Responsibility for ethical conduct

Ethical responsibility is the ability to recognize, interpret and act upon multiple principles and values according to the standards within a given field and/or context.

Lower-level ethical Responsibility

• Demonstrates an understanding of a range of principles, standards and values involved in making ethical decisions and the application of knowledge
• Engages in decision making according to the standards of practice and ethics of the field
• Communicates situations, information and outcomes to others accurately and based on ethical standards of the field
• Reflects upon one’s own actions and implications in situations and takes responsibility for actions while working with others and/or solving problems.

Upper-level ethical Responsibility

• Recognizes different perspectives and analyzes situations to provide best solutions under particular circumstances according to the standards of practice and ethics of the field
• Develops an ethical framework based on the field’s standards of practice and takes responsibilities for decision making and actions based on this framework in various and unpredictable contexts
• Participates in the formation of mission, vision and values in a field or organization
• Assesses the impact of different activities on the environment, society and the field and develops a sense of social responsibility while making judgments and decisions on these activities.

Workplace and Community Responsibility

Your own operations and those of your supply chain should adhere to high standards in the workplace, and in the surrounding community. Workers should be safe from occupational hazards, and should be afforded dignity and opportunities for advancement, and also should be paid a living wage. Your facilities, and those of your suppliers, should be mindful of local communities in terms of culture and customs, noise and visual blight, and concerns such as traffic, pollution and other interactions. Consider sponsoring community activities or contributing to local causes.

Committing to Environmental Responsibility

Ethical responsibility also entails protecting the environment, both locally and globally. Set goals for reducing your greenhouse gas footprint, avoid using toxic chemicals whenever possible, and learn where your materials come from and how they are produced. If you serve coffee, for example, does the coffee from clear-cut farms that destroyed precious rain forest lands, or was it grown sustainably in a manner that protects local forests, birds and wildlife? Consider the entire lifecycle of the products you sell: Can your products easily be recycled at the end of their useful life, or will they end up in a landfill?

Determining Social Responsibility

A key part of ethical responsible business is finding ways to minimize any negative social impacts along the entire supply chain of your operations. This may mean sourcing materials to avoid goods associated with egregious harm, such as diamonds mined by brutal warlords, clothing made in unsafe sweatshops or soccer balls stitched by 10-year old children. You can work with suppliers that take a conscientious approach to procuring goods; buying goods that have third-party certifications (or avoid products identified as questionable), or by visiting supply facilities directly to assure yourself that they are operating in a responsible fashion.

Managing Ethics Programs in the Workplace

Organizations can manage ethics in their workplaces by establishing an ethics management program. Brian Schrag, Executive Secretary of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, clarifies. “Typically, ethics programs convey corporate values, often using codes and policies to guide decisions and behavior, and can include extensive training and evaluating, depending on the organization. They provide guidance in ethical dilemmas.” Rarely are two programs alike.

Developing Codes of Ethics

According to Wallace, “A credo generally describes the highest values to which the company aspires to operate. It contains the `thou shalts.’ A code of ethics specifies the ethical rules of operation. It’s the `thou shalt nots.” In the latter 1980s, The Conference Board, a leading business membership organization, found that 76% of corporations surveyed had codes of ethics.

Some business ethicists disagree that codes have any value. Usually they explain that too much focus is put on the codes themselves, and that codes themselves are not influential in managing ethics in the workplace. Many ethicists note that it’s the developing and continuing dialogue around the code’s values that is most important.

Developing Codes of Conduct

If your organization is quite large, e.g., includes several large programs or departments, you may want to develop an overall corporate code of ethics and then a separate code to guide each of your programs or departments. Codes should not be developed out of the Human Resource or Legal departments alone, as is too often done. Codes are insufficient if intended only to ensure that policies are legal. All staff must see the ethics program being driven by top management.

Assessing and Cultivating Ethical Culture

Culture is comprised of the values, norms, folkways and behaviors of an organization. Ethics is about moral values, or values regarding right and wrong. Therefore, cultural assessments can be extremely valuable when assessing the moral values in an organization.

Ethics Training

The ethics program is essentially useless unless all staff members are trained about what it is, how it works and their roles in it. The nature of the system may invite suspicion if not handled openly and honestly. In addition, no matter how fair and up-to-date is a set of policies, the legal system will often interpret employee behavior (rather than written policies) as de facto policy. Therefore, all staff must be aware of and act in full accordance with policies and procedures (this is true, whether policies and procedures are for ethics programs or personnel management). This full accordance requires training about policies and procedures.