48 Outcome: Corporate Ethics

What you’ll learn to do: define the process organizations use to establish a code of ethics to encourage ethical behavior

Whether you work for a business or for a nonprofit organization, you probably have a sense of whether your employer is ethical or unethical. Employees at companies that consistently make Business Ethics magazine’s list of the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” regard the items on the previous list as business as usual in the workplace. Companies that routinely win good-citizenship awards include Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Avon Products, Cisco Systems, and Merck.  How these companies develop sound corporate ethics and an environment in which ethical behavior can flourish is the subject of this next section.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

The learning activities for this section include:

• Reading: The Organizational Approach to Ethics
• Self Check: Corporate Ethics

Take time to review and reflect on this activity in order to improve your performance on the assessment for this section.