Managing Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

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“Once employees are on board, many organizations aim to guide employees’ behavior through formal organizational value statements, mission statements, credos, policies, and formal codes of ethical conduct.”(Linda and Katherine) Like Johnson & Johnson credo, “first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to the mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.” The managers and employees made decisions followed the credo, like the recalling all Tylenol. In order to combat inequality, organization needs to focus on fairness by mission statement.

Besides, “socialization into the ethical culture is often begun through formal orientation programs for new employees and is reinforced through ongoing training.” For me, this first activity I participated in OSU was our orientation, which offered me a general cognitive about our campus and our college. If I want to be one of the OSUs, I would like to act as a beaver, such as the combination of orange and black, which is our symbol for integrity. For equal culture, organization can offer a definition on equality, which will be followed by employees. Using performance management systems, organizations also could combat inequality, such as providing a compensation structure to reward equality.

Moreover, organizations can use informal ways to influence employees. Managers or leaders should set the tone by their conducts; role models and heroes can motivate people around. Like the “alpha people” mentioned by Simon in his speech ”Why Leaders eat last?” Inequality can also be avoided by norms ” The way we do things around here”. Taking Citicorp’s culture into consideration, we can see how organizational culture influence people even in a different cultural country.

Last but not the least, encouraging employees blow the whistle is also helping combat inequality. In some degree, for me, blowing the whistle is not unethical; but if we focus on fairness, loyalty, integrity, blowing the whistle is benefit to form organizational culture. One important thing is as employee, we should know when and how to blow the whistle.

Can organizations use IAT this kind of technology to reduce discrimination and adverse impact in the workplace? “In theory, yes—if there are characteristic associated with pro-diversity attitudes and behaviors, then tests can be used to select for these characteristics.” (Winfred Arthur, Dennis Doverspike, 2005, “Achieving Diversity and Reducing Discrimination in the Workplace Through Human Resource Management Practices: Implications of Research and Theory for Staffing, Training, and Rewarding Performance.”) Arthur and Dennis also pointed out that identifying and removing internal bias and increasing test-taking motivation help reduce adverse impact in the workplace.

Even though the IAT probably doesn’t meet legally defensible standards for selecting employees, it does help recruiters learn more about recruits’ implicit attitudes. In selecting employees, managers could use IAT results. Besides choosing employees, organizations can use such technology to select managers. According to the executive ethical leadership reputation matrix, we know that a ethical leader should be a moral person and a moral manager. Honesty, integrity and trust, these traits could be criteria to choose a moral person. So implicit-association test helps organization to select both managers and employees.

In the workplace, organizations also can use this technology to help employees know more about themselves, which facilitate organizational ethical culture. For me, I know my implicit attitudes from IAT, positively if I want to eliminate my preference for White People over Black People. I can spend more time with Black People to find their right side. Undeniable, it’s difficult to change our unconscious beliefs. Offering training program or compensation, organizations can improve the ethical culture.

Reference:

- FAQ on implicit bias

http://med.stanford.edu/diversity/FAQ_REDE.html

2. Managing Business Ethics, six edition, Linda K. Trevino and Katherine A. Nelson

3. Achieving Diversity and Reducing Discrimination in the Workplace Through Human Resource Management Practices: Implications of Research and Theory for Staffing, Training, and Rewarding Performance. Winfred Arthur,