Organizational Factors Encouraging Ethical Decision Making: An Exploration into the Case of an Exemplar

Abstract

What factors in the organizational culture of an ethically exemplary corporation are responsible for encouraging ethical decision making? This question was analyzed through an exploratory case study of a top pharmaceutical company that is a global leader in ethics. The participating organization is renowned in public opinion polls of ethics, credibility, and trust. This research explored organizational culture, communication in issues management and public relations, management theory, and deontological or utilitarian moral philosophy as factors that might encourage ethical analysis. Our understanding of organizational ethics is enhanced by elucidating factors the case revealed as encouraging ethical analysis: an organizational culture that emphasizes the importance of ethics, Theory Y management, a symmetrical worldview valuing innovation and dialogue, a counseling role for issues management or public relations in the dominant coalition, rewarding ethical behavior, ethical analysis using moral philosophy, consistency between individual values and organizational philosophy, and ethics training. These factors, and perhaps others as yet unidentified, worked together to create an environment that encouraged ethical decision making at the exemplar organization.

A Corporate Social Entrepreneurship Approach to Market-Based Poverty Reduction

“…Open communication and information flows are key factors in organizations (Chadam andPastuszak, 2005, Wong, 2005) which foster corporate entrepreneurial environment (Kanter, 1984, Pinchot, 1985 and social innovativeness (Bowen, 2004). To promote CSE, managers should emphasize the importance of new ideas to solve social problems at all levels of the organization.…”

Ethical Decision-Making Differences Between American and Moroccan Managers

“…The reviewed marketing/business ethics literature indicate that business managers' perceptions of ethical issues may be influenced by their attitudes toward ethics and social responsibility (e.g., Singhapakdi et al, 1996), situational factors (e.g., organizational ethical cultural orientations, culture/nationality) (see, for example, Bowen, 2004;Douglas et al, 2001;HubermanArnold and Arnold, 2003;Klenke, 2005;Kulik, 2005;Zgheib, 2005), and personal characteristics (e.g., gender, education) (see, for example, Hudson and Miller, 2005;Kujala and Pietilanien, 2004;Lopez et al, 2005;Malone, 2006;McCabe et al, 2006;Premeaux, 2005;Simga-Mugan et al, 2005). As previously indicated, most of the research business ethics studies focused on the U.S.…”

Individual and Organizational Antecedents of Misconduct in Organizations

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