Company Culture, Pressures, and Ethics

Answer

Company Culture, Pressures, and Ethics

Acting in accordance with the company values within the workplace forms an essential aspect of developing an ethical organization culture. In organizations where an ethical tone has been set from top to bottom, employees are keen to do everything to act in accordance to these values. Therefore, it is imperative that every business creates a culture of ethics especially in the new emerging economy that is shaped by communication and information technologies (Warren, Gaspar, & Laufer, 2014). On the other hand, a culture in which some members especially at the top of the firm can engage in unethical behavior is a corrosive environment that can lead to misappropriation of resources. Furthermore, unethical behavior has been associated with many instances of market failure (Mihai & Alina, 2013). For these reason, every company should strive to develop a corporate culture that is self policing and one that positively encourages ethical behavior concerns at all levels and in all locations.

In the light of the various categories of employees’ moral development, I consider myself to fall under the moral compartmentalizer or rationalize. This is the category with actors holding on to the routine way of doing things in the organization regardless of their ethical or moral standing (Marianne, 2010). According to Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran, (2009), actors are more concerned with the custom or demands of the organization and their roles/duties as opposed to the moral impact that their actions may pose. In other words, as long as they have always done things in that manner before and resulted in positive outcomes, then it becomes the accepted way of doing things around them. This is likely to do with group roles and dynamics where a company develops a certain way or routine of doing things over time (Mihai & Alina, 2013). This then becomes the accepted way perpetrated through group expectations and governed under group norms. Acting or opposing the group norms can be taken as going against the group/organization and is likely to yield some negative consequences. As such, as a loyal member of the wider group/organization, I am governed and expected to act in accordance with these group norms.

The concept of compartmentalization is very familiar to social psychologists and psychologists. To compartimentalize implies to divo9de something into distinct and separate subsections or parts. Psychological compartmentalization as such refers to the process of isolating and separating some aspects of our personality from the rest of the personality (Warren, Gaspar, & Laufer, 2014). This flows from the premise that we embrace multiple identities through our life with each being identified and influenced by the roles that we perceive we ought to enact and the groups we interact with. This implies that we are not one self but a multiple of self that is constantly managing with our various self-aspects in order to suit the social expectations as well as our own in-built expectations. This view has been articulated by social psychologists as role playing and role taking. Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran, (2009) articulate the argument that life is a representation in which we are all prompted to perform particular roles and taking cues from fellow performers and audience as well as managing the transition from the backstage coupled with the roles that an individual enacts being the fruits of the social interaction. In other words, the self evolves dynamically along with the roles an individual performs shaped by their social interaction.

The role framework elicits a number of questions concerning the moral responsibility as ascribed to a professional role as a product of professional ethos and interactions and the articulation of personal values that are attached to a professional role. This type of argument is particularly common across the professional and business realms whereby actors often claim to act as representatives of the organization as opposed to acting as individuals free to make their own decisions (Warren, Gaspar, & Laufer, 2014). Notably, the moral responsibility of such individuals appears to be heavily mitigated for as long as they do not define or create the roles that they are expected to endorse (Murphy, 2009).

Our emotions, passions, habits, and rational calculations all influence our behavior and bring forth our contradictions. When the material ego has little concern for the feeling and acts as autonomous, then the reactive ego operates on emotions and excessive subjectivity. As Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran, (2009) note, the conflicts created that way are trivial when they address the minor decisions of our everyday life. Moreover, such conflicts are more serious when they address a decision of a moral nature. Notably, the moral issue is two-fold whereby the person either voluntarily shuts down some egos to facilitate one to direct their behavior or they identify with one ego unconsciously or assume it represents their whole being (Mihai & Alina, 2013). The two cases involve compartmentalization. However, in the first case, the individual chooses to withdraw parts of themselves to let the other prevail based on interest or comfort while in the second instance, the individual is unaware that they are fragmenting their personality and loses grasp of who they actually are.

One can argue that awareness of our natural tendency to compartmentalize and fragment our personality is a necessary prerequisite to fostering a good moral standard. Carl Jung’s individuation process succinctly exemplifies the premise that acknowledgement of our inner moral tensions that are inherent to everyone is essential to rediscover the self and realize a state of wholeness (Weaver, Trevino, & Cochran, 2009). Consequently, denial of one’s contradictions and parts of their psychic experiences can only act to drive them away from oneself and true identity (Marianne, 2010). As such, identifying one’s sub-personalities in terms of the ego that disturb and pressurizes their quest for the whole-self forms a central aspect of unleashing one’s potential (Mihai & Alina, 2013). By and large, this is very critical to maintaining a psychological balance as well as furthering ethical behavior. Moreover, the compartmentalized individual is capable of cut off the moral aspirations, feelings, emotions, and values that they deem inappropriate and irrelevant to certain contexts such as the workplace and in turn create a moral void by disengaging their moral responsibility of their self.

Figure 1: Moral Behavior Model

(Mihai & Alina, 2013)

Responsibility is central aspect of business ethics. Responsibility in this sense defines the ability to respond to something in a given way. Individuals are seen as free entities capable of making ethical decisions. As Chuck Gallagher retaliates, choices whether in society, family life, or in business, have consequences (Gallagher, 2013). In business sense, responsibility means the duty to act in accordance to expectations and rules (Weaver, Trevino, & Cochran, 2009). In other words, individuals can be held accountable for their decisions in business even in the case where the decision is taken on behalf of the company. Being ethically responsible in business sense, therefore, can be taken to imply the ability to undertake viable professional or business decisions within the standard or morally accepted conduct. This brings to light the fact that if one fails the standard of ethical responsibility, then they can be held accountable for their actions.

Chuck Gallagher presents a case of how bad decisions can ruin a career or an entire life because the victim will have to pay for their lack of responsibility. His crime of stealing money from his clients in order to finance a lifestyle that he could not otherwise afford had a serious consequence on him having to spend 18 months in prison and losing his marriage, house, friends, and career (Gallagher, 2013). The case of Gallagher illustrates a person who had lost control of his life leaving him prone to serious mistakes and suffering. In other words, choices that one makes define their life (Warren, Gaspar, & Laufer, 2014). Choices are reflected in the type of life one leads in that bad choices bring about a bad life. Much of what happens to one’s life is a product of what they choose to engage in and as such they are responsible for whatever consequences that come with their decisions.

Gallagher’s actions of stealing money from his clients without regard for what impact his actions would have on the lives of his customers amounts to the category of moral clueless. He did not seem to be aware of the rules and instead chose to function in a lawless world of his own without considering what consequences his actions would have on his clients and his own personal life. This is very similar to the case of George Costanza in the Seinfeld series.

Figure 1 above illustrates a model of immoral/unethical behavior where actors violate their moral principles. In the model, individuals are faced with the choice of either adhering to moral principles or engaging in immoral behavior. Acting morally can be beneficial in the sense that the individual can acquire some praise from self and others (Lakshman, Ramaswami, Alas, Kabongo, & Rajendran Pandian, 2014).

If the individual has other motivations competing with morality and the goals of these motivations are mutually exclusive with the moral goals, then acting morally will carry the cost of sacrificing the goals of competing motivations. This is especially the case with Tim Donaghey who engaged in gambling for the sake of helping others. Moreover, acting on competing motives has its own cost. Notably, acting on competing motives can result in self-condemnation for participating in immoral behavior. For instance, Gallagher after realizing that his actions could no longer be sustained for long considered suicide. The option in such a case is for the individual to engage in moral rationalization potentially immoral behavior as moral (Weaver, Trevino, & Cochran, 2009). This way, the actor lowers the cost of acting immorally through reconstructing their actions as being moral. In case the moral rationalization and immoral actions take place, then escalation occurs whereby there is increased likelihood and chances of further immoral behavior (Mihai & Alina, 2013).