Communication and Ethics

Ethical Choices: Exercise

Explain why each of the following is ethical or not ethical: Keeping quiet about a possible

environmental hazard you’ve just discovered in your company’s processing plant

Overselling the benefits of instant messaging to your company’s management; they never seem to understand the benefits of technology, so you believe it’s the only way to convince them to make the right choice

Ethical Choices: Exercises

Telling an associate and close friend that she’d better pay more attention to her work responsibilities or management will fire her

Recommending the purchase of excess equipment to use up your allocated funds before the end of the fiscal year so that your budget won’t be cut next year

Ethics

Accepted principles of conduct Define the boundary between right

and wrong “Knowing the difference between

what you have a right to do and what is the right thing to do”. US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

Ethical Communication

Includes all relevant information

Is true in every sense

Is not deceptive in any way

Impact of Ethics

The costs of unethical conduct are high

Good people like to work for good organizations

There is a correlation between financial performance and social performance

Communication and Ethics Every Communication Decision has

an Ethical Dimension: Speak Listen Remain Silent

Communication Ethics Involves both Motives and Impacts

Fundamental Principles Should Guide Discussions of Ethics

Exercise

Knowing that you have numerous friends throughout the company, your boss relies on you for feedback concerning employee morale and other issues affecting the staff. She recently approached you and asked you to start reporting any behaviour that might violate company policies, from taking office supplies home to making personal long distance calls. What should you do?

Ethical Dilemmas

Secrecy Justifiable Unjustifiable

Dissent Managers’ concerns (creating ways to

express concerns, and ways of responding to them)

Employees’ concerns (should they voice concerns, and if they should, to whom?)

Voicing Dissent

Recipients of Dissen

t

Power of ResolutionLow High

External Audience

Family and Friends(Venting)

Government Agencies(Whistleblowing)

Internal Audience

C0-workers(Grousing)

Supervisors or Company Officials(Voicing Objections

Ethical Dilemmas (Contd.) Leaks

Alternative to whistleblowing

Feelers Rumour and Gossip

(Grapevine) Events and Information People

Lying Stark lies White Lies

Euphemisms Consideration fee

(bribe) Permanently borrowing

(stealing) Ambiguity

Intention Interpretation

Apology Reform (denying) Transform (aberration) Responsibility

Your company plans to reduce local staffing by as much as 50 % over the next 5 to 10 years, starting with a small layoff next month. The size and timing of future layoffs have not been decided, although there is little doubt more layoffs will happen at some point. In the first draft of a letter aimed at the community, you write that “this first layoff is part of a continuing series of staff reductions anticipated over the next several years”. However, your boss is concerned about the vagueness and the negative tone of the message and asks you to rewrite it as “this layoff is part of the company’s ongoing efforts to continually align its resources with global market conditions.” Do you think this suggested wording is ethical?

Strategic Approach to Corporate Ethics: Corporate Culture

Code of Ethics/Values

Distribution

Reinforcement

Exercise

Your supervisor has asked you to withhold important information that you think should be included in a report you are preparing. Disobeying him could be disastrous for your relationship and your career. Obeying him could violate your personal code of ethics. What should you do?

Strategic Approach to Corporate Ethics: Organizational Policy

What information should the organization gather?

How should the organization gather the information? ( about employees, about competitors)

How should the organization use the information? (Who has access? When can it be released? When should it be destroyed?)

Organizational PolicyInformation

Possessed ByInformation Desired

ByEmployee Organization External Groups

Employee Medical recordsPurchasing patternsMarital statusOff-job behavioursPersonality testsSocial Security No.Drug abuse history

Corporate misconductTrade secretsCorporate strategyPolicy disputes

Organization Personnel FilesAppraisalsSalary ProjectionsPromotions

Employee performance historyProduct informationPersonnel directoryCustomer databases

External Groups Professional and ethical standardsLegal rights

Competitor strategyGovernment policiesForthcoming media stories

Strategic Approach to Corporate Ethics: Personal Commitments

Discretion

Relevance

Accuracy

Fairness

Timeliness

Role Play You and a coworker are members of the same

marketing department in a Fortune 500 company. You have worked closely with this coworker for the past 8 months and have developed casual relationship outside of working hours. However, you have started to feel that your coworker doesn’t share information essential for you to be an effective department member. In fact, you suspect s/he occasionally withholds information (changes in meeting time and location, feedback from field visits, etc) so that you don’t look good in the eyes of the supervisor. You have asked to meet with your coworker to talk about the issue.