Ethics Lowes the (In)formality of Ethics in

Ethics Lowes The (In)Formality of Ethics in a Private Organization: A Case Study Lowes Foods Including Recommendations The recent economic downturn that the world's economies underwent has lead to a period of major reexamination and reconsideration of certain trends in the word of business and finance. The ethical decisions that business organizations must contend with on a daily basis clearly have major ramifications for many partners in its industry and even potentially in the global economy at large depending on the size and positioning of the organization in question.

Enough poor ethical decisions can, when added together and mixed with the right conditions can lead to major practical problems in business in addition to being generally reprehensible and directly ruinous to individual consumers and business partners. Most companies, of course, are not actually of a size to cause complete industry-or economy-wide upheaval due even to their complete failure.

That is, most companies are not like Lehman Brothers and will not cause a credit tightening and lack of trust the way the failure of this banking institution -- or the scandals at companies like Enron and Tyco -- did, no matter how large or egregious its ethical violations might be.

Regardless, it is important for all business organizations of any size and in all industries to conduct themselves with a high degree of attention to ethical behavior and standards to ensure not only their long-term viability but also a truly positive impact on the industries and communities with which they interact and in which they maintain their day-to-day and ongoing operations. This paper will examine the method of dealing with ethical issues at one medium-sized organization currently undergoing a major growth spurt.

After an analysis of this company's current ethical planning and decision making procedures, a plan for improving its manner of conducting itself in an ethical style so as to improve the efficiency and the efficacy of the organization's ethical processes. Following this, a projected assessment of the proposed changes on the organization will be presented so as to ascertain and clarify to the reader the full intentions and hypothesized effects for the implementation of this ethical plan.

This will include the possible reactions of employees to the proposed changes in ethical decision-making, which may lead to further recommendations or ongoing methods of analysis to ensure that employees are dealt with in a fair and effective manner throughout all changes. Ethics at Lowes Foods Lowes Foods is the owner and operator of approximately one hundred grocery supermarket stores throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and parts of Virginia (Lowes Foods 2010).

A subsidiary of the Alex Lee holding company, Lowes Foods has a fairly simple corporate structure at the company level that becomes far more complex when Alex Lee becomes involves making ethical decision-making a process that is somewhat difficult to trace in a large-scale manner (Lowes Foods 2010; Alex Lee 2010). Though communications channels within the company are highly structured and highly corporatized, the ethical processes and procedures in the company seem informal or at least ill defined (Lowes Food 2010).

Trevino and Nelson (2010) note that in organizations with weaker and/or more fragmented cultures, smaller sub-divisions and departments within that organization are likely to have a much greater impact on ethical decision-making processes and outcomes than will any organization-wide system of values or ethical procedures. Furthermore, while executive have tremendous power as ethical leaders for their business -- when they choose to be ethical, of course -- this requires a great deal of concerted effort especially in highly fragmented organizations (Trevino & Nelson 2010).

It would be difficult to describe the organizational structure of Lowes Foods as anything other than highly fragmented, especially within the context of its larger holding company Alex Lee; the fact that the corporation operates more then one hundred retail establishments across three different states and as only a part of a larger holding company's industry related endeavors is clear evidence that the structure cannot possibly be cohesive at an employee level (Lowes Foods 2010; Alex Lee 2010).

A Plan for Greater Ethicality The text identifies several key areas of methods for improving ethical consistency and overall ethicality in organizations such as Lowes Foods (Trevino & Nelson 2010). In a bureaucratic and hierarchic structure such as that of Lowes Foods and Alex Lee, ethical behavior must necessarily start at the top with true authority setting the formal ethical standards and expectations for the rest of the company (Lowes Foods 2010; Alex Lee 2010; Trevino & Nelson 2010). There are other formal methods for ethics creation described in the text as well.

Through the careful development, codification, and training of explicit and conscious ethical values and practices, Lowes Foods and the Alex Lee corporation as a whole will be able to instill more consistent and more effective values systems throughout all levels of the organization (Trevino & Nelson 2010). It is recommended that the formal creation and socialization of these ethical values and procedures be matched with informal reinforcement techniques such as the identification of heroes to and preferable within the organization and stories regarding their principles and values (Trevino & Nelson 2010).

To that end, the founders of what would become the Alex Lee corporation are suggested as figureheads as internal training purposes as well as external marketing (Alex Lee 2010). Plan Assessment There are a number of possible effects on the Lowes Food company and the Alex Lee corporation that could result from the plan for improved ethics briefly overview above.

It is hoped that a greater conscious understanding of the importance of ethics and the means of achieving greater ethicality within the context of the organization would be achieved by employees at all levels through ongoing training and workshop series. With this greater consciousness, it would be expected that more consistent ethical decisions and behaviors would be observed, and that unethical actions would be more readily and more frequently reported and responded to by appropriate individuals within the organization's hierarchy.

This would lead to greater ethicality within the organization as a whole and would become self-reinforcing over time in matters of selection,.