What Do You Think Would Be More Effective for Shaping Long-Term Ethical Behavior in an Organization: a Written Code of Ethics Combined with Ethics Training or Strong Ethical Leadership? Which Would Have More Impact on You? Why?
Ethical concerns are an essential area in business practices, which is applied within organizations to examine ethical principles and ethical dilemmas arisen. In order to form long-term ethical conduct within an organization, usually, a company would organize for ethical business policies, for example, establishing codes of ethics combined with training programs, or/and execute these ethical policies which means “leadership in delegation, communication and motivation of the company’s ethical position to employees” (Murphy 1988, p.907).
The comparison of the effects of these two approaches bring the question of which is more effective for shaping long-term ethical behaviors in an organization. Although codes of ethics are recognized as one of the essential factors that affect the ethical criteria of organizations and their individuals (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1997), I hold that strong ethical leadership is much more effective for shaping a long-term ethical behavior than codes of ethics. Briefly, for example, the people who disobey the code of ethics might not be punished, and in some cases they are rewarded as whose actions produce benefits to the organizations. Hence, if the leadership is not ethical, the employees may violate the codes of ethics without fear of having to accept responsibilities for their behaviors.
In order to explore this question deeply, in the following parts, the importance, beneficial effects, insufficiencies and recommendations of ethics codes and ethical leadership for shaping long-term ethical behaviors in an organization will be separately discussed and illustrated with various examples. Additionally, the necessity of ethics training companied with codes of ethics, the theory of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a model for evaluating corporate social performance will also be examined. Furthermore, as a result of the drawbacks of the two approaches, in the subsequent part, the significance of combining the ethics codes and
The comparison of the effects of these two approaches bring the question of which is more effective for shaping long-term ethical behaviors in an organization. Although codes of ethics are recognized as one of the essential factors that affect the ethical criteria of organizations and their individuals (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1997), I hold that strong ethical leadership is much more effective for shaping a long-term ethical behavior than codes of ethics. Briefly, for example, the people who disobey the code of ethics might not be punished, and in some cases they are rewarded as whose actions produce benefits to the organizations. Hence, if the leadership is not ethical, the employees may violate the codes of ethics without fear of having to accept responsibilities for their behaviors.
In order to explore this question deeply, in the following parts, the importance, beneficial effects, insufficiencies and recommendations of ethics codes and ethical leadership for shaping long-term ethical behaviors in an organization will be separately discussed and illustrated with various examples. Additionally, the necessity of ethics training companied with codes of ethics, the theory of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a model for evaluating corporate social performance will also be examined. Furthermore, as a result of the drawbacks of the two approaches, in the subsequent part, the significance of combining the ethics codes and
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