Steps to Strengthen Ethics in Organizations: Research Findings, Ethics Placebos, and What Works

Abstract

Research shows that many organizations overlook needs and opportunities to strengthen ethics. Barriers can make it hard to see the need for stronger ethics and even harder to take effective action. These barriers include the organization’s misleading use of language, misuse of an ethics code, culture of silence, strategies of justification, institutional betrayal, and ethical fallacies. Ethics placebos tend to take the place of steps to see, solve, and prevent problems. This article reviews relevant research and specific steps that create change.

Advancing a national cradle-to-grave-to-cradle public health agenda

“…Leadership training and development, skills for teamwork, cross-collaboration, and system integration all require time and sufficient freedom from immediate stress for the brains of participants to engage in innovative and strategic change. Some of the greatest challenges to organizational change are the ethical problems and moral dilemmas that are rarely addressed in social service and health care environments when demands for productivity clash with patient care (Bloom & Farragher, 2010;Pope, 2015). A trauma-responsive environment would also create a dense network of connections with community resources who could provide actual trauma-specific treatment.…”

„Kódexem, kódexem, mondd meg nékem...” Etikaikódex-fejlesztési folyamat egy magyar egyetemen

“…Ha a kódex bevezetése utáni további intézkedések nem segítik elő a bizalom kultúrájának kiépülését, akkor a kódex nem éri el a célját. A problémák nyílt felvetése és megvitatása nélkül az etikai kódex csak egy etikai placebo (Pope, 2015) marad, ami nem éri el a hosszú távú pozitív hatását. A pozitív hatás kapcsán a vállalati kódexekkel kapcsolatos kutatások felemás eredményt mutatnak (Kaptein & Schwartz, 2008).…”

Trauma-informed care and the public child welfare system: the challenges of shifting paradigms: introduction to the special issue on trauma-informed care

“…The workforce as a whole develops skills for teamwork, cross-collaboration, and interprofessional system integration. All of this requires time to engage in innovative and strategic change (Bloom & Farragher, 2011;Pope, 2015). Some examples of where the allocation of resources would enable successful culture change include all organizations that intersect and work with the public child welfare system such as those involved with foster care; school settings where we know already there are likely to be high levels of ACEs among the children; hospital-based violence intervention programs, substance abuse programs, mental health delivery organizations, and juvenile justice settings.…”