Ethical Organisations Exist
The behaviour of employees is the easiest and most meaningful measure of an organisation's ethics; however, that does not mean that the individual employee's values matter to the exclusion of corporate values. Corporate values influence employee behaviour in two ways: directly via structural change and indirectly via corporate culture.
Employees can be directly influenced by corporate values when they understand the values and their personal relevance, when they are motivated to uphold and promote them and when they have the capabilities to implement them. These changes in understanding, motivation and capabilities can only be brought about through changes in structure (i.e. incentives, rules and processes). How this is achieved is described in more detail in i2a's DNA Model.
When values are embedded in the incentives, rules and processes and these changes bring about a change in employee behaviour they also bring about a change in the organisation's culture. As an employee's behaviour changes, he/she has different expectations of his/her colleagues' behaviour and this change in expectations acts to reinforce the change in structure.
To be a Good Business therefore requires not just having corporate values but embedding them in the organisation, only that way will employee behaviour change and the organisation reap the benefits of its values.
