Case Study: Alcoa's Core Values

Ethics is based on a set of moral and ethical values. These values must be absolute - that is, you must take them seriously enough to override any human rationalization, weakness, ego, or personal faults. Alcoa’s ethical work climate is diverse, encourages open communication and learning, and community outreach. Alcoa’s core values are held to a high standard. Standing by these values: Integrity; Environment, Health, and Safety; Customer; Accountability; Excellence; People; and Profitability helps improve the moral of the company, employees, and consumers. By setting these as core values, Alcoa has made a commitment to improving quality of life among employees and community. Alcoa’s company used the ethical criterion of principles. Personal morality, company rules and procedures, and laws and professional codes were a higher priority to Mr. O’Neill. Regardless of the fact that the Mexico manager increase profits and had high marks of quality and satisfaction, Mr. O’Neill took the interest of the company’s value of safety and compliance. Alcoa made sure that employee’s and management had plenty of education and resources that there should have been no room for misunderstand or this kind of misconduct. "The emphasis on safety had deep meaning to Alcoa’s management team. The company’s management firmly believed that no employees should be forced to work in an environment where their safety and the safety of other employees might be jeopardized. Alcoa’s management supported the ethical principle that no employees should leave work in a worse condition than when they arrived (Lawrence & Weber, 2011)."
When going down to investigate the allegations himself, showed a great leader that has morals and beliefs that go hand and hand with the core values and ethics of the company. With such serious allegations, it was imperative for management to see what was going on first hand and take action. By sending an open letter to the entire company, Mr. O’Neill showed that there

References: Lawrence, A. T. & Weber, J. (2011). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy (13th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN: 978-0-07-813715-0 Putnam, Mark S (2002). Ethical Values for Business Success, Global Ethics University, www.character-ethics.org