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Personal Values and Their Interaction with Organizational Ethics

In: Business and Management

Submitted By carlsd38
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Pages 8
Personal Values and their Interaction with Organizational Ethics
Carl Stevens
Old Dominion University

Abstract
Boone and Kurtz (2011) define business ethics as “the standards of conduct and moral values governing actions and decisions in the work environment” (p. 34). This paper discusses how an individual’s value system may clash (both positively and negatively) with the ethical standards dictated by an organization. Our exploration deals with the study of how organizations define ethical behavior and what employees must do to adhere to those standards. On occasion, what an organization may view as ethical behavior does not correspond with an employee’s personal belief system of what is right and wrong. This is especially true when Upper Management openly ignores what a reasonable person would view as unethical. But despite what they think, employees are not immune to unethical conduct and could find it very easy to be swayed into making the wrong decision. (Anderson, Escher, 2010) When these opposing value systems collide during the decision making process, an ethical dilemma occurs, (Hellriegel, Slocum, 2011) We will discover more about this contrast in morality with a case study of Valarie Young, a marketing manager faced with a difficult decision.

Personal Values and their Interaction with Organizational Ethics The purpose of an organization’s Code of Ethics is to provide employees with guidelines for making ethical decisions in the conduct of their day to day activity. The code is a set of core values, standards, and behaviors within the organization that guide worker commitment to the highest ethical standards. (Huntington Ingalls, 2010) Topics such as Equal Opportunity, Harassment, Substance Abuse, and Fraternization as well as enforcement of national and international law are common to any business’ code of ethics but these tenants

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