Module 8 Articles Flashcards
4 Critical Features that need to be addressed when designing an Ethical Culture
- Explicit Values
- Thoughts during Judgement
- Incentives
- Cultural Norms
Explicit Values
Strategies and practices should be
anchored to clearly stated principles that can be widely shared within the organization
4 Problems with today’s Mission Statements
- Too long to remember
- Too obvious to need stating
- Too clearly tailored for regulators
- Too distant from day-to-day practices to meaningfully guide employees
Thoughts during Judgement
Most people have less difficulty knowing what’s right or wrong than they do keeping ethical considerations top of mind when making decisions
Incentives
People do what they’re incentivized to do, meaning that aligning rewards with ethical outcomes is an obvious solution to many ethical problems
Along with earning an income, employees care about:
- Doing meaningful work
- Making a positive impact
- Being respected/appreciated for their efforts
Prosocial bonus system
A system that provides employees with bonuses to give to charities and coworkers
Descriptive Norms
How peers actually behave; Tend to exert the most social influence
Blockchain
A series of blocks of information that record ordered transactions and data; Decentralized and distributed on a peer-to-peer network
Big data enables A.I.
To engage in advanced analytics combined with cloud computing to create “smart” systems
The Four Apocalyptic Riders of Value Statements
- Too general
- Not authentic
- No emotional appeal
- No link to behavior
Five Steps to make Value Statements Work
- Make values specific to company
- Only authentic values are credible
- Aim for the hearts
- Link values to behavior
- Leaders must relentlessly communicate and implement values
The Bavarian Bank Sparda
Unlike most companies, they did not initiate their values management process with a top-down process but with a focus on the individual coworker
Ritz-Carlton Service Values
Their 12 service values all start with “I” – which expresses personal responsibility. The values are all very action oriented and specific for the hospitality business
Combination of a top-down and bottom-up approach
Helps to avoid the common pitfall of coming up with a list of unauthentic and unrealistic values that reflect the wishful thinking of top-management
Nudges
One of the ways businesses are deploying behavioral ethics to reaffirm their values and to keep employees focused on questions of ethics and compliance as they engage in their daily work
The trap when integrating behavioral ethics into training and culture-building initiatives
Focusing principally on their ethics and compliance programs
The goal must be to integrate ethical decision making into the company’s business
Three changes to make Ethics training more effective
- Compliance training is not enough; requires training to help employees learn how to voice their values with in-person
- A focus on helping senior leaders consider how their own ethical leadership shapes the culture
- The connection between ethics and greater sense of purpose in the workplace
5 Ways to measure Ethical Behavior
- The number of transgressions
- Calls to the ethics helpline
- The follow-up steps taken
- Monitoring employee turnover
- Conducting exit interviews
2 Ways to strengthen Ethics Training
1) Ethics training needs to move beyond rules and analysis and become more social and experiential
2) Tapping into individuals’ past experiences and providing social models that they can emulate
The combination of ethics training and risk sensing through technology
Starting to provide organizations a new level of control in identifying risks much earlier in the process, before they become bigger issues down the line
Ethics Code Basics (6)
- Simple, Concise, easily understood
- User Friendly
- State expected Behaviors
- Apply to all employees
- Written, reviewed and edited by a multidisciplinary team
- Updated to reflect business and regulatory changes
No standard wording for a code of ethics
Each organization should develop a code to suit the needs of its personnel in defining expected behaviors and in addressing the risks, challenges, and customs in the countries in which it operates, as well as to fit their specific industry and regulatory environment
