Accounting technicians scheme west africa
Decision – making processes
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- Organisation Culture
- Bad Leadership
- C.2.4 Guidelines for Ethical Competence
| Decision – making processes – several studies of unethical behaviour in a business setting have concluded that business people sometimes do not realise that they are behaving unethically, primarily because they simply fail to ask, Is these decisions or action ethical (Messick and Bazerman, 1996). c) Organisation Culture – The climate in some businesses does not encourage people to think through the ethical consequences of business decisions. This brings us to the third cause of unethical behaviour in business, that is, organisational culture that de- emphasizes business ethics reducing all decisions to the purely economic. The term organisation culture refers to the values and norms shared among employees of an organisation. Values are abstract ideas about what a group believes to be good, right, and desirable, and norms are the social rules and guidelines that prescribe appropriate behaviour in particular situations. Just as societies have cultures, so do business organisations. Put together, values and norms shape the culture of a business organisation, and that culture has an important influence on the ethics of business decision making. db Unrealistic Performance Expectations – is the fourth cause of unethical behaviour in business setting. Here, pressure from the parent company to meet unrealistic performance goals that managers can attain only by cutting corners or acting in an unethical manner is the major issue under unrealistic performance expectations. 48 e) Bad Leadership – is the fifth root cause of unethical behaviour in business setting. Leaders help to establish the culture of an organisation, and they set the example that others follow. Other employees in a business often take their cue from business leaders, and if those leaders do not behave in an ethical manner, they might not either. It is not what leaders say that matters, but what they dob C.2.4 Guidelines for Ethical Competence Every organisation needs to have a compliance strategy in place to determine potential risks identify ways to mitigate them in time and outline a future course of action. Some of the guidelines of building ethical compliance organisation are ii Be proactive in managing compliance and ethics: Successful business need to be proactive in terms of establishing controls and processes, defining accountability and centrally managing compliance requirements so that they are easily accessible to all concerned departments. iii Adopt and communicate an ethical profile: Ethics begins at home. The foundation of an effective ethics and corporate compliance programme is a strong and well communicated code of ethics which can be best represented in terms of policies and procedures. iii) Train employees on compliance policies Investing in employees training is always a smart move. Employees need to understand the organisation’s culture and its ethical boundaries. Doing this will make employees to be fully familiar with all that is expected of them with regards to ethical issues. iv) Adopt risk-based approach to compliance management: A risk based approach to compliance and ethics management involves identifying the high risk areas within the organisation, and then prioritising, managing and monitoring those risks. vi Integrate hotlines with the compliance programme: Organisations have found it useful to have hotline numbers for employees to anonymously report issues of bribery, fraud, ethical violations, etc. in the workplace. Integrating hotlines with the company’s corporate compliance programme can be effective as it helps in tracking each issue from creation to closure. Download 3.37 Mb. Share with your friends:
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