A true inquiry system tests the compliance of people - management, employees, public to the ethical system. One way to test this is to verify whether people concerned are informed about the standards or give credibility to ethical procedures, or in other words, it is important to verify how useful they think they are for specific business conduct.
A concrete way of establishing a system of inquiry, apart from observing the alignment of the mission or the values statement of an organization with the Code of Ethics, is developing a questionnaire. The questions need to establish by what methods the values and specific policies are communicated. Moreover it is important to assess the understanding of policies and procedures by examining opinions of people in different problematic situations involving conflicts or interests and other delicate issues. Their chose of an ethical course of action reflects a deeper understanding of the problem and the availability to manifest ethical conduct.
Decision-making processes may be assessed by examining the courses of actions and past unethical or ethical decisions. A good example of unethical business conduct and unethical decisions is Boeing Company, where repeated unethical behaviors and decisions have been manifest in the course of time: unethical hirings, leasing, biddings etc. despite the fact that they have a published Code of Ethics. In problem solving, it is again important to promote ethical alternatives in order to adopt a fair solution for the parties involved. The importance of the code and of the system of inquiry in establishing these alternatives is valuable.
A system of inquiry is important with respect to this matters in business because it may be organized to include past situations in which the members are asked what have they done, what decision they made or what alternative they chose and they are asked to assess the ethical nature of the decision or alternative. Moreover, the inquiry...
From this point-of-view, the inquiry system may be used to implement changes in an existing code of conduct or for developing one.
Therefore, the system of inquiry may take many forms: an observational process on past and current practices and conduct, a questionnaire, a situational semi-structured interview etc. Moreover, some organizations have Committees that supervise the implementation and compliance to stated ethical norms.
In conclusion, it is important to note that a system of inquiry may be used to develop and implement a Code of ethics in a given company or to change an existing one. Using an inquiry system has as a main advantage the fact that it offers the possibility to involve a great proportion of members of an organization, which leads to a comprehensive list of values and an increase in the chances that personal values match organizational ones. An inquiry system has a positive effect upon practices, conduct, and in the end, upon the implementation and compliance to the Code itself.
Bibliography
Grundstein-Amado R. (2001) a Strategy for Formulation and Implementation of Codes of Ethics in Public Service Organizations www.informaworld.com5, pages 461-478
Kremer R. (1993) Using the new
ACM code of ethics in decision making Communications of the ACM, 36(2) pp.98-107 Retrieved at http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/cpsc/451/W98/Ethics.html
American Society of Newspaper Editors Code of Ethics retrieved at http://www.asne.org/kiosk/archive/principl.htm
U.S. Bank Code of Ethics and Business Conduct Retrieved at http://www.usbank.com/cgi_w/cfm/about/ethics/pdf/coeEEHandbkHR1098D.pdf
MacDonald C. (unavailable year) Creating a Code of Ethics for Your Organization, Retrieved at http://www.ethicsweb.ca/codes
