Research Organizational Ethical Climate of General Motors (Essay Sample)

Organization Ethical Climate Analysis for General Motors
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Organization ethical climate analysis for General Motors
The organization’s ethical orientation
Moral orientation refers to the approach that the organization and the individuals in the firm take when faced with ethical decisions (Phapruke, 2012). The ethical perceptions and the ability to recognize the ethical nature in different situations determines the type of orientations the individuals take. General Motors uses a combination of virtue system and virtue ethics orientations. The system ethics focuses on the external environment while the virtue approach concentrates on the internal environment. The virtue approach applies to the employees of the organization as they deal with other employees and external stakeholders of the enterprise. It aims at setting the personal values and morals that the workers should follow when interacting with all stakeholders. It also aims at enhancing the individual application of different ethics and associated behavior for all employees.
It uses this virtue approach to give the enduring traits that give the workers a good ethical condition and enable them to handle all issues well. It also includes a pursuit of personal identification and creating satisfaction when undertaking all the responsibilities the individual employees have. To fully achieve this ethical climate, the firm applies the six dimensions of the moral virtues orientation. These dimensions are integrity, community, judgment, holism, excellence and role identity (Newlands & Hooper, 2012).
The integrity dimension is a requirement for the employees to take the best decision and action in ethical dilemmas. The managers must also apply integrity when making the hard decisions or face difficult ethical situations. It requires every individual to stand entirely on the organization’s moral values in all cases. When promoting integrity, the firm needs the workers to take the best decision even when the rules and regulations seem unclear. In scenarios of unclear procedures the individual must ask themselves whether the decision he wants to make is legal, is consistent with the shared values and policies and whether the person would be willing to be accountable for the decision (General Motors, 2016).
The community dimension states that when people join to work in the organization, they form a community. When one agrees to enter the community, they become a part of it and must and they have a responsibility of acting in the best interest of that community (Newlands & Hooper, 2012). Therefore, every action that a person undertakes must benefit the community as a whole and maintain its right image.
The judgment dimension requires all individual to have the ability to judge and determine the best decision to take in diverse situations. This aspect is very crucial because different choices will have different outcomes and these outcomes may either be in favor or destroy the organization in the eyes of its customers. It requires individuals to identify facts and approaches necessary to make sound judgments.
The dimension of holism requires all workers to understand and apply all the organization core values. It also requires all employees and to treat all customers, visitors, and other stakeholders with respect, meet their needs and treat their rights as it is universally expected.
The dimension of excellence requires that the employees must do their best in all situations and not just meet the lowest level of what is expected of them. This approach is vital because there is a lot of competition in the automotive industry and small actions of unethical behavior can significantly affect the goodwill of the company giving a competitive edge to the competitors. It also requires all individuals to be creative and fully engage in their work.
The dimension of role identity requires the individuals to identify the reason for the existence if the company and their particular roles in meeting the goals of the organization before they decide on the decision to make. The organization pays the employees to perform the specified tasks, and they must be ethical to ensure that they carry out their roles to receive payment. The employees also have a role in satisfying other stakeholders and each must understand that role and perform it to the best level possible.
The second orientation of system ethics involves the organization having a code of the ethics that develops and maintains the firm’s ethical culture. Its code of ethics is titled “winning with integrity.” It has set and integrated this system for use within the organization. To create a uniform culture, the code of ethics is for all people from the directors to the person at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy. The organization requires the staff to every year affirm that they are aware of what the code requires them to achieve and then comply with these requirements.
The code aims at shaping the ethical behaviors of General Motors to develop it to be the best vehicle manufacturing company. The central themes of the code are personal integrity, integrity in the workplace, integrity in the marketplace and integrity towards the environment. These four pillars aim at setting the ways on how to handle customers, respond to their complaints, engage in ethical deals with suppliers, compete in the right way conserving the environment. To fully install the ethical culture, the firm undertakes regular training for both workers and managers. It also monitors the application of the code, provides avenues for reporting unethical behaviors and ensures the protection of the whistle-blowers who report any wrong actions.
The organization’s stage of moral development
Using the Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral development, General Motors is at the second phase, that is, the conventional stage. At this point, the employees are always willing to do their duty, follow the set rules and maintain the specified order (Bernstein, 2010). The employees have the desire to please other stakeholders and to get their approval. The employees have become very conversant with the code of the ethics. They also are very comfortable working in the organization under the set rules, observing ethical practices in dealing with other coworkers and their managers.
This accepting of the set code of ethics has helped reduce the number or cases emerging from the employees activities. This reduction has assisted in improving the image of the company to the public in all the countries spread in the six continents it operates in. It has also worked as motivation for the employees who have adopted the mentality of improving their productivity in their roles. A majority of the workers have learned to meet all the expected levels of performance and working individually to improve the overall performance of the company.
All employees in all the organizational structure after accepting and fully integrating an organization culture, and fully following them, they have learned that observing them have proved beneficial to both the employees and the company. This acceptance has significantly reduced the number of conflicts between workers. The cohesiveness of the workers has had a positive impact on the business profits.
The acceptance and embracing of the “winning with integrity” code of ethics have improved the relationship with its external stakeholders. The company now has a code that the workers must observe when interacting with the customers. This code aims at increasing the customer satisfaction, increasing the chance of having repeat customers and getting client referrals. The relationship with suppliers has also improved as the company has been paying them appropriately which has reduced delays in getting the supplies.
Is the organization’s ethical climate positive or negative?
Ethical climate refers to the set of common understanding of what the company considers being the correct behavior and how the employees handle ethical issues. The ethical climate provides the information on what to adopt as standard and acceptable behavior that employees should apply when faced with ethical decisions (Stawiki, 2008). The environment establishes what the members of the enterprise will consider being the norm when making ethical decisions.
The ethical climate is positive. It is positive because the company has established a set code of ethics that has worked well for the organization. The code has received full support from both the management and workers who have been willing to observe all the four pillars fully. The climate is favorable because it includes all the members of the company from the directors to the worker at the lowest level.
The environment is also favorable because it has worked well to reduce conflicts that earlier occurred among employees, with customers, and with other stakeholders. This reduction of internal and external conflicts have reduced the time usually wasted in solving the conflicts and also reduced delays in delivery of supplies when there is a conflict with suppliers. Also, it has reduced cases that could destroy the public image of the company. The favorable climate has improved the way General Motors engages its competitors. It has also increased the contribution of the business to the conservation of the environment which also helps in improving its reputation.
This positive ethical climate has created five types of climate conditions. These environments are caring, independence, efficiency, law and rules and instrumental (Shacklock, Manning, & Hort, 2011).
The caring environment encourages the employees to care and have a concern about other work...