2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
As a footnote to the debate about the green environment - which is often presented as an argument about conflicting values - one of the most pervasive moral issues is coming to be that of the overall ethics of the organisation, as opposed to individual morality. The problem is that, as yet, organisational ethics are - despite the proud boasts of the business community - in practice no better than sketchy. Early in my own career, as an assistant brand manager in a company whose culture promoted the importance of new products, we had a new product in test market which had recorded a very good performance over the first three months. Unfortunately, sales slumped thereafter, as the public recognised that it was only a gimmick, and what was worse it (a food product) actually started to go bad on the shelves! My boss, fully recognising that to launch nationally would cost the company several million dollars (at today's prices) but that his future career would be enhanced, quietly buried the bad news and went ahead with the launch. He was promoted to marketing manager, before eventually moving into general management, and his successor as brand manager was fired when the product (predictably) failed!
My own experience has gone even further. I was, for instance, once part of a group which was specifically required to break the law, albeit only in terms of the food labelling acts, solely for the benefit of company profits. I did protest, albeit (as a very junior member of management) with no success, and so I took the only option open to me - I changed jobs and left the company. This was an extreme experience for me, but it does illustrate, perhaps, how the reality of corporate ethics has to change in order to catch up with the moral values of employees! At the extreme, not least in the actions of the global financial community, organisations may believe that they are outside of the law; the only offence becomes that of disloyalty by a member.
The minority of groups which discussed the issue believed that the change will occur; but were very uncertain as to the likely speed of such change. It may be, though, that the revolutionary impacts of the popular rejection of political parties, and of the sleaze they are now seen to represent, will accelerate the rate of change in organisational ethics as well; and, indeed, the mid 1990s backlash is now targeted on senior managers in industry as much as on their political masters.
Organisational ethics, in terms of actual practice, will improve - albeit slowly; to reflect the high standards expected by employees, rather than the low ones set by politicians.
In fact, the new century saw corporate ethics reach a new low, as corporations such as Enron and Worldcom were revealed to be financial scams; and a number of others, including the largest such as AOL had to review their accounts. The world was appalled by what had happened and financiers promised it would never happen again. But the US government, whose members included some on the fringes of these financial disasters, embraced foreign policies which set an appalling example for everyone else; so corporate ethics (especially in the US) may not improve as fast as we had hoped!
Badaracco & Webb - in their widely reported article - for instance report, in terms of how ethics are really implemented, "First, in many cases, young managers receive explicit instructions from their middle-manager bosses or felt strong organizational pressure to do things that they believed were sleazy, unethical, or sometimes illegal. Second, corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and the like provided little help. Third, many of the younger managers believed that their company's executives were out-of-touch on ethical issues...Fourth, younger managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values."
Badaracco & Webb gave a number of examples "A young financial analyst had calculated that the return on a significant investment at a refinery was approximately 12%. His boss explained to him that no project could be approved without a 25% return and told him to redo the numbers and get them right." Early in my own career, as an assistant brand manager in a company whose culture promoted the importance of new products, we had a new product in test market which had recorded a very good performance over the first three months. Unfortunately, sales slumped thereafter, as the public recognised that it was only a gimmick, and what was worse it (a food product) actually started to go bad on the shelves! My boss, fully recognising that to launch nationally would cost the company several million dollars (at today's prices) but that his future career would be enhanced, quietly buried the bad news and went ahead with the launch. He was promoted to marketing manager, before eventually moving into general management, and his successor as brand manager was fired when the product (predictably) failed! Badaracco & Webb, indeed, found that "less than a third of interviewees believed that their organizations respected or encouraged whistleblowing. A similar number were unsure how whistleblowers would be treated, and the other interviewees believed that whistleblowing was dangerous..." My own experience has been, at times, much the same. I was, for instance, once part of a group which was specifically required to break the law, albeit only in terms of the food labelling acts, solely for the benefit of company profits. I did protest, albeit (as a very junior member of management) with no success, and so I took the only option open to me - I changed jobs and left the company. This was an extreme experience for me, but it does illustrate, perhaps, how the reality of corporate ethics has to change in order to catch up with the moral values of employees! Zygmunt Bauman explains the problem in terms of two phenomena "...floating responsibility. Providing that the member of the organization followed the rules faithfully and did what the proper superiors told him to do, it is not he who bears responsibility for whatever effect his actions may have had..." and "...the tendency to declare that most things which members of organizations are expected to do when in service are exempt from moral evaluation..." At the extreme, not least in the actions of the global financial community, organisations may believe that they are outside of the law; the only offence becomes that of disloyalty by a member."
The Henley Centre (reported by Sheena Carmichael) found that "At present in the UK, only 15% of the public broadly trusts multinational businesses to be honest and fair (compared with 27% who trust their newspapers, 39% who trust accountants and 83% who trust their GPs)".
16 May 2003
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