From this broader perspective and in their planning and operations they have changed the term 'stockholder' to 'stakeholder' to cover employees, customers, suppliers and the community at large. With the growing complexity and dynamism brought about in business, organizations understood they required more guidance to guarantee that their dealings aligned with the overall good and did not pose any harm to others and with this was born business ethics. (McNamara, 2007)
Currently, ethics in the workplace is managed through the application of code of ethics, codes of conduct, contribution of ethicists and ethics committee, polices and procedures, procedures to solve ethical dilemmas, besides training in ethics. There are several benefits of managing ethics as a program. Ethics program help in (i) establishing organizational roles to manage ethics (ii) scheduling the current assessment of ethics needs (iii) set up needed operating values and behavior (iv) streamlining organizational behaviors with operating values (v) promoting awareness and sensitivity to ethical issues (vi) integrating ethical instructions into the decision making process (vii) streamlining the mechanism in order to resolve ethical dilemmas (viii) helping in the current evaluation and updates to the program (ix) building a trust within employees that attention to ethics is not just a knee-jerk reaction performed free oneself from trouble or improve public image of the organization. (McNamara, 2007)
Guidelines for managing organizational ethics: (i) Identifying that managing ethics is a continuous process: Ethics programs might appear to be more process oriented compared to majority of the management practices. Although ethics programs produce deliverables for instance code of conduct, procedures and policies, budget items, authorization forms newsletter etc., the most vital characteristic of an ethics program is the process of reflection and dialogue which generates these deliverables. (ii) the most perfect among the ethical values and aim does not carry any value unless they produce fair and just behaviors in the organization. This is the reason why practices which generate lists of ethical values or codes of conduct, should also generate policies, procedures and training which convert those values to suitable behaviors. (iii) Developing code of ethics and conduct are very important as this is the best manner to tackle ethical dilemmas and prevent their happening in the first place. (iv) Making ethical decisions collectively and making decisions public normally produces better quality designs by including diverse interests and perspectives, and raises the believability of the decision process and results by lowering suspicion of unfair bias. (McNamara, 2007) v) Integrating ethics management with other management practices for example show on what ethical values one would like to be the most prominent in the organizational culture and subsequently design policies to generate these behaviors (vi) Using cross functional teams while developing and implementing the ethics management program inculcates a sense of a belongingness and ownership within the program when they stick to its ethical value. Hence, it is important to include employees in developing and managing the program. (vii) it is important to note that attempting to operate ethically and making a few mistakes is considered better than not attempting at all. It is seen that some organizations have been popular as they operate in an extremely ethical manner for instance, Johnson and Johnson, Aveda, Ben and Jerrys, HP. (McNamara, 2007)
Need for a Compliance Officer to ensure organizational ethics:
It is advocated that one of the best methods to ensure organizational ethics is to have a Compliance Officer vested with sufficient authority and staff to undertake compliance program's functions. The program must cover an Ethics Code, an internal hotline that the employees are able to use to report compliance concerns, and education and training for everybody. Besides, the program must be audited on a regular basis to guarantee its feasibility. The Compliance Officer is pivotal to a properly managed program. He must be a part of the senior management and report to the BOD of the organization. The Officer's identity must be publicized across the organization and all the employees must be urged to take any matters related to fraud, waste, and abuse straightaway to the Compliance Officer. (Lovitky; Ahern, 1999)
However in case of bigger organizations, a compliance office staff might be needed. The initiation in case of any properly managed compliance program is an extensive ethics code in written form. This document must communicate very distinctly as well as precisely the ethical values to be adhered to by all employees. Moreover, the code should be practical to foster ethical behavior in the workplace on a regular basis. The Code of Ethics must highlight the importance...
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