Ethics in the Workplace

Penelope McElveen

Today's work environment consists of a multitude of ethnic and cultural diversity. With this diversity, one must recognize ethical behavior accountability.


It is significant to address the ethical issues that are of major concern in today's organization, what individual influences might impact ethical behavior in the workplace and how an organization can influence ethical behavior in individual employees.

Ethics and Managers

Any person that has ever been in a management position or even in charge for a period of time in the workplace has inevitably faced challenges that are not easy and many times, not readily remedied. First, there are adaptive challenges that must be considered. An adaptive challenge is not like technical work, in which a person can determine a solution and that solution not impact fellow workers, or require a change (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002). For example, a rural hospital has had no staff Chief Executive Officer or Chief Nursing Officer for over three years, only temporary placements to fill the void.

Although the temporary managers try to fill the void and implement new policy and procedures regarding ethical behavior in the workplace their recommendations and changes are not taken seriously. Also, this could result in increased liability and law suits, due to the employees' unwillingness or incapabability to adapt to the change and may cost the employees their jobs.

Ethics and Adaptive Challenges

Ethical issues in the workplace are one component of an adaptive challenge. Considering this, we must answer the question of why are ethical issues a major concern in organizations? According to American Heritage Online Dictionary, ethics is defined as, "the rules or standards of conduct governing a person or the members of a profession." One such example would be in a study performed by Mayo Clinics in 2009. In this particular study it was determined that the treatment of the addicted physician must be addressed by recognizing the ethical and legal implications. Also, monitoring the physician's return to the workplace and their aftercare.

Furthermore, it was determined that it is critical that written policies for dealing with workplace addiction are in place at every employment venue and that these policies are followed to minimize risk of an adverse medical or legal outcome, as well as to provide appropriate care to the addicted personnel (Berge, Seppala & Schipper, 2009). Obviously, if an organization lacks the ability or foresight to implement a standard of professional ethics then the organization is held liable for the mishaps that will eventually occur when a member of their organization is working impaired.

Ethics and Organizational Tolerance

Another individual influence is the particular organization's historical tolerance. Meaning, an employee who intentionally or inadvertently steals time or products from the organization. These crimes go unnoticed or unmentioned by many, simply because this type of practice has occurred for so long and without punishment.

One example of this tolerance would be within the many high-tech organizations, there are people who steal time from the company simply by playing on the internet. This crime has been so mis-used and abused that there are certain sites that are constantly monitored by many company's technical teams, as well as certain sites being forbidden. Sadly, the sites that many think of in this regard are those that portray pornography or gambling. But in some organizations, the abuse runs further into shopping on line, playing games, chatting to friends or simply surfing the net.

Basically, each organization will have to embrace ethical dilemmas and begin teaching and implementing the significance of each individual being personally responsible for their ethical and moral decisions. Furthermore, according to one study, it was determined that the reasons managers and companies do not always learn from their mistakes and become pro-active is not necessarily due to the individuals or institutions being without moral sensibilities or values, but rather, they sometimes have a narrow perspective of their situation and little in the way of moral imagination.

Also, an organization's ability to influence ethical behavior in its employees is an endless, ever changing, continuum of education and accountability. Meaning, in ( Sekerka, Bagozzi, & Charnigo, 2009, p566) article, it is argues that each manager must determine how to establish the will to act and maintain that willingness which is also known as professional moral courage.

Ethics and the Responsible Party

Ultimately, the individual employee is responsible for their morality but management teams instead of per se individual managers must be considered in order to allow for the different expectations of each individual employee, while maintaining the balance of corporate standards and conducts in the workplace.


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