Toyota Corporation's ethics program and corporate code of conduct

¶ … Ethics Program

Imagine company Toyota ethics program effective program . The Federal Sentencing Guidelines Organizations encourages firm set ethics programs. Review Website, located http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines, prior assignment.

Toyota Corporation is a multinational automaker in japan and is the world's largest automobile manufacturer. The company employs a large number of employees in different departments with different key objectives in order to achieve the organizations different objectives. Toyota Corporation has a corporate philosophy that is well communicated to the employees and facilitates the achievement of their goals. The managers of the organization view employees as the most important factors who contribute towards the achievement of set objectives. An ethics program is a systematic approach to raising ethical awareness of employees, providing education and guides on ethics.

Companies' focus of writing codes of conduct is transforming from writing the rules to regulate conduct to leveraging value-based codes that inspire principled performance among executives, management and employees. Business ethics refers to behavior that a business organization adheres to in its daily operations with its surroundings Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2012.

These behaviors can be diverse in that business ethics can be practiced to avoid consequences that may result in civil law suits against the organization, to avoid breaking the law during organizations operations and to avoid actions that promote a bad image for the company applying internationally or with dealings with a single customer. It is through an effective ethics program that an organization will be able to practice good business ethics.

Code of conduct used by other auto mobile corporations and their criticism

The components of an ethics program include an audit and investigation system, a reporting mechanism, code of ethics, ethics training for employees and a means of communicating with employees. It is important to note that not all ethics programs will consist on all mentioned components and different corporations will have varied emphasis on each component. The compliance strategy in an effective ethics program is necessary as it tries to prevent violation of government regulations, self- interested behavior by employees and criminal conduct. The compliance strategy also tries to compel acceptable behavior and impose standards of conduct and final the strategy relies more on compliance officers and corporation lawyers.

The integrity strategy in the ethics program communicates the vision and values of the organization, seeks to create conditions that support right action, aligns the standards of the employees with those of the organization and does not only rely on the compliance and law personnel but also the whole management team. Toyota Corporation is to adopt corporate codes of ethics in order to discover core principles, the codes can also act as communication tools, to enhance employees commitment to company ethical conduct, help achieve consensus on ethical conduct and to be able to generate discussion of what is ethical conduct. Having codes of conduct in a corporation is also disadvantageous when the corporation put so much emphasis on the rules at the expense of judgment, for example, employees assuming that anything not forbidden can be pursued. Another disadvantage is that too much emphasis on actions that harm the organization may lead to skepticism about the role of the code. To overcome the identified disadvantages, organizations can focus on strong corporate culture and leadership as opposed to the written codes and relying upon internal auditing and extensive government regulation. An effective ethics program is beneficial to the Toyota Corporation because firstly, relations with the organizations stakeholder are effectively managed for example stakeholders are reassured of the company's intentions and suppliers are also informed of the company's standards. An effective ethic program also enables the organization adapt to rapid change for example in mergers and acquisitions, global competition and regulatory changes that may require new ways of doing business and finally an ethics program prevents ethical misconduct that could lead to loss of an organization's reputation or monetary losses. The formulation of corporate codes of ethics follows three approaches. The managerial team should ensure the codes of ethics include statement of specific standards or business standards, statement of core values or mission statement and statement of corporate philosophy that describes the beliefs guiding the organization. The process of writing codes of ethic is consultative in order to come up with best codes that will remain relevant in the future. The participants in the process include the general counsel, chief executive officer, senior human resource executives, the chairman, senior financial executives, employee representatives and consultants Hill & Jones, 2010()

Federal sentencing guidelines and their influence on the ethics program created

All business organizations are interested to make profits as the main goal referred to as capitalism but the manner in which they make money that brings the question of business ethics. Every business should have the aim of practicing good business ethics to enhance good relations with the surroundings and avoid being fined. Federal sentencing guidelines have the objective of providing fair retribution, enough deterrence and motivation to maintain internal mechanisms for detecting, preventing and reporting criminal conduct. When an employee or an organization is found guilty of committing an offense, fines are raised based on obstruction of justice, involvement of top officials, organization size and prior violations. Potential fines may be reduced through the implementation of an effective program that demonstrates good faith to avoid ethics violation and prevents or detects ethics violation or full cooperation with federal authorities in criminal investigation Wulf, 2012.

Federal sentencing guidelines will help develop an effective program that will have compliance standards capable of reducing criminal conduct; develop an approach of communicating the policies and procedures to all employees, designate top level managers to oversee the program and be specific not to delegate authority to persons known to have criminal tendencies. An effective program will also ensure future criminal conduct is prevented even if it involves modification of the ethics program, standards will also be consistently enforced through appropriate disciplinary mechanisms and use auditing and monitoring systems to achieve compliance through detection of criminal conduct by workers and also having a reporting system where employees can report colleagues exhibiting criminal conduct.

How the created codes of conduct will remain relevant over the years

The developed codes of conduct for Toyota Corporation will remain relevant over the years because the desirable values which include citizenship, fairness, caring, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness will be adopted. These values will become part of the corporate culture through support of top management, effective distribution and training. The codes of ethics will also be developed in consideration of areas of risk and organizational values. The best alternative values the specifically address the current ethical issue will be identified and selected for implementation. The values to be selected will also be based on the organizations link to a stakeholder direction Hill & Jones, 2010.

The management the makes the codes understandable to the employees by providing examples that replicate the values and frequently communicate the values to the staff. Finally it is upon the management team to revise the code each and every year with contributions from the different stakeholders and ensure they are current with the national and international requirement in business ethics and codes of conduct.

Conclusion

For an organization to be classified as either successful or beaten depends on how the company channels the varied talents and energies of its employees towards achievement of its goals. Organizations need to invest in employee engagement to company success. Effective motivation strategy should include providing a good working environment, good pay and participation of employees in decision making. This creates the feeling of importance and enables employees to commit towards achieving organizational objectives and enhance successful training and implementation of an ethics program. Top managers should avoid the common mistakes that arise during designing and implementation of an effective ethics program. For example, during training, managers should not offer long hours of lecture instead organize employees in small discussion groups. Another common mistake is adopting a program practiced by a given international corporation and hope the program succeeds in the identified organization. Effective ethics programs should be designed to specifically meet the needs of the organization. In developing a compliance strategy, the managers should ensure the program addresses the needs of an average employee as opposed to the legal protection of the organization only Ferrell, et al., 2012.

Mangers should be careful not design ethics programs while failing to appreciate and understand the goals of the program, the objectives of the program should me measurable and realistic and finally after designing the program, managers should not make the mistake of not owning up to the ethical program. As organizations adapt and refine their ethical programs, it is also important to develop qualitative and quantitative measurement techniques to rate progress toward their goals.

Reference

Ferrell, O.C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2012). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.

Hill, C.W.L., & Jones, G.R. (2010). Strategic management theory: An integrated approach. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Wulf, K. (2012). Ethics and Compliance Programs in Multinational Organizations. New York: Gabler.