Ultimately, culture can change as a result of leaders communicating their values frequently and widely. By Rama Hart Special to the Star Tribune AUGUST 9, 2020 — 2:00PM Q: What is needed for organizational culture to stay strong in the new normal? A: While the new normal of our society going virtual has advantages and disadvantages, if an organization…
BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS The ethical culture in an organization can be thought of as a slice of the overall organizational culture. So, if the organizational culture represents “how we do things around here,” the ethical culture represents “how we do things around here in relation to ethics and ethical behavior in the organization.” The ethical culture…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY KATHARINA WEGHMANN Margaret Heffernan’s new book “Beyond Measure: The big impact of small changes,” is an original manifesto for business leaders. Creating strong organizational cultures does not require multi-million dollar programs; instead, small actions by each employee- from Custodian to CEO- matter more and have the biggest impact. Heffernan shows…
BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS Is good ethics really good for business? Crime and sleazy behavior sometimes pay off handsomely. People wouldn’t do such things if they didn’t think they were more profitable than the alternatives. But lets make two distinctions right up front. First, let’s contrast individual employees with companies. Of course it can benefit individual employees…
BY JESSICA GUO The first of three Company Snapshots, these research-based pieces by guest author Jessica Guo look at aspects of successful companies that can be examined for strategy and information of benefit to both active businesses and the academics that study them. Additional Company Snapshots will be published on Mondays for the next two weeks. Company Snapshots: At Costco, Culture…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY JOSHUA ELLE Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Successby Adam GrantPenguin Group (2013) (public library)Summarized by Joshua Elle Overview Adam Grant combines personal accounts and contemporary research, both made readily accessible, to build a case for thinking of people as takers, matchers, and givers. He shows how givers tend…
BY JEREMY WILLINGER Ethics and trust are inextricably linked. We are interested in ethics in large part because we are concerned, even obsessed, with the question of who we can trust is a world where there is risk and uncertainty. In our relationships, we humans are much more concerned about assessing trustworthiness of others than we…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY DAVID NEWMAN The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evilby Philip ZimbardoRandom House Publishing Group, 1st Ed. Reprint (2008) (public library)Summarized by Joshua Elle Overview In a compelling story of his own life’s journey, Phil Zimbardo juxtaposes his famous Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) and the equally famous Milgram experiment on obedience to authority…
BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS After each major business scandal, a chorus of voices calls for business schools to work harder to instill ethics into their students. But what exactly should they doOn this page we focus on what business schools can do that may lead to stroner ethical systems in the corporate world. Some common changes business schools have made to…
BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS Corporate culture, a rather nebulous psychological construct, is nevertheless part of an organization’s personality. It informs employees—via expectations, standards, prohibitions, and norms, both written and unwritten—how to behave, ultimately driving individual and group-level behavior. This culture is also inherently and deeply linked to ethics, because individual employees tend to act in accordance with…
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