and/or ethical concerns procedure is established for
internal problem-solving (Harrington, 1991).
** Provide ethics training programs for all employees. These programs should explain
the underlying ethical and legal (Drake and Drake, 1988) principles and present
practical aspects of carrying our procedural guidelines. Understand that not all ethical
situations are clear-cut. Like many basic business situations, the organization should
recognize that there are ambiguous, grey areas where ethical tradeoffs may be
necessary. More importantly, some situations have no simple solution (Cooke, 1991).
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