Transcript COMM 3170: Introduction to Organizational Communication

COMM 3170:
Introduction to
Organizational Communication
Summer 2005
Dan Lair
[email protected]
Day Two:
Organizational Communication
from an Ethical Perspective
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Introductions
Overview: Why Ethics First?
Questions re: Chapter 14
Individual vs. Social Views of Ethics
Thinking about ethics in organizational
contexts: example from The Apprentice
The Need for Ethical Reflection
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Employees encounter ethical dilemmas at
work (Lutheran Brotherhood, 1998)
Ethically questionable behavior is rampant
by executives (Brief, Dukerich, Brown, & Brett, 1996)
Disconnect between ethical beliefs and
behaviors:
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Business students (Badaracco and Webb, 1995)
Business School Deans (Siguaw et al, 1998)
Why Ethics First?
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We need a space for ethical reflection about
organizational practices
A communication-based perspective opens up
the ways we can look at organizations
Communication can help us explore the
“disconnect” between belief and behavior (i.e.
“It’s just business”)
Starting w/ ethics helps us reflect on the ethical
dimensions of all organizational life.
Questions from Chapter 14?
Individual vs. Social Views of Ethics
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Individual ethics focus on the principles
governing individual actions
Social ethics examine the broad effects of
social organizations above and beyond the
choices of individuals within them.
Recognizing Individual and Social
Ethical Viewpoints: An Application
(from Pasturis, 2002)
“A course on ethics is not like a polio vaccine. We can’t inoculate students who
have been inclined toward unethical behavior for the past 20 some odd
years”
-- Tom Donaldson, Wharton School
“If a company only talks about driving up the stock price, that’s a structure that
can make a crook out of an otherwise decent person”
-- Ray Horton, Columbia Business School
“With Enron, you can point to the players’ bad character, or you can look at
how the company’s institutions, compensation methods and so forth
disalign the values of executives from those of the shareholders. I see
business ethics as a plea for good institutional design”
-- Alexei Marcoux, Loyola University Chicago
Question: What do you see as the potential strengths and
weaknesses of individual as presented in the previous quotations?
Individual Ethics and Your
Personal Vision of Work Statements
Ethics and The Apprentice:
An Application
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In what ways do you see individual and
social ethics playing out in this clip?
How about teleological and deontological
ethics?
How are ethics communicated in this clip?
What might be the effects of
discussing/framing organizational ethics in
this manner?
For Monday, May 23
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First Journal due – pick your organization
Read Chapter 2 on Structure
Reading Guide and power points will be
posted by Friday