Ethical Audit
Ethical Leadership C206
April 17th, 2015
Ethical Audit
An ethical audit is important to establish the company’s current weaknesses and strengths concerning how it conducts itself in an ethical manner. An ethics audit will involve evaluating the company’s standard of ethic, it ethic climate, and how well the company’s employees follow ethical standards. One of the first things to evaluate in an ethics audit is if a company has a written code of ethics and how comprehensive it is. Moreover, the written code of ethics should apply to everyone in the company from the top down with a clear zero tolerance policy in place for ethics violations. Included in a comprehensive ethics code should be a method for
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Balance Scorecard The use of a balanced scorecard when gauging the performance of executives at Paradigm Toys is useful because it measures several key areas that measure past and real time performance that directly affects the company. A balance scorecard can contain both financial and nonfinancial measures as well as both quantitative and qualitative performance measures. Additionally because a balance scorecard can be tailored to the business’s specific targets it can measure the substance of performance better that basic financial indicators that are usually considered the basis of performance ratings. It is important to use more than just financial indicators, because other factors, those qualitative in nature, measure how an employee does their job and gives a larger picture of how well an employee performs. For example, in the case of sales concerning installation of home improvement products one might be measured by repeat buyers or customer satisfaction of how well the salesman followed up with their sale and installation. This kind of non-financial factor can be used to measure the company’s goal of repeat buyer and customer satisfaction which can translate into future sales and growth. Financial indicators are used in similar ways, but are more quantitative in nature. The main reason to use financial indicators is because they can provide a clear picture
Ethics is the guiding force in any respectable organization. With a moral compass, especially in the leadership of organization, a company can become compromised and fall into a quagmire of legal issues, a tarnished reputation, and devaluation of company stock if it is a publically traded company. In pursuit of examine my own ethical lens I will analyze the ethical traits of an admired leader, my own traits as exhibited in the Ethical Lens Inventory, and how I make a decision concerning a particular ethical dilemma.
My understanding of the seven tasks of the ethical leader in creating value for an organization’s stakeholders is that these seven tasks should lead as a guide to leaders. It is essential for leaders to be role models for their employees. A leader needs to not just think about themselves, but to consider how their actions will affect others, including the image of the company. Having a process for employees to address their concerns and feel they are being heard is very important for leading a team. This creates value and a feeling of belonging within a company. Developing key employees and utilizing their talents also gives them value as well as value for others. This raises the bar for them to step up and become role models as well. Always acting in the best interest of the company, even if it is letting someone go.
Is a systematic approach to define a problem, develop possible solutions to solve the problem, arriving at the best solution, implementing the best solution.
Colleen, an ethics audit is an effective method to monitor whether employees are following the ethics program established by the company. Employees have been found to bend the ethics rules in their favor. When employees behave in undesirable ways, it is a good idea to look at what the company is encouraging them to do. It is obvious that people see what they want to see.
I believe that as a part of the role and authority as an ethical leader in the community of faith, a pastor is called to be a guide, namely to provide information on current ethical issues of note in society, offer her view of how the gospel’s teaching and model of Christ intersect with these issues, and advocate that time and safe space be created in the congregation to discuss and debate these issues.
Similarly, identifying all areas of risk to the organization as well as identifying opportunities in managing the ethics of the program will be part of the audit process (Ferrell, Fraedrick & Ferrell, 2011). Moreover, reviews of the mission, values, and intended goals are critical in an ethics audit. The collection and analysis of information relevant to the ethics program are useful in measuring the progress of improving employees decisions and conduct. Finally, a third-party ethics audit consultant should be sought to verify the results of the audit and the findings should be reported to the directors and top executives of the
In the study of ethics, there are a wide variety of ideas that are used to influence the way that someone looks at a particular situation. The case study that was examined (titled: Names of Suicide Victims) is discussing the morality of publishing the names of last four people who committed suicide in the college newspaper. At first this was in response to the rising trends that were taking place inside the community. Now this program has evolved to the point that editors of the newspaper are starting to publish more personal information about the individual. This is raising various moral concerns about these practices. To fully understand the ethics of this situation involves: examining if this is an acceptable policy, how this could prevent future suicides, the potential harm and if the newspaper should be punished. Together, these elements will highlight how ethical decisions can influence the outcome of events. ("Names of Suicide Victims")
What you measure is what you get” – In the journal ‘The Balanced Scorecard – Measures that drive performance’ by renowned professors, Kaplan and Norton (1992), a new management system was introduced to a peripheral perspective economic industry. Past the industry era, traditional financial performance measures such as return-on-investment and earnings-per-share were deemed no longer competent in the ever-changing market. The view of focussing on either financial or non-financial perspectives alone were regarded as one-dimensional and ignorant of other crucial factors in both the company and the market.
A. Ethical leadership and ethical decision making are a challenge for any organization or institution. Within your professional area/industry, analyze how and why ethical practices and behaviors are critical to your discipline and to the success of organizations. Justify your response in detail with three examples of current ethical practices and discuss the key theoretical concepts and industry guidelines involved. These examples can be from your own professional experience or through research of the literature of case studies. Support your statements and analyses with citations and other support from the academic literature.
having been terminated for lack of completing expected goals, I am glad that I was part of a great team. As city manager, I experienced countless encouraging times serving this city. Although a mutual decision was made to end this journey as city manager, it does not change the relationship we have established. I am strengthened to have worked with some of the most honest, moral and ethical group of leaders. The influence shown through your leadership has helped me become aware of who I am as a servant of God and leader of our city.
Paul “Bear” Bryant once ended a quote with “the price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.” (King & King, 2006, p. 53). That still rings true today as leaders look back on their journeys, and the substantial price that it took in reaching their vision. I claim Paul “Bear” Bryant was indeed a visionary leader and an ethical leader as he continuously rallied countless men around a common goal of excellence and effectively guided them to achieve that very goal not only on the football field but in life. He was able to do so by having a strong understanding of diversity and the impact it had in the building of his coaches and players, as well as what it took to advance those individuals toward the vision by way of transformational leadership and effective use of Inspirational Motivation. Bryant often led by example, and some of these examples were displayed in the way he chose to stay true to principles and avoid ethical traps in his disciplining of star quarterback, Joe Namath. He further displayed his ethical style in leading his team through racial integration in the early 1970’s by having the open-mindedness and intellectual courage it took to make that unpopular decision. In the next few pages, I will display how Bryant was a visionary and ethical leader, and then reflect on the visionary and ethical leadership experiences within my own career: how I used diversity and inspirational motivation in reaching our F-35 goal at Hill AFB, and my
The main tents of ethical leadership in public service is for leaders to be transparent, accountable, and professional to have a successful organization. Committed leaders will exemplify professionalism for followers and possessing the motivation to achieve organizational goals. Naturally, to be professional is to comprehend the significance of roles and performance in public service. Accountability is important to the functionality of a public organization. And transparency in public administration is needed to be sure the public has information handy (Haq, 2011).
The leading organizations use performance measurement with the aim of gaining insights to their organizations and the efficiency of their people, programs and processes. The organizations do not only collect and analyze data but they also use performance management to transform various strategies into actions and to improve their operational processes (Northcott and Ma 'amora Taulapapa 2012). Accordingly, performance management is used to manage the organizations. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a prominent performance management system in the contemporary world and it was developed by Dr. David Norton and Dr. Robert Kaplan at Harvard business school. Compared to other systems of measuring performance, the BSC considers various
The point of the balanced scorecard is to move beyond financial measures for evaluating corporate performance. The underlying assumption of the model is that there are a number of outputs that contribute to the financial objectives, and those outputs can be classified as being oriented towards customers, learning and growth and internal processes. Niven (n.d.) notes that there are three main things that should be taken into consideration when developing strong measures for the customer perspective. The first is "who are the customers?", something that we will assume these organizations have answered. They may also wish to ask "who is not a customer but should be?" in order to drive growth in the business, but it is not a fault that they do not ask this. The second question is "what do our customers expect from us?" and the third
The Balanced Scorecard is a model used to align business activities to the organisation’s vision and strategy, improve internal as well as external communications, and monitor the organisation’s actual performance against its strategic goals. It combines financial and non-financial performance measures, such as the satisfaction of customers/stakeholders, the efficiency of internal business processes and organisational capacity in terms of knowledge and innovation. (Balanced Scorecard Institute, n.d.).