Managing Organization Assignment 3

The problem of ethics II

The articles of session 11 give us insight into the problem of ethics faced by many organizations. The concept of complying with ethical norms has become one of the main focuses of many managers around the globe. The business environment in today’s world is extremely unstable, there is high competition between individuals and strict legal laws to immobilize illegal activities. Because of such a high competitive environment, managers and employees exhibit unethical behavior in order to get an edge over the competitors. It can be inferred from the articles that ethics in employees or in organizations are incorporated from top down, i.e. if the CEO’s and managers are able to create a working environment and culture that promotes good ethics, then employees are less likely to divulge in misconduct of ethics.

Many companies think that an employee’s disregard for ethics does not affect the organization or it has got nothing to do with the management of the organization. Whereas, most unethical business practices are picked up from the attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral patterns that defines the culture of an organization. Hence, it is imperative to install systems within the organization to properly facilitate ethical conduct and to motivate people to become whistleblowers. Many businessmen feel constrained to be whistleblowers, as they believe that unethical behavior is part of the culture of that organization and hence it must be okay to do it or they are simply afraid to lose their job. Therefore, managers must play an important role in creating an environment that promotes healthy ethical practices and strengthens reputation and relationship in order for the company to achieve success. Some ways to promote ethical practices is to start a compliance based ethics program or to use integrity based approach to ethics management. Using these programs, the companies can train its managers and employees to develop an ethical framework that would foster ideal behavior and code of conduct. This can be done by mixing concern for law with strongly emphasizing the manager’s responsibility for ethical behavior.

India is known to have a very high rate of corruption. Most cases of corruption in this country stems from the higher up authoritative