Business Ethics Corporate Culture And Value Code Case Study

Introduction

In a business environment, ethics codes are applied with the goal to organize, balance and guarantee the same values and culture framework between all the employees in a workplace, trying to reduce the impacts of the different combinations of individuals' background inside a company. This essay aims to demonstrate theory behind business ethics, corporate culture, and value codes. Also to introduce how this topic becomes more important as an executive become more senior inside the company's hierarchy, why he has more responsibilities and how he can influence the whole system with his own discourses and actions.

It is important that organizations should have a solid ethical code established in their ecosystem to guarantee a coherent
First of all, the organization has to make sure that their established values are aligned with their corporate culture and “personality”. Culture is an intrinsic element of values which manifests itself in the form of conduct. (Trevino and Nelson, 2014, p. 151) All the time, people see companies endorsing their credibility through value statements with the goal to established a shared sense or propose among their staff and transmit a good organization impression to outsiders. (Trevino and Nelson, 2014, p. 30)

The organization's behavior, or their culture, is vital in positioning the company in the market, to differentiated between organizations in the same category or field, to help consumers recognize the company's "personality". This "personality" can be noticed in several forms, such as rules, assumptions, language, dress code and acts. (Trevino and Nelson, 2014, p. 151)

Consistent ethical messages can be expressed through formal and informal systems. It is vital to ensure such ethical messages are aligned and coherent, to support the ethical behavior expected of organization's employees. (Trevino and Nelson, 2014, p.
This is also an example about how an ethics program is important and how it can help companies steer themselves out of a self-inflicted crisis. It will also discuss how this transformation can be lead by top managers and influenced all employees as they move up through the company. (Paine, 1994)

In 1985 Martin Marietta Company, an American-based company specialized in the supplier of aggregates and heavy building materials, with operations encompassing 26 states of the United States and also includes Canada and the Caribbean islands (Martin Marietta Company, 2016), was facing a serious crisis involving fraud and mismanagement, and were under investigation for improper travel billings in governmental contracts. As a consequence, they were losing credibility in their market, mainly with the US government, their main target. As an attempt to repair its credibility in the market, the Martin Marietta’s corporate general counsel started an ethics program to creating and maintain a "do-it-right" idea as an important value within the work force. This ethics committee pilot was established by Martin Marietta's president and senior executives,