Organizational Ethics and CSR

Organizational Ethics and CSR

What do you think about the notion presented by Terris that Lockheed’s ethics program does little to prevent ethical breaches at the highest level of the organization?

Ethics is a crucial concept, especially in an organization setting, as it is a determinant of the trust between the stakeholders such as customers and investors to an organization. In the year 1997, a morals awareness program was introduced. The emphasis on practicing morals behaviour in Lockheed is essential, and it should be in place to ensure the trust is upheld in the organization. The employees at Lockheed Martin maintain that ethics is advantageous to the entire organization. Besides, the management of Lockheed has constantly campaigned for moral practices where they consider as the topmost quality of the company. The ethic plan does not, however, do adequately to bar violation of ethics, especially at the top administration of the organization as the program entirely concentrates on the training of employees. The program only stresses on business conduct standards as well as preparing the staff members to accept and react to situations requiring ethical decision making. The demerits of the ethical program allow open scandals to happen and hence harming the organization.

Are the efforts put forth – such as making sure higher-level executives participate in training – enough to help managers navigate what Terris calls the ‘ethical minefield’ faced by leadership in such an organization?

The company’s determinations are considered helpful, although they are not sufficient enough to assists the executive in navigating the minefield of ethics faced by the leadership operations. The steps included are essential as they allow for the management to go through training regarding moral and social reactions. Moreover, it allows Lockheed to devolve the moral responsibility among the firm’s stakeholders and employees. However, the training program is inadequate for the management in terms of the complexity levels of the ethical requirements.

Besides, despite the awareness program doing the significant role of instilling the sense of discussion among several workers, the program is not practical in addressing ethical concerns. Further, the top administration of Lockheed faces challenges of values explaining the need for the application of Kkkright morals (Terris, 2013). The company fails to provide detailed self-analysis that could help people in the top management level at Lockheed. The program of the company teaches the employees about accepting complexity existence in the application of regulations and rules in an organization. Nevertheless, it fails to explain the presenting intricacy in the rules. The little encounter with the ethical issues and modules fails to possess adequate help in the development of a clear understanding of the programs.

What are some things that could be done to address the issue related to ethics at higher executive levels of the organization?

There exist numerous concerns that the administration needs to focus on to tackle the problems related to ethics, especially at the top management of Lockheed. Terris (2013) states that senior executives should ensure that all employees undergo training and receive education concerning the requirements. He also noted that employees should gain from the participation in social, ethical, and corporate roles of the organization. The top management level of Lockheed needs to also engage in the entire social occurrences that the company forms. The next is addressing equality among the stakeholders and the staff at Lockheed Martin, especially concerning the social and ethical concerns.

The top administration also needs to be convinced about spending extra time to analyze the cases of decision making at the management level to get insights into all the future lessons. The ethics office at Lockheed should be provided with a robust and formal role to ensure that they carry out the monitoring and advising mechanisms of the actions of the leaders at the organization’s top level. Besides, Lockheed Martin needs to practice courage and transparency concerning open outline and undertaking of the developing problems linked to ethics, including compensation. Openness in the organization will foster morale among employees and increase the confidence level of the firm among the society.

Terris points out that the company’s program is overly focused on individuals and that it doesn’t address group dynamics that can impact ethical situations. For instance, there can be a tendency for groups to ‘go with the flow’ of the group decision-making process and overlook ethical issues in the process. What would you recommend that Lockheed Martin does to address this situation?   

The ethic plan of Lockheed Martin is about the inspiration for decision making based on a person. The modules of training employed by the company, as well as the code of ethics, normally direct the workers to carry out their roles, enabling the workforce to keep the values of the firm. Also, the ethics plan provides workers with a sense of individual investment in the business. The content of the ethics program is found to entirely focus on the person, although it has copied the practice of collective decision making. Ethics programs usually give employees an opportunity of talking about the situations that face people in groups, although the ethic program at Lockheed fails to foster into individuals a sense of collective responsibility (Terris, 2013).

Lockheed can ensure that the training and modules offered to the people with the ethics program focus directly on the challenges linked to team dynamics. The organization should not perform automization of the majority of training modules, especially on private computers, as it contributes to additional stress concerns in individuals’ decision making. Besides, Lockheed needs to ensure more awareness concerning the collective ruling to cut down the dependence of personal efforts.

References

Terris, D. (2013). Ethics at work: Creating virtue in an American corporation.