BUILDING AN ETHICAL ORGANIZATION

Building an Ethical Organization

Building an Ethical Organization

Introduction

An organization can be defined as a collection of people - numbering from two people to thousands - that purposely work in collaboration with each other to achieve a shared common objective or a set of objectives. In other words, organizations operate like a system, which implies that organizations are the collections of people and parts that are highly integrated with each other for the purpose of achieving a shared common goal (Carlson & Perrewe, 1995). An organizational system is, thus, composed of inputs (in terms of human and financial resources), processes (how the business is conducted and organizational operations are performed), outputs (the final product or services for the delivery), and outcomes (the net benefits to the consumers and those involved in organizational processes).

The organization's industry, nature of operations, product type, types of customers, leadership and stated goals and objectives greatly shape the system the organization follows. An open system, for example, in health care organizations mainly concentrates upon the relationships that are developed with external elements. This results in placing the organizations in a much larger environment or context than those organizations that do not primarily deal with external relations (Schmidt, 1992). The system in majority of the organization in mainly concerned with relations with customers, suppliers, allies, competitors and regulatory bodies.

Ethical Issues in Organizations

When discussing the ethical organizations or the concept of ethics in organizations, organizations are sometimes considered as an individual in a sense that organizations can be held accountable for their immoral or unethical actions. The elements of ethics in organizations, however, mainly deal with choices that individual made and the organization themselves (Muhr, Meier, Srensen & Vallentin, 2010). The concept of organizational ethics is quire broad in scope in a sense that it does not only include the organizational culture and the element of trust, but also the ways in which processes or business is conducted by the organizations as well as the outcomes. Moreover, the character, actual actions, not the stated code of ethics, the purpose and the shared common value and beliefs also fall under the scope of organizational ethics (Schmidt, 1992).

The ethics of organization also includes an attempt by that organization to define its mission and values, direct the operations in way as to ensure the values are maintained, recognize those values that could possibly results in tension, and finally strive to find different ways to minimize the tension within the organization. Therefore, it can safely be argued that the concept of ethics mainly acts as a mechanism to allow the organizations to identify and address ethical issues regarding the management, processes, financial and relationship decisions (Levanon & Choi, 2006).

The Organization

This paper is mainly concerned with the organizational structure and ethics in Old- age People Welfare Organization which is also known as OPWO. OPWO deals with the welfare of Old age people who are living in old houses away from their family (Wilson, ...