Lockheed Martin is one of the largest contractors in aerospace, defense, and security industry. After getting caught using unorthodox sales strategies, including bribery and illegal trades, Lockheed decided to develop a code of ethics as part of its culture. Lockheed took the first step by publishing a document with the title “Lockheed Principles of Business Conduct” in the firm’s magazine. Using this document, the company communicated its devised policies and principles to the employees, making it a responsibility for every employee of the company to follow and act according to these policies. When the “Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Conduct” was drafted by the major defense contractors in the mid-1980s, Lockheed and Martin …show more content…
Lockheed and Martin Corporations along with 32 other defense contractors had promised to act as per these principles. The contractors had assured that they would develop their organization’s culture as per the code of ethics, training their employees in that culture, encouraging internal reporting of violations of ethics, implementing systems that would monitor compliance with the code of ethics, and being responsible in case of violation of …show more content…
The code encouraged discussion of ethics and compliance, empowering employees to handle ethical dilemmas they encountered in everyday work. The “Ethical Decision Making Model” asked employees to evaluate information, consider how their decision making might affect the stakeholders, estimate what ethical values are relevant to the situation, and determine the best course of action taking into account relevant values and stakeholder’s interests.
In March 1995 Lockheed and Martin Corporations merged their companies after the approval of their shareholders. In 1996 Norman Augustine became the CEO of the new company after Daniel Tellep retired in the same year. Augustine quickly recognized the dull and boring ethics program of Lockheed Martin, considering it to be counterproductive since it stimulated resentment, cynicism, and outright hostility towards the whole idea of ethics. Carol Marshall was in charge of Lockheed Martin’s ethics program, and she was told by Augustine to introduce a better
By proactively addressing ethical issues with a code of conduct, Raiders Inc. can set the standard regarding how they want employees to behave. Employee can be trained on the company code of ethics so they understand how their company expects them to respond. They can also train them on the biases of decision making, to make sure they are aware of the pitfalls that exist. (Robbins & Coulter, 2012)
The ethical code of an organization illustrates the importance of being honest, acting with integrity, and showing fairness in decision making (Bethel, 2015). Ultimately, “laws regulating business conduct are passed because some stakeholders believe they cannot be trusted to do what is right” (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015, p. 95). In the last couple of years, culture has become the initiator for compliance, which means from the top down there has to be a commitment to act in a way that represents the company’s core values (Verschoor, 2015).
It's difficult not to be cynical about how “big business” treats the subject of ethics in today's world. In many corporations, where the only important value is the bottom line, most executives merely give lip service to living and operating their corporations ethically.
Most organisations begin the method of establishing organisational ethical projects by introducing codes of conducts. It helps to generate public trust and improve
This paper is an analysis of the ethical business decision matrix developed by The George S. May Company (May), a management-consulting firm. The paper will also compare how these guidelines were used by John D. Beckett (Beckett) in his company and how the author’s firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC (PwC), uses them. The guidelines are meant to be used by employees. These guidelines are specifically a measure of moral and ethical principles tied to business ethics in acceptability of right and wrong behaviour in the workplace.
The ACA Ethics Committee members developed “A Practitioner 's Guide to Ethical Decision Making”, which address ethical questions in the workplace by identifying problems, deliberating potential
The importance of having a code of ethics is to define acceptable behaviors and promote higher standards of practice within a company. The code should provide a benchmark for...
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
An organization needs to adhere to ethics in order to effectively implement its mission, vision, and objectives in a way in which offers a solid foundation to management and their subordinates to properly develop and implement its strategies. By doing so, the organization as a whole is essentially subscribing to one commonality that directs all of the actions of the employees of the organization. Additionally, it assists in preventing such employees from divergence in regard to the proposed strategic guideline. Ethics additionally ensures that a strategic plan is developed in accordance to the interests of the appropriate stakeholders of the organization, both internal and external (Jin & Drozdenko, 2010). Likewise, corporate governance that stems from various regulatory parties makes it necessary for organizations to maintain a high degree of ethical standards; this is done by incorporating ethics within the organization’s strategic plan so as to foster a positive corporate image for the stakeholders and general public (Min-Dong Paul, 2009).
To provide an example of a breach of ethical conduct in the workplace, we may remember the case of a financial manager in a corporation that decided not to pay overtime to some employees. After a deep outside investigation, the company was summoned with thousands of dollars to remedy the payment that was supposed to be paid to all employees who worked more than forty hours per week. Again, it is needed more than just a booklet stating that the company adheres to the code of business ethics. It is needed serious managers that can run the company with the most seriousness as possible. Consequently, any written codes of business ethics, regardless of how well it has been crafted, need people that adhere to its internal content with a serious desire to do the right thing.
Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to ethical issues and a practiced method for exploring the ethical aspects of a decision and weighing the considerations that should impact our choice of a course of action. Having a method for ethical decision making is absolutely essential. When practiced regularly, the method becomes so familiar that we work through it automatically without consulting the specific steps.
The movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” presented a series of ethical dilemmas that surround a group of salesmen working for a real estate company. The value of business ethics was clearly undermined and ignored in the movie as the salesmen find alternatives to keep their jobs. The movie is very effective in illustrating how unethical business practices can easily exist in the business world. Most of the time, unethical business practices remain strong in the business world because of the culture that exists within companies. In this film, the sudden demands from management forced employees to become irrational and commit unethical business practices. In fear of losing their jobs, employees were pressured to increase sales despite possible ethical ramifications. From the film, it is right to conclude that a business transaction should only be executed after all legal and ethical ramifications have been considered; and also if it will be determined legal and ethical to society.
Nowadays, society is governed by the implications of rules and legal restrictions. All of these rules were created to uphold and maintain the idea of ethical and moral values. Even children growing up were taught by some very important codes of ethics at school. These lessons learned as a youth growing up carry over into adulthood, as an employee or manager. Managers and workers both follow a similar code of ethics within the work place. Today, as a management consultant, I am going to prepare a code of ethics for my clients as they have recently started a restaurant called Knox, it is important to have a code of ethics in every company for their employees and also a circular by explaining the purpose and benefits of a good ethics. And finally, a brief report on the steps of strategic formulation and implementation.
The following five-step model can help employees make appropriate decisions when faced with an ethical dilemma. The first step is to recognize the issue. Knowing what is the root cause and the main issue can help determine what ethical issue is at hand. The next step is to get the facts of the situation. Eliminating bias opinions and knowing the information source can increase the chances of making a good decision.
Ethics and values are very important in guiding employees and management in an organisation. It encourages employees to be accountable and transparent and also in make ethical decisions. In an organisation that ethics are practiced there are less conflicts and there is consistency at all times even when an organisation undergoes difficult times. A code of ethics is established in an organisation to solve problems when the do arise and explains how employees should respond when faced with different situations. Values and ethics are important for employees to get along. Our values tell us what we think is important and that helps us in making right decisions. For example a person who values justice will not be coursing conflicts and will adhere to ...