Sunday, November 03, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Office culture may determine how workers exercise ethics, experts say

College of business students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, discuss ethics as part of their curriculum. Whether the lessons last, experts say, will hinge on lessons learned before college and social systems existing afterward.

Patricia Harned, managing director of programs for the Ethics Resource Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, Washington-based educational organization, said the ability to act ethically or unethically begins with a person's character, core values taught by parents and reinforced by schooling. Some elementary and middle schools, she said, have begun adopting character education programs to begin teaching youngsters the effects of ethical behavior in decision making.

"The thing is to get students see how ethics connect to every decision they make every day and are part of all aspects of the material they're learning," Harned said. "If we want to raise ethical business leaders, we should make ethics a primary part of what we teach children."

UNLV philosophy professor Craig Walton said lessons aren't enough; workplace systems must support ethical behavior.

For example, he said, workplaces need some degree of free information flow. Workers at all levels must be able to discuss standard operating procedures and speak openly, without fear of penalty, when something seems amiss.

"How free is a person to pass along information relevant to the mission of the office or factory or shop," Walton said. "That's a vital question."

Without free discussion, workers may face a tough choices if they disagree with policies, Walton said: go along to get along, not go along and face penalties (including social ostracism), or leave the job.

Randy Cohen, who writes the weekly Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine, said ethical behavior will come if conditions to create it exist. Sometimes, he said, this is a matter of law.

For example, he said, before the pooper-scooper legislation in New York for example, dog owners mostly ignored pets' mess. Cleanup improved after the law.

"An environment was constructed in which being good was possible," he said. "A similar thing happens with the laws regulating the economy. The story of Enron et. al., is not a saga of wicked individuals but of ordinary behavior within a subculture."