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Hi there! Okay we're going to move into the ethical decision-making model with
significant more detail now. So I want to start with the organizational level, and
then after we're through discussing that we're going to move on to the individual
level. So let's take a look first at the group and organizational pressures that
they show on the slide as an input into the decision-making process. I want to
look at two categories--as you can see on the group and organizational pressure
slide--you'll see two categories both group norms and organizational effects. Now
keep in mind these are only examples, if we were doing a great big ethics class
there would be a lot more of characteristics we'd be looking at and
digging into, but these, I think, will give you a good feel for the two
levels of impact that you'd be getting from the group and organizational level.
Now first, keep in mind that as you look at both of these, these could lead
you either encourage you toward ethical behavior or discourage from
ethical behavior, depending on how the organization and the workgroup is set up.
So, don't consider these as all negatives, right? It could be that if you have a good
boss, the good boss is giving you great examples, and you help good co-workers
and everyone's encouraging everyone to be ethical. It can also go the other way. So
let's start with the example of "everyone's doing it." This excuse can be
used both by the individual to make excuses for him or herself. It can also
be used by the work group that you're around, that can say "oh come on,
everyone's doing it." And it could be that that's not true, and in a
lot of cases it isn't, but it's use very conveniently as an excuse. So that's one
group effect that can change your ethical behavior. The next one is
rationalizing unethical behavior. This gives you reasons that
the group is telling you, "oh well we have all these twelve excuses for this"--the
group again is telling you why this is appropriate behavior in this particular
space, even though you might be hesitating. The last one is pressure
active pressure from them to go along with them. Now on the one hand, that can
just makes them feel better, right? You're not the ethical person who's making them
look bad, they're trying to convince you to do
this thing that they might know is a little shady, or they might know is less
than ethical, and if you come along with them, then they feel more justified in
what they're doing. So those are just examples of how a little workgroup--your
peers, the people that you're hanging out with the most--can impact, either pro or
con, what happens with your ethical behavior. If we go step back a little bit
further with a little bit bigger picture, we've got the organizational effects.
An example of this is reward and punishments--this is kind of a
classic, right? How is the pay system set up? How is the bonus system set up? If
it encourages you to pull out all the stops and do whatever it takes in order to
meet your goals, then you might do some shady stuff. If it just says, you know, you
need to meet your goals, but we also appreciate these four factors, and our
value system, and please don't never violate those, you're going to have a
little bit different behavior. Then punishment is kind of the other side of
that, right? If you see that if you behave in certain ways you get
disciplined, or you get discouraged from doing those things, you're going to
really notice that people are trying to keep you on the straight and narrow,
and keep you from doing things in a shadier way. Second one on this is roles at
work. Like what roles have you been handed? What role are you playing? What does
your job description say? The first characteristic that we
could look at here is conflicting roles. Say you get an accounting
degree, and you have certain accounting ethics that you should be following.
At the same time, your job description, or your boss, or the organization, is putting
pressure on you to behave in a different way. You're then playing conflicting
roles that can give you a lot of headaches over whether or not you should
do the right thing or do the not-so-right thing. Or sometimes you might think
the organization believes this is the right thing, but it conflicts with what
your other role is doing. So that's a real problem for people, especially at
lower levels of the organization where they haven't had a chance yet to work
those things out. Another role issue is if the roles are actually supporting
your ethical behavior. So it could be that the role you are given, that the
norms that you're following--in terms of job description or what you're being told
do--supports and coincides and fits with what you think you should be doing in
terms of your other roles. The last one here, in terms of organizational effects,
is diffusion responsibility. This sounds kind of fancy, but it means
something I think we've all experienced. Which is, you are a little cog
in the big machine. You don't feel like you can really have a
big impact on what's going on in the bigger picture and what's going on in
your organization. So, if you're asked to do something that's just a little bit
off, you might think, well that can't have a big impact on the big picture. And they
diffuse that feeling of responsibility for many employees, and then the overall
big picture can end up being very unethical.
So that gets people very concerned, and in a group can lead to kind of a
group think idea where people say, oh well, it must be okay, and the group is doing
it. And then the bigger group is doing it because they figured that that group
couldn't be completely wrong, in terms of ethics, so that expands to the point that
the organization is actually doing unethical things, despite the good people
being involved in doing just slightly unethical things. Okay so keep in mind,
too, as we talk about both of these levels that the integrity--doing what you
believe is right--helps to kind of insulate you, or protect you, from these
external pressures. And if you're right about what's right, you might be wrong. If
you're right about what's right, then you're actually going to be doing the
right thing, and maybe it's not a great fit for you. That's, as we talked
about, all of these organizational pressures. If you find yourself taking a
job or working in a place where you don't fit in, where your ethical norms,
your ethical standards, are not in sync with what they do in that organization,
it could be you don't belong there. So that's something to consider. Okay, let's
take a look at the next higher level--as you see on the big ethical
decision-making model. The other characteristic of organizations that
they talk about is culture. So again, these are just examples of culture.
Again these can go either way to pressure you, for or against ethical behavior.
And notice, too, that on ethical culture slide that it can either be formal
systems or informal systems that we're looking at. So the
first one--in terms of formal systems--is selection and training. So, how do they
hire you? How do they hire other people? What are they looking for in the hiring
process? You can learn a heck of a lot about this just by the process that
you had to go through in order to join the organization. Did they ask you
questions that seemed to be kind of ethically related? Were they trying to
check and see how flexible you might be about things that they might
want you to do, even if they could be a little off target? Again as you start
in the training that they put you through, and the training that you might see
people go through later, all give you clues or ideas to what the formal system of
the organization is trying to shape you into as an ethical or unethical employee.
The second--one performance management--this is a more formal version of what we
talked about a minute ago. So the actual raises and promotions, the system that's
in place in order to decide how much money you should get or how much money
other people get. Are they getting promoted based on things that you would
think they shouldn't be doing? How often do they do performance evaluation?
How thorough are these performance evaluations? We talk about things like
values or ethical behavior in those in those structures settings. The last one,
in terms of formal systems, is the authority structure. Here what you
want to look for most is whether or not the ethical leaders--whether you have
ethical leaders that are in place in the formal structure of the organization. Are
the people that are leading you actually doing the right thing? Here you need
to think about whether or not they're ethical people, but also whether or not
they're behaving as ethical managers. Are they training their subordinates to be
ethical workers? Ethical people? So those are some formal systems, again,
that are examples of what you might look for in an organizational culture to see
how ethical it is. The other half of that is the more informal systems. So, you
have an organization--we're in the culture level--but, you have to look
around and see like what informally goes on here
that may even be at odds with what the formal structure says? So you
have to kind of see where the real life happens. The first one that they talk
about is role models and heroes. Who are the people that everyone
looks up to? Who are that people that are just like kings and queens, even at your
own level? The ones they get the best promotions, they get the best offices. Who
do people look up to and why? The next one--norms and rituals. In order to maintain a
culture, it takes work, right? It's like they have to have some idea what the
cultural norms are in the organization, and then they're going to have
certain kinds of parties, or certain kind of award ceremonies, and they're going to
really put a lot of focus on maintaining the initiatives, maintaining the
personalities, maintaining the culture that they want to have respected and
admired. And the last one here that's closely related to that is the myths and
stories of the organization. What are the legends? What do people say, oh,
did you ever hear about Bob who ten years ago he did this? One of the famous ones--
that I think Nordstrom has actually changed their policy--but long ago,
Nordstrom had a legend about the return desk taking back a set of
tires even though they don't sell tires, but they had a 100% return policy,
satisfaction guaranteed. The person came in and said I'm not satisfied with
these tires. That was a legend at Nordstrom, and probably will stay that
way now that they have changed their policy a little bit so that you
cannot return your tires to Nordstrom. Finally, I just want to
reinforce before we get to the individual level, which is coming up next--
Your integrity, your character, your willingness to follow what you believe
in, can help insulate you from all of these external pressures and systems and
structures. Again, it just makes an incredible amount of difference if you
walk into an organization where you fit. You will be more successful, you will be
happier, you will probably get more promotions. And figuring that out during
the hiring process is a really important thing to do, if you can. You can
at least figure out some of those formal structures--figuring out the informal
structures might be a little trickier. Okay so now we're going to be moving on
to the individual level, see you soon.
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