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.

The organization I choose to write about is Jump Street. The organization is in an indoor
trampoline facility for children. My role there was to host parties and private events.
They included planning parties with a customer, hosting them, and payment. The
payment process was always at the end of their session. With us and tips were very
important for each host to get. For my situation, my manager noticed that my incoming
tips from the previous months were much lower than usual. Our tips go to every
employee evenly, not only the host. My manager called me into her office to go over her
numbers with me. I was confused as well. I normally brought in the most tips, I thought
something was off. She made accusations that I was taking all the tips and had taken me
off the schedule for two weeks. The next day I talked with one of my supervisors. They
went over all the recipes from the parties and events I hosted and noticed the manager did
not enter the tips that were cash and put me back on the schedule.

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

The ethics in the organization included obeying the company’s rules. This included being
responsible and respectful to one another. In my position at the company, I was not
allowed to keep my incoming tips. In some places, hosts and servers are allowed to keep
their cash tips. In my organization, we had to give all of our tips to the manager or
supervisor. From there they would split them up evenly and give them to all the
employees. I respected this rule and found it important to share them with my fellow
workers.

This influenced the situation because my manager didn’t see that in me. She accused me
of not following the rules. One ethical behavior I think the manager and I lacked was

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 communication. When we were in the meeting going over the situation I feel like we had
a lot that was unspoken. For myself, I should have spoken up and communicated with her
better about the situation along with my feelings.

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

Regarding my case, one ethical community I would recommend would be to have trust
and mutual respect for all employees at work. If there was better trust between the two us
of we would have gone about this situation very differently. I enjoyed the positions I
worked in and respected the rules that were in place. With my manager placing trust in
me she would have noticed the error right away.

For myself, I could have given her more respect. After the meeting with her, I was very
upset and hot-headed. I should have looked at it differently and respected her decisions.
For her, this was a very big problem being low on tips and she saw that I was the source
of it. I should have trusted the problem would be solved.

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

Given what I learned ethics is the “organization's commitment to deeply rooted identity,
beliefs, and values”( Bolman & Deal, 2021, p. 422). With what I have learned I would
have dealt with this situation differently. In my head, at the time I was upset with
everyone. I should have trusted the process and myself. It didn’t take long for them to
find the problem and reach out to me.

Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.