formal and informal culture
Formal cultural system is essential to creating an ethical workplace.
In the simplest form, an ethical workplace can be described as an organization whereby ethical behavior is practices and spread among its entire employees. Upon joining an organization, individual employees naturally become part of an organization culture that influences them in how they think and behave ethically. So, what is an organization culture? It is defined as the underlying assumption, beliefs, values, attitude and expectation shared by an organization’s members (Vallabhaneni 2008) and it includes the basic assumption of what is right, proper and fair (Gottlieb & Sanzgiri, 1996). An ethical culture cans significant influence an employee’s ethical awareness, judgments and actions.
Trevino & Nelson (2010) had identified that ethical culture is formed up and maintained through a complex interplay of formal and informal cultural system. Formal cultural system is made up of leaders, selection systems, orientation and training programs, policies and code, performance management systems, organizational structure and formal decision-making processes. On the other hand, informal cultural system is generally made up of role models, norms, rituals, myths and stories. Both formal and informal culture system is equally important to creating an ethical workplace. All the systems must be fully aligned to send a consistent message to the organization’s employees that direct them to think and act ethically. But, in this essay I am going to argue that formal cultural system does play the most significant role in creating an ethical workplace, even though Trevino & Nelson had emphasized on the alignment of formal and informal culture system.
Leadership, Role model and Heroes
“Culture is ultimately created, embedded, evolved, and ultimately manipulated by leaders.”(Schein 2010). As what Schein had suggested, leaders/ senior management play a big part in forming the formal cultural system in term of
In the simplest form, an ethical workplace can be described as an organization whereby ethical behavior is practices and spread among its entire employees. Upon joining an organization, individual employees naturally become part of an organization culture that influences them in how they think and behave ethically. So, what is an organization culture? It is defined as the underlying assumption, beliefs, values, attitude and expectation shared by an organization’s members (Vallabhaneni 2008) and it includes the basic assumption of what is right, proper and fair (Gottlieb & Sanzgiri, 1996). An ethical culture cans significant influence an employee’s ethical awareness, judgments and actions.
Trevino & Nelson (2010) had identified that ethical culture is formed up and maintained through a complex interplay of formal and informal cultural system. Formal cultural system is made up of leaders, selection systems, orientation and training programs, policies and code, performance management systems, organizational structure and formal decision-making processes. On the other hand, informal cultural system is generally made up of role models, norms, rituals, myths and stories. Both formal and informal culture system is equally important to creating an ethical workplace. All the systems must be fully aligned to send a consistent message to the organization’s employees that direct them to think and act ethically. But, in this essay I am going to argue that formal cultural system does play the most significant role in creating an ethical workplace, even though Trevino & Nelson had emphasized on the alignment of formal and informal culture system.
Leadership, Role model and Heroes
“Culture is ultimately created, embedded, evolved, and ultimately manipulated by leaders.”(Schein 2010). As what Schein had suggested, leaders/ senior management play a big part in forming the formal cultural system in term of