Wanda (A)
Martinez et. al (2021) analysis of actual culture management experiences in aims to shed more light on how deeply ingrained ethics are in businesses. To address these complexities and difficulties of establishing a culture in which ethical issues are a frequent component of corporate talks and decision-making, semi-structured interviews were performed in Spain and the United States using the action-research methodology. The findings’ consistency points to trends in organizational circumstances, cultural components, and possibilities that affect how corporate cultures based on fundamental ethical standards are managed. Another vital component that emerged was the ethical competence of the workforce and the leaders.
Through circumstances, respect for moral autonomy, conditions for ethical debate, and a sense of social duty were identified. These elements should be combined with a diverse.
As a tactic to satisfy social demands, many businesses are implementing culture management, which includes ethics (Trevio et al., 2014). However, ethics have not been completely incorporated into either the conventional triple bottom line or the culture that drives decisions (Burford et al., 2016). The lack of ethics in management was one of the key contributors to the fiscal crisis of 2007–2009. Since then, ethics has drawn greater attention because of high-profile ethical conundrums in the technology sector, which has long been regarded as a leading economic indicator. Governance today places a strong emphasis on moral culture. Boards should keep an eye on their firms’ cultures and include them in ongoing conversations with management about strategy, risk, and performance, according to a 2017 recommendation from the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission (NACD, 2017).
Even though businesses are involved in the fiscal crisis. The second article by a “Culture Architect” poses the question, how do you build a firm foundation for culture to flourish? There are two fundamental ideas: have a clear idea of the change you wish to create and design your structures accordingly. 1. Be simple without being simplistic. The first principles provide challenges since culture is complex and involves a variety of levels (e.g., values, beliefs, behaviors, systems, processes etc.). Because of this intricacy, there is a pervasive belief that “culture is intangible,” making it even more crucial for practitioners to rely on a reliable model and useful organizational principles. Businesses should refrain from framing that minimizes culture by focusing on a particular aspect of it.
But the study doesn’t provide enough evidence for us to comprehend. Does the internal infrastructure aim to improve moral awareness among employees or moral advancement for individuals? Do companies want to motivate their staff? Attempts at accelerating internal innovation inside an organization. To find out how a sense of ethics fits into this picture, more research is needed on these distinct objectives.
To understand how ethics fit into this picture, more research on these different goals is required. Investigating how business ethics might assist firms in achieving their objectives is important. It would also be helpful to have a better knowledge of how corporate ethics can be used in actual scenarios. The effect of business ethics on an organization’s bottom line should also be studied through research. To fully comprehend their functions in firms, more research into business ethics is required.
References
Burford G., Hoover E., Stapleton L., Harder M. An unexpected means of embedding ethics in organizations: Preliminary findings from values-based evaluations. Sustainability. 2016;8(7)
Ethical Systems. 2018. Featured ethics expert and culture architect: Caterina Bulgarella. Http://ethicalsystems.org/content/featured-ethics-expert-and-culture-architect-catarina-bulgarella
NACD. 2017. Culture as a corporate asset. Https://www.nacdonline.org/insights/publications.cfm?ItemNumber=48252
Martínez C, Skeet AG, Sasia PM. Managing organizational ethics: How ethics become pervasive within organizations. Bus Horiz. 2021 Jan-Feb;64(1):83-92. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2020.09.008. Epub 2020 Oct 21. PMID: 33106706; PMCID: PMC7577692.
Treviño L.K., Den Nieuwenboer N.A., Kish-Gephart J.J. (Un)ethical behavior in organizations. Annual Review of Psychology. 2014; 65:635–660.
Jonathan (B)
Is there research suggesting that organizational culture influences strategic approaches? Where does a sense of ethics fit into that picture?
Organizational culture is a nebulous concept that scholars generally agree exists, but what it is, how it’s formed, and what is does is rife for endless debate. One generally accepted theory is that it is the result of numerous interactions between staff and leadership, heavily influenced by leadership. Therefore, organizational culture, by definition, will influence the strategic approaches by the organization.
Isensee et al. (2020) stated that organizational culture gives “a sense of identity and determine behavior. The latter include general approaches concerning the organizational impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability) or the adoption of digital technologies (digitalization), which can cause profound transformations of the business model.” Between the idea that organizational culture gives identity and the thought that it shapes strategic approaches by organizations, the short answer to the prompt for a discussion post is “yes”.
Feldman (2019) speaks to “moral tradition” which he relates to the lessons learned in years gone by, that have been lost. As organizations develop and newer theories of what good management looks like are developed, many stray from their roots and begin to follow the numbers. This incessant movement from inception to the drive for growth has driven many organizations to failure. There is no singular reason for why this happens. It could be the result of a change in leadership, perhaps the founder has retired or passed on, or through an acquisition, organizations that find themselves under new management often find themselves facing new organizational culture.
This can be a challenge, especially for employees who have been with the organization a long time and identify with it and its values. New employees who have had little time to be imprinted upon, or employees who are ambivalent about their surroundings, will have less issues adapting to the new culture. In all of the aforementioned cases, a solid sense and set of ethics will serve an organization well. Ethics cannot be measured in standard units, but they are worth their weight in gold.
References
Feldman, S. (2019). Memory as a moral decision: The role of ethics in organizational culture.
Routledge.
Isensee, C., Teuteberg, F., Griese, K., & Topi, C. (2020). The relationship between
organizational culture, sustainability, and digitalization in SMEs: A systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 275, 122944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jclepro.2020.122944