Ethical Behavior and Organizational Culture at GE

Introduction: Ethics in the Modern Business Climate

With all the current headlines about company misbehaviors and business ethics violations has come a considerable — and long overdue — increase in attention to ethics among businesses. As a consequence of bad press surrounding lawsuits against poorly behaving companies, many large corporations have scrambled to set themselves apart from the offenders. Companies have rapidly developed ethics codes, implemented compliance monitoring programs, and elevated corporate officers to publicly champion their organizations' renewed ethical focus, all in the hope of recapturing consumer confidence in a difficult economy. Consumers are increasingly wary of all business interactions, to the disadvantage of everyone, even the most upstanding companies. While businesses are fighting for survival in challenging conditions, they need to look to the future and build solid foundations upon which to base their efforts (Pike, n.d.).

GE's Corporate Culture and Global Learning Program

This forward-looking outlook is exactly the approach that General Electric has adopted. One area of massive strength for GE is the way the company identifies and develops leaders. Much of the credit goes to GE's corporate learning programs, as education is a primary and deeply rooted part of their corporate culture. GE uses an umbrella approach that they call GE Global Learning, which is organized into three sections. The first is leadership. The second is skills, which includes areas such as finance and marketing. The third is business, which includes ethics training (How GE builds global leaders: A conversation with Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters, 2010).

GE takes a stair-step approach to learning. First, they offer a collection of on-demand courses available through their computer systems, supported by an enterprise-wide license with several vendors. These courses cover a wide range of topics, including ethics, and make use of video content and downloadable materials. Leaders are encouraged to use these on-demand courses independently or as part of lunch-and-learn programs (How GE builds global leaders: A conversation with Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters, 2010).

Delivering Ethics Training Across a Global Organization

Beyond on-demand resources, GE has developed thirteen courses focused on leadership skills — including ethics — that all employees are expected to complete. These courses are delivered at GE locations around the world through a train-the-trainer model: once leaders are trained, they return to their teams and train their staff in turn. GE also recognizes that a significant component of effective teaching must always be face-to-face. The company has no plans to move to a purely technology-based or e-learning model, as it believes that motivating, uniting, and developing ideas requires people to be physically present in the same space. GE holds that a great amount of cross-functional and cross-geographic sharing takes place when people meet in person (How GE builds global leaders: A conversation with Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters, 2010).

GE recognizes that, as a global company, its commitment to ethics is vital to its overall success (How GE builds global leaders: A conversation with Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters, 2010). If everyone in the company receives the same message, there is every reason to expect that all employees can abide by the rules and conduct themselves properly. Companies that do not clearly lay out their business ethics expectations — as GE does — often find that some employees are uncertain about what the rules actually are. One might assume that doing the right thing is inherently obvious, but people frequently encounter situations in which they must make a choice without clear guidance. This is precisely where thorough ethics training proves its value: a well-trained employee will know which decision aligns with company policy.

Conclusion: Good Ethics as Good Business

The bottom line is that good ethics equates to good business. There is a direct connection between behaving ethically and creating long-term shareholder value. In addition, high integrity in external business dealings goes hand in hand with greater transparency and increased honesty in internal relationships. This requires choosing leaders who are not only ethical themselves but also committed to ensuring their organizations operate ethically at all times (George, 2008).

GE's model demonstrates that ethical organizational culture does not emerge by accident — it is deliberately constructed through consistent training, leadership accountability, and a company-wide commitment to a single standard of conduct. When employees at every level receive the same ethical guidance and understand the expectations placed on them, the organization as a whole is far better equipped to make sound decisions in challenging situations.

References

George, B. (2008). Ethics must be global, not local. Retrieved from

How GE builds global leaders: A conversation with Chief Learning Officer Susan Peters. (2010). Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2488

Pike, M. (n.d.). Business ethics foundations: Key elements of an ethics program. Retrieved from