Organizational ethics: A within organization view

Abstract

Organizations are commonly conceived of as entities, or corporate actors. As citizens and as scholars, we often attribute organizational decisions and acts to the corporation rather than to specific individual members. Given this, we must develop a standard by which to judge the ethics or morality of such corporate actions. A pluralistic conception of organizational ethics is offered in this essay: Judgements of whether an organization's acts are ethical must be made according to the ethical system of the organization, provided that the organization's ethical system upholds relative and absolute values of the national culture. This view is justified within an organizations‐as‐cultures viewpoint, a definition of ethics as practical knowledge, and grounding in the rules perspective. Organizational ethics are conceptualized as rooted in the organizational value system. According to this view, an act is judged to be ethical to the extent that it upholds that value system. Recent events in two companies, IBM and GE, are offered as illustrations of this conception of organizational ethics. The two organizations’ value systems and actions are contrasted and conclusions about their respective ethics are drawn. Applications to organizational ethics, individual ethics, organizational communication theory, organizational communication practice, and organizational cultural change are discussed.