Driving Systematic Ethical Change (Research Paper Sample)

Driving Systematic Ethical Change Name Institution Abstract This research titled Driving Systematic Change reviews and synthesizes the components of ethical culture and cultural change efforts, as discussed by Johnson (2016), which are required to build an ethical organization. The ethical drivers that play a significant role in promoting a systematic moral change include ethical diagnosis, engaged leadership, targeted socialization processes, ethics training and continuous ethical improvement. The first step in conducting a systematic ethical change should be diagnosing and understanding the current moral conditions of the organization. Diagnosis is essential in determining the strengths and weaknesses, misalignment areas, the criteria for making ethical choices and shared perceptions of the organization’s moral health. This information will aid the rest of the change effort. The most basic drive to a systematic ethical change is leadership. The senior management in an organization should act as role models to the junior staff by applying ethical behaviors in everything that they do. Some ethical values that leaders can display in their daily activities in an organization include integrity and fairness in how they treat their subordinates. Providing moral training to employees also promote ethical behaviors among the employees. These training can be provided through workshops, seminars, and conferences. Other than creating awareness, these training also provide forums on which employees concerns and questions can be addressed. The objective of this research is to discuss how the various ethical drivers facilitate systematic ethical changes in any organization. Introduction In the 21st century, creating an ethical business culture has become a fundamental approach in many organizations towards promoting its reputation. The recent corporate scandals have compelled corporations globally to consider their ethical values by ensuring that they build effective business ethics that will eliminate unethical behaviors. Each company must fashion a culture of ethics that will ensure that its leaders do not downplay a culture of ethics that creates bottlenecks for strategies designed to promote ethical conduct (Sauser Jr., 2013). Therefore, this kind of corrosive atmosphere within the company may result in the embezzlement of funds and manipulation of financial statements. According to Brooke (2012) in the TEDx talk, the lack of courage and ethical leadership among the employees and leaders can lead to the failure of an organization in embracing ethical cultures. Brookline believes employees should understand their pattern of behaviors when it comes to their values and practice in situations that warrant them to confront issues of ethical practices within the organization. Therefore, it is essential to train and educate employees on the importance of practicing higher values regarding ethics. Also, the manner in which personnel treat each other and interact with the leadership can create moral impasses in the place of work. A culture of ethics does not explicitly guarantee financial success; however, it may append to the bottom line financial performance of the firm (Brooke, 2012). The paper will investigate what is entailed in the creation of an ethical business environment in organizations by implementing different approaches to add value to the ethics of the company. Factors in Creating Ethical Cultures in an Organization The TEDx talk by Brooke explains the issues that surround ethics in business in which employees are prone to fall in ethical traps that will affect their values. In many instances, employees usually understand that they were paid to share their values with others in the company. Brooke further discusses the fact that the conflict of the majority of ethical human resources in the organization is betraying their values while challenging a given situation. The author also argues that employees should give a second thought to their values, and comprehend their patterns in issues to do with their values and practice situations that will allow them to practice the most significant values. This will enable these employees to act in a manner that they exercise their values in the organization. It is further evident in the talk that many employees lack the courage while the leaders have failed to demonstrate ethical leadership in the workplace resulting in unethical organizations. The following factors are essential in creating an ethical business culture within an organization (Brooke, 2012). Modeling the Desired Behavior through Leadership A corporate culture that promotes ethical values starts with corporate leaders in the organization. The senior management should play a leading role in “walking the talk” on issues of ethics, as well as model ethical behavior in all they do to influence the employees in copying these behaviors. This was supported by Brooke where he emphasized the need for modeling ethical behaviors in the organization (Brooke, 2012). The leaders in an organization should lead as role models by promoting ethics through their behaviors that will make the subordinates in the organization to copy these behaviors in promoting ethical values. Leaders should remember that being an “ethical individual” who is guided by fairness, as well as integrity is crucial in modern organizations where they should treat employees fairly. Also, they should make ethical decisions towards creating ethical culture through practices. However, those aspects only deal with the “ethical” part of the leadership in the firm. Therefore, to be ethical leaders, managers should reflect upon the “leadership” part of the term. They are needed to provide ethical leadership that entails undertaking moral decisions and values that are visible. The managers should communicate effectively and openly concerning not just the bottom line objectives, but also the satisfactory and tolerable means of achieving these objectives. Moreover, being a moral leader too implies asking openly how significant decisions would impact different stakeholders within the organization i.e. shareholders, workers, clients, and society and making transparent the efforts regarding the manner to balance the competing concerns. Hence, it means that employing the reward process to converse what is anticipated is crucial in the organization. Rewarding ethical behaviors, as well as disciplining immoral conduct, even if the law violator is a senior individual in the organization will promote ethics in the organization. Furthermore, leaders should be leading by example in allowing the employees to recognize that the immoral behavior was taken seriously and the employee should be punished (Truxillo et al., 2016). Additionally, ethical leaders along with ethical cultures work in harmony to promote ethical lifestyles in an organization. Establishing an ethical culture cannot be assigned by leaders alone, but the chief executive officer (CEO) should be the Chief Ethics Officer of the business. The majority of the chief executive officers might feel that they can instead pass on this challenge that they do not understand how to do it or they can prefer that everybody in their firm is currently ethical. Ethics is being “supervised” in their companies with or without their awareness of the supervision. Thus, benign disregard of the moral culture fundamentally results in workers reaching the verdict correctly or imperfectly, that leaders are not concerned or do not care about ethical issues because they consider the CEO is not worried about ethics (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003). The likelihood is that if a leader has not reflected much regarding this status or has not been very prolific about it, individuals in the firm will probably tag the leader as unethical, impartial leader. This implies that employees are not sure whether the leader stands on the recurrent conflicts amid ethics and the bottom line. It is apparent that senior managers play a leading role in the organization in promoting an ethical culture in the organization. The executives set the pitch at the top, as well as oversee the ethical culture. However, from the day by day realizations and viewpoints, frontline supervisors are similarly vital due to their daily contacts with direct reports. Accordingly, an ethical culture eventually relies on the manner supervisors handle clients, employees and other stakeholders (Tozer, 2012). Focus on the Reward System Reward system is a vital means to convey a message regarding what behaviors are anticipated in the organization. Individuals will respond positively to rewards and negatively to punishment. The ethical behavior is mainly expected, and individuals do not expect or need rewards for performing their tasks in a way that is right. In the long-term, ethical behavior might be rewarded through promotion, as well as compensating individuals who are not only good on their jobs but also cultivated a status with clients, employees and executives with high standards of ethics. The excellent approach to hold workers responsible for moral behavior is to integrate a 360-degree performance on the management systems, as well as make this assessment an open component of promotion besides compensation choices. The concern is that the bottom line plus ethical performance both matter. Unless people have both, they must not advance in the company. Senior corporate leaders are anticipated to sacrifice their efforts annually to recognize employees with commendable ethical behaviors in their business units, as well as make selections (Trevino & Brown, 2004). Possibly, even more, crucial than rewarding ethical behavior is ensuring that the unethical behavior is not rewarded in any case. That is what started to occur in the Arthur Andersen case because generating income became the only awarded conduct, and it did not matter how the employees did the...