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References
Question 1: Ethics
and Organizational Ethics
These works contributed
significantly to the development of the Organizational Integrity approach.
Arranged by importance to the topic rather than alphabetically or chronologically,
they-and other works-may be secured through this site by arrangement with
Amazon.com.
Ethical issues:
Brady makes the case that if significant harm or benefit to self or community
is involved, it is an ethical issue. Leopold argues that the community
should be considered the world of which we are a part. Csikszentmihalyi
points to the delicate balance the organization strives to maintain to
survive and thrive.
Ethics has Evolved:
Probably
one of the more remarkable writings in the last decade is Robert M. Pirsig's
Lila:
An Inquiry Into Morals. Pirsig proposes that there is a fundamental
evolutionary structure he calls the Metaphysics of Quality, which shows
that there is not just one moral system. There are many:
- There's a morality
of the "laws of nature," by which organic patterns triumph over chaos;
- There is a morality
called the "law of the jungle" where biology triumphs over the inorganic
forces of starvation and death;
- There's a morality
where social patterns triumph over biology, the "law"; and
- There is an intellectual
morality, which is still struggling in its attempts to escape the control
of society. (182-83)
Pirsig argues that,
in general, when given a choice of two courses to follow, and all other
things being equal, that choice that is more Dynamic, that is, at a higher
level of evolution, is more moral. (183) An
evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to seek to subjugate
society, to escape from the constraints of society, but it also contains
a warning: Just as a society that weakens its people's physical health
endangers its own stability, so does an intellectual pattern that weakens
and destroys the health of its social base also endanger its own stability.
Any static mechanism
that is open to Dynamic Quality must also be open to degeneracy—to
falling back to lower forms of quality. This creates the problem of getting
maximum freedom for the emergence of Dynamic Quality while prohibiting
degeneracy from destroying the evolutionary gains of the past. (189) The
whole thing, he says, is to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously.
The challenge is to create a stable static situation where Dynamic Quality
can flourish. Pirsig gives as an example Robert's Rules of Order, which
captures the whole thing in two sentences: No minority has the right to
block a majority from conducting the legal business of the organization.
No majority has the right to prevent the minority from peacefully attempting
to become a majority. (255)
First Principle
of Ethics: This principle is based on the land ethic of Aldo Leopold.
A
Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1989.
Ethical Codes and
Moral Imagination: Ethical codes perform the function of limiting
action, but do so in order to liberate moral imagination to achieve shared
ends.
- Solomon, Robert
C. Ethics
and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business. New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1992. (Ethics goes beyond just following rules.)
- Carver, John, and
Miriam Mayhew Carver. Reinventing
Your Board: A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Policy Governance.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. (Codes are essentially liberating.)
- Carver, John. Boards
That Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadership in Nonprofit and
Public Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. (Codes
are essentially liberating.)
- McCollough, Thomas
E. The
Moral Imagination and Public Life: Raising the Ethical Questions.
Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1991.
Change Tendencies
in Evolution:
An Organization
is an artificial person:
First Principle
of Organizational Ethics:
Trust as foundation
of Organizational Ethics:
Ethics, Economics & Politics:
Organizations as
Communities: Reflecting our evolutionary development, successful organizations
approach being communities, if not tribes.
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