Chapter Six

ETHICS TRAINING

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons

 Chapter 6  Discuss the importance of organizational
Learning Objectives trust
 Describe the extent of ethics training
nationwide
 Understand the shortcomings of web-
based ethics training programs
 Develop 10 types of ethics training
workshops
 Create business ethics scenarios for
workshop discussion
 Administer ethics personality surveys
 Assess the ethics training workshop

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Building Trust and an Ethical Culture

W. Edwards Deming stated, “Trust is mandatory for

optimization of a system…Without trust, each
component will protect its own immediate interests
to its own long term detriment, and to the detriment
of the entire system”

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Building Trust and an Ethical Culture

 Trust eliminates psychological barriers separating

employers and employees

 Trust creates economic benefits through enhanced

individual and organizational performance

 Hard-earned trust can quickly disappear when

violated, which can hamper organizational
performance

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Extent of Ethics Training

 Organizations may be tempted to eliminate ethics

training as an extraneous expense when budgets are
tight, but this is exactly when ethics training is
needed most

 Employees who tend toward the relativistic belief

that cutting ethical corners may be necessary to
“save the organization” might sound heroic in the
short term, but these actions can come back to haunt
the organization in the long term

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Who to Train

 Upper-level managers establish the overall ethics

tone that is then filtered throughout an organization

 Ethics training can help organizational leaders

achieve consensus on how to address difficult
situations they encounter

 Direct supervisors have the most immediate impact

on the ethics of subordinates

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Web-Based Ethics Training

Web-based training offers a simple method for making

employees aware of the most common ethical issues

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 The Workshop Facilitator

An ideal workshop facilitator is someone the

participants trust and who has the requisite skills to
create a safe learning environment

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Framing the Training Workshop

There is no “one-size-fits-all” ethics training program, yet there are

general trends and best practices found among organizations

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethical Culture Assessment

 Annually assessing the organization’s ethical

performance based on its Code of Ethics offers an
opportunity for employees to discuss relevant ethical
issues related to work activities

 Exhibit 6.2 (next slide) provides a 10-step process for

conducting this workshop

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Exhibit 6.2: Ethics Training Options

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethical Culture Assessment

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Code of Conduct Analysis

 Code of conduct content: The ethics training

workshop facilitator can use a game format to engage
the minds of employees when educating them about
Code of Conduct content

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Code of Conduct Analysis

Applying the Code of Conduct to Specific Situations

 Coca-Cola’s ethics training includes reviewing the
company’s Code of Business Conduct

 Coca-Cola’s Code of Business Conduct, and one

scenario and correct answer, appear in the “Best
Practice in Use” exhibit (next slide)

 This format teaches employees about previous

disciplinary actions taken by the organization

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Code of Conduct Analysis

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Code of
Conduct
Analysis
 The facilitator can design a
Outcome of code of workshop educating employees
conduct violations
about the types of unethical
activities that have previously
occurred within the organization
or industry, and how the guilty
person was punished

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Typical Behaviors Experienced

The workshop facilitator can introduce employees to

the most common ethical problems experienced in
the industry, explore the extent to which attendees
have witnessed the problem, and guide them in how
best to respond to the most prominent issues

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Apply the Systematic Rational Ethical
Decision-Making Framework

This training workshop teaches employees how to apply the

systematic rational ethical decision-making framework to
particular situations

Insert Exhibit 6.5

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Create Business Ethics Scenarios for
Discussion

The most meaningful ethical issues to explore are those

employees observe, experience, or hear about while
employed either in their current organization or for a
previous employer

Insert Exhibit 6.6

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Create Business Ethics Scenarios for
Discussion

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Fraud and Theft Exploration

 The terms theft, fraud, and embezzlement are interrelated

 Theft refers to taking someone’s property without their

permission

 Fraud is the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment

through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the
employing organization’s resources or assets

 Embezzlement is a particular type of theft and fraud whereby

an employee steals money from his or her employer

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Fraud and Theft Exploration

Employee workshops on fraud detection are a disincentive

for those considering committing a fraud and can help
detect frauds as soon as they occur

Insert Exhibit 6.8

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Level of Moral Development Analysis

 Ethics training can help employees better

understand their own ethical profile

 One of the most important ethics measures—level of

moral development— remains an elusive concept to
measure

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethics Personality Measures

A variety of ethics and personality measures linked with

ethical attitudes, decision-making, and behaviors can serve
as the focus of an ethics training workshop:

 Idealism/Relativism measures whether a person tends to

be an “idealist” or “relativist” when responding to an ethical
dilemma

 Ethical Ideology measures whether a person tends to be

“principled” (deontology) or “expedient” (relativism) when
responding to an ethical dilemma

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethics Personality Measures

 Moral Identity measures whether a person internalizes

moral character traits (internalization) and projects them
to others (symbolization)

 Moral Courage measures whether a person exercises

moral principles

 Empathy measures a person’s emotional reaction to the

experiences of another person

 Altruism measures whether a person engages in altruistic

behaviors

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethics Personality Measures

 Trust measures whether a person is willing to be

vulnerable in supervisor interactions

 Ethical Self-Efficacy measures whether a person

believes he or she can successfully perform an ethical
behavior

 Machiavellianism measures whether a person

identifies with “the ends justify the means”

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Ethics Personality Measures

 Locus of Control measures whether a person believes

she or he controls (internal), or is controlled by
(external), events in life

 Life regard measures whether a person values living

a meaningful life (framework) and whether this
desire is being fulfilled (fulfillment)

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Benchmark to an Ideal Employee

 Employees need to know in advance what managers

expect of them

 Have each manager independently develop a list of

behavioral attributes an ideal employee would possess

 Share these lists with other managers in small groups

and combine similar items under the same heading

 Then present the composite profile of an ideal employee

to subordinates for the purposes of self-assessment
feedback

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 In a workshop
setting, have
employees
individually
answer the sets
of questions in
Exhibit 6.10 and
discuss their
responses in
small groups

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics

 Assessing the Ethics Training Workshop

Keep the assessment tool simple and short for employees and the
facilitator:

 Were specific real-life situations addressed?

 Were questions raised by participants?

 Did the trainer serve as a coach and facilitator, rather than a

lecturer?

 Were participants shown how to address, report, or correct ethical

problems?

 Were the situations raised linked back to the Code of Ethics, Code of
Conduct, or organizational strategy?

Chapter 6, Collins: Business Ethics