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.

My organization is the car Dealership, Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram. I work in the

customer service experience department where I am the leader of a team that works to

ensure our customers have pleasant experiences when coming and doing business with

our dealership. The situation is that we have received negative feedback and surveys from

our customers who are upset about the lack of communication from the dealership’s

service department’s repair advisors. Customers are not being updated about their

vehicles in service, they also call and have a hard time reaching their service advisor.

Overall, customers are having negative experiences with our service department,

affecting the organization as a whole. The organization is losing customers because of it.

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

I believe that ethics strongly influence the situation in the sense of lack of

morality from the service advisors. The advisors are not putting themselves in the

customer’s shoes. For example, if I am a customer that left my vehicle in the service

department and have not heard back from my advisor, I do not know if there is a

diagnostic, when it will be ready, how much it will cost or anything, I will definitely be

upset and frustrated. According to Bolman and Deal, “Ethics ultimately must be rooted in

soul: an organization’s commitment to deeply rooted identity, beliefs, and values”

(Bolman & Deal, 2021). With that being said, I believe that the advisors are not

committed to the organizations beliefs such as, helping our customers through their

journeys with their vehicles. They are not truly committed to give our customer the best

experience possible which is leading to many issues of misscomunication and lack of

trust.

Bolman and Deal also mention, “Each frame offers a perspective on the ethical

responsibilities of organizations and the moral authority of leaders,” (Bolman and Deal,

2021). An organization needs multiple frames to survive and diverse teams can offer an

organization leadership in all four modes, such as structural, political, human resources

and symbolic. Clearly the lack of communication from the advisors is not being seen

from these different frames. In our company, communication with customers should

strongly be an advisor’s ethical responsibility as well as the organization and this is not

occurring. I learned that ethics in an organization has a deeper meaning such as caring,

justice and faith and our service department is lacking in these areas. Leadership such as

the service manager needs to help, teach, and motivate the advisors in a better manner

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 and service advisors also need to put effort into truly caring for our customers and

communities, being fair and responsible.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative

course of action regarding your case.

In this module we were able to bring all the frames together and explored ethics

through these frames. I would apply symbolic leadership regardin ethics to recommend

an alternative course of action. According to Bolman and Deal, “Symbolic leaders follow

a consistent set of practices and scripts,” (Bolman & Deal, 2021). I believe these practice

ans scripts could contribute to the advisor’s and organizations moral principles such as

leading by example. Symbolic leaders lead by example. Therefore, I would recommend

for the service manager to inspire the advisors by living by the companie’s ethical values.

This means, hiring by these core values, working by these core values, making decisions

by this core values. The service advisors as well as my team in customer service, should

portray proper communication amongs employees and team members as well as

customers. This way, teaching the advisors integrity, consciousness, responsibility and

fairness.

Something I would also recommend is communicating a vision. A vision is a

persuasive and hopeful image of the future. In this case, the vision would be having

proper communication with our followers and how this would benefit us all. According to

Bolman & Deal, “A vision needs to address both challenges of the present and the hopes

and values of followers,” (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Our organization is facing many

challenges due to the lack of communication. Because of this we are losing customers,

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 receiving bad feedback, losing credibility, and our service advisors are unfortunately

making a bad reputation of themselves and the organization. This also leads to them

losing a lot of money. The vision is to tie our values with our followers values and show

them that we work with morality, honesty, principles, honor, and fairness. If we do this

by building positive relationships with our people, we will definitely succeed, improving

our reputation, relationships and financial success.

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

about ethics.

An example that stood out for me from the text was the story of a principle who

used symbols to capture attention. “A symbolic leader looks for something visible and

dramatic to signal that change is on the way,” (Bolman & Deal, 2021). I would love to do

this for the advisors as well. I would have the service manager and myself send individual

emails to each advisor everyday with a positive affirmation as well as ask them how they

felt and what changes they want. If they do need to talk I would set up a meeting with

them to discuss such matters. This would motivate them and I would be a part of the

issues happening in the service department. This would also send me to problem-solving

mode wanting to make moral and proper choices for the department, the advisors, and

customers.

Given what I learned about ethics I would also definitely use the four frames to

have an effective corporation. “Effectiveness of a manager was particularly associated

with the structural frame, whereas the symbolic and political frames tended to be the

primary detirminants of effectiveness as a leader,” (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Tying every

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 frame together, they all serve for different purposes but I believe what would be most

successful for my organization is using all the frames to solve our issue of

miscommunication. This will help our service manager, and the customer service

department come together to create a successful organization with motivated, ethical

employees, and happy customers who see and understand our true core-values. I would

also strongly and thoroughly emphasize the importance of ethical responsibilities. I

learned that ethics should be emphasized more in business schools and in training.

Therefore, I would implement ethical training for our advisors and not treat it as common

sense. They need to understand the rational justifications for moral judgements and know

what is just and unjust according to our organizatoin’s soul and beliefs.

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.