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 that I will be analzying for this case study is a Dungeons and Dragons
party, in which we as a Party were conflicted on our next course of action. We had a contract
with an organization, in which we, as researchers, would visit excavation sites and report all
findings to our boss at the organization. On our way to the first excavation site we were
threatened to never reveal the information that we would find, as it could result in the deaths
of thousands. We have since learned that the current director of the organization is willing to
kill people over the information provided. My role in this is playing a character that is an
internal stakeholder within the organization, seeing as I work for them.

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

On a wider, organizational level, our party followed the Structural Frame the best
out of the other frames. Originally, we were all together only for the job, for our
paycheck. Our only motivation was getting the job done, to put it simple. The Ethical
Community metaphor attached to the Structural Frame is one of the Factory. Bolman and
Deal discuss how one common source of disappointment is a lack of commitment and
autonomy from upper management (Bolman and Deal, 2021, p. 415). This was the
deciding factor that caused us to lose our loyalty to the organization. Excellence no
longer became a concern once we realized that our options were limited.

Over time, we ended up adopting a more Human Resource Frame. It is easy to

think of our situation, and consider it from a Political perspective, as the Political Frame’s
leading ethical motivation is justice (Bolman and Deal, 2021, p. 414). And while justice
may have been our initial motivation that caused us to stray in our loyalty from the
organization, it is not what remained in the long term. Quickly, we found ourselves
bonding, and our concern for each other is what kept us together. We quickly adopted the
Human Resource motivation of family. There have been several situations in which we

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 had to sacrifice information for the safety of our companions, but it is also that care that
results in us achieving our goals.

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

I do believe that we should begin to adopt a more Political Frame metaphor of the
Jungle. It would be ignorant to pretend as though there are no groups that are opposed to
our work, or what we plan on doing with our work. We cannot trust the other groups to
uphold the same standards that we do, and it’s because of this we should even the
universal knowledge. Bolman and Deal discuss how justice requires leaders to share
power with the vulnerable and excluded groups, and that those who hoard power produce
meaningless organizations (Bolman and Deal, 2021, p. 417). This information remaining
in our hands achieves nothing, it simply is waiting for someone else to discover it. But we
could at least influence the direction of power with what we know.
I do think we could revert to the Structural Frame, as long as the organization
changes with it. Or at least we could uphold a theme of excellence within our own party.
We already somewhat embody it, we try to pursue every bit of information until we reach
a dead end. If the current structure of our organization is ineffective, maybe we should
start our own. That way we could then employ others in a much more ethical way than
how we were employed.

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

Because the information we obtain changes our perspectives more and more on
the organizations around us with each discovery, it is difficult to find an organization to
align ourselves with. And that is why I believe that the Human Resource Frame is so
important to the way our group functions. We may not hold strong beliefs to a certain
concept, or to an organization, but we do hold loyalty to each other, and that is what
drives us to accomplish our work. So I don’t think we will be changing to a different
frame any time soon, though I do think it would be wise to adopt the traits of the other
frames. It can never hurt to be well rounded.
I believe that the only thing we are not afforded is to look at things from a
Symbolic Frame for others within our organization. The Symbolic Frame is one that is
optimistic, that wants to believe that every member can produce something significant
(Bolman and Deal, 2021, p. 419). I do not believe that we can afford to think of our
organization so altruistically. And it is because of that, that I do not believe that we will
be adopting that ethical perspective any time soon.

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 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (ASU Bookstore Automatic Purchase-Perusall
Version Only)