OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I am studying my work place which is the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence
Livermore National Lab. My current role is as the Radiological Control Field Supervisor
where I manage a small 5-person team that helps work groups complete work that
involves hazardous and radiological materials. I am studying the ongoing staffing
shortage we are experiencing, as the facility is close to the minimum staffing needed
before we start having serious scheduling challenges due to lack of personnel.

2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

Our organization is generally seen as acting in an ethical and responsible fashion. We are
highly regulated and overseen by the Department of Energy, and so we have to follow all
of the ethical guidelines that every federal employee must follow. This includes
disclosing conflicts of interest and not giving vendors preferential treatment. Due to the
high standard that we hold ourselves too, I do not think that the ethics of our organization
plays a major role in the staffing shortage in which we find ourselves.

The ethics of the organization, while they have not been a major contributor to the issues
that we have studied throughout this semester, can play a role in reframing how we think
about the issues that have arisen in our organization. The pandemic has only exacerbated
these issues, and so it is time to think outside the box and empower the talent that we
attract to flourish and stay employed with us in the future.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

The ethical community that I think would be the most appropriate to apply to my place of
work is the temple community. The work that I do is special and unique, we are entrusted
with some of the most sensitive information on the planet to ensure that our nuclear

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 arsenal is in good health. This highly unique and specialized field is something that
creates a unique culture. Using the temple community, we would build our culture to
emphasize the importance of what we do, and how it affects the citizens of the United
States and the entire world.

Using the temple community would go far in increasing the retention rate. Building the
culture around how special and unique what we do is is an easy way to build the
community around the lab. It would reduce the transactional nature that we currently
have to one that is excited to work together to accomplish the goals that we have.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.

As stated above, the organization that I currently work for is a very ethical organization
due to the nature of the work that we perform and the relationship that we have the with
United States federal government. We do our work in a way that aligns with the most
stringent ethical standards that there are in the business world. While our organization is
overall ethically sound, there are improvements that we need to make surrounding the
culture of the organization, and the temple ethical community is the best way to address
this issue through the ethical frame.

The temple community would help the leadership of the lab nurture a culture of
uniqueness that can bring together the lab employees and help to show the mission that
we are there to accomplish. Fostering this culture of us being special, doing something
that is difficult and sensitive could help to foster a sense that the lab is a larger family.
Trying to cultivate this can be difficult, but it would ultimately help to keep people and
reduce the turnover which is causing the issues that we currently have with staffing.