CSR 610 Module 3 Milestone One Example

Ethical Culture Assessment

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

CSR 610: Business Ethics and Culture

Milestone One

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Ethical Culture Assessment

Introduction

The March inspection findings, records completed after the fact and failed tests retested until they passed, were not the work of a few dishonest employees. They were produced by a culture. This milestone assesses that culture as the basis for the final project's recommendations. It describes how the evidence was gathered, presents findings on speaking up, rewards, structure, systems and leadership, interprets them using research on ethical culture and identifies strengths to build on.

Method

Three sources were used. An anonymous survey, adapted from published measures of ethical culture, was sent to all 640 employees and answered by 412, a 64 percent response rate, with responses from both shifts and all departments. Eighteen interviews, each about forty minutes, were held with production operators, shift supervisors, quality technicians, lab analysts, two managers and the chief operating officer. And company documents were reviewed: the code of conduct, the handbook, incentive plans, the organization chart, training records and the hotline log. Using several sources guards against relying on what people say they value rather than what the organization rewards. The survey was anonymous and administered by an outside firm so that employees would answer candidly.

Findings: Speaking Up

Thirty-eight percent of respondents agreed that they would fear retaliation if they raised a concern about quality or safety. The figure was higher among operators and lab staff, at 46 percent, than among managers, at 12 percent. In interviews, three lab analysts described being asked to retest failed samples and feeling unable to refuse. The hotline, run by an outside vendor, received two calls in the past year, both about scheduling. A hotline that is never used is not evidence of a healthy culture; it is more often evidence that people do not trust it.

Findings: Rewards and Structure

Shift supervisors' quarterly bonuses depend entirely on units shipped against target. No measure of quality, record accuracy or safety enters the calculation. Sixty-one percent of respondents agreed that their supervisors care more about output than how it is achieved. The quality unit reports to the plant manager, who is accountable for output, so the people responsible for stopping a bad batch report to the person most harmed by stopping it. Weaver et al. (1999) found that ethics programs often operate as loosely attached add-ons when they are not integrated with how the organization actually controls and rewards behavior, which describes this company well.

Findings: Formal Systems

The code of conduct is thorough and was updated in 2023. Ethics training consists of a forty-minute video at orientation, with no refresher. The handbook describes a commitment to integrity, but no employee interviewed could recall an occasion when integrity was discussed at a team meeting. Training records show that 71 percent of supervisors had not completed the company's records training in the past two years.

Findings: Leadership

At quarterly town halls, executives celebrate production records and on-time shipping, often naming top-performing shifts. In the past year's six town halls, quality was mentioned in one, and only in connection with a customer complaint. Employees described the plant manager as fair and hardworking but focused on numbers. The chief operating officer told the interviewer that he had never seen the lab's retest rate.

Interpretation

Treviño and colleagues distinguish the formal elements of ethical culture, such as codes, training and reward systems, from informal elements, such as norms, role models and the stories people tell, and found that the informal elements and the perceived focus on obedience versus self-interest strongly shape behavior (Treviño et al., 1998). In this company the formal elements are present but weak, and the informal elements point the wrong way: the stories people tell are about shifts that hit records, not about anyone who stopped a line. Schein (2010) describes culture in layers, from visible artifacts through espoused values to underlying assumptions. The espoused value is integrity; the underlying assumption, revealed by pay, structure and leaders' attention, is that output comes first.

Comparing Groups

The survey results differed sharply by role and shift. Managers rated the culture far more favorably than operators and lab staff on every question, a common pattern in which those who design systems see them as working better than those who live under them. Second-shift respondents were more likely than first-shift respondents to report pressure to cut corners, which matches the interviews: the second shift runs the higher-volume gummy lines and has the newest supervisors. Long-serving employees, those with more than ten years, were more likely to describe the culture as having changed for the worse since the growth began, recalling a time when the founder walked the floor and asked about quality. These differences suggest that change efforts should start where the pressure is greatest, on the second shift and in the lab, and that the gap between managers' and workers' views is itself a finding to share with leadership.

Strengths

The assessment also found strengths. The quality and lab staff, despite pressure, clearly care about getting results right, and several raised concerns informally. Operators expressed pride in making products people take for their health. Supervisors are loyal and respected by their teams, which means that if their incentives change, their teams will follow them. And the executives were open to the assessment, which suggests a willingness to act.

Implications

Four issues stand out for the analysis and recommendations to come: fear of raising concerns, especially among lab staff; incentives that reward output alone; a reporting line that places quality under production; and leaders who signal that speed matters most. Milestone Two will consider the company's responsibilities to its stakeholders, and Milestone Three will propose how to change the culture.

Conclusion

The company's formal ethics program exists on paper but is overwhelmed by a reward system, structure and leadership attention that put output first. The inspection findings were a predictable result, not an accident, and similar findings will recur unless the system changes. The company's strengths, staff who care about quality and a leadership open to change, give it a basis for improvement.

References

Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Treviño, L. K., Butterfield, K. D., & McCabe, D. L. (1998). The ethical context in organizations: Influences on employee attitudes and behaviors. Business Ethics Quarterly, 8(3), 447-476. https://doi.org/10.2307/3857431

Weaver, G. R., Treviño, L. K., & Cochran, P. L. (1999). Corporate ethics programs as control systems: Influences of executive commitment and environmental factors. Academy of Management Journal, 42(1), 41-57. https://doi.org/10.2307/256873