Project 3: Culture, Climate, and Ethical Decisions
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Leading organizations and people require an appreciation of the importance and relevance of an organization’s culture, climate and ethical decision-making process. Fiercely competitive, rapidly changing, technology-driven organizations demand that leaders master each of these three competencies.

This project provides students with an opportunity to identify relevant examples for each of these three competencies as they relate to their specific organization, or an alternative organization of their choice. Often the organization used for Project 2: Situation Audit is used for Project 3.

Before we begin with Project 3, watch the video below and think back on your challenges and acheivements in this course so far.

Transcript

Course Touchpoint

Now that you have reflected on your progress in this course, begin your work on Project 3 by reading the scenario below. Then proceed to Step 1.

The case example provided on the video and described below is designed to set the stage for why you have been asked to examine the culture, climate, and ethics in your own organization. The ethical issue in the hypothetical case below is not the specific ethical issue you will deal with in your work for Project 3.  The case example below provides a reason that prompts your organization’s leadership to ask you to do what you have been requested to do for Project 3. Of course, other reasons could also prompt such a request.

The company you will be using to discuss culture, climate and ethics for Project 3 is the company you used in Project 2 or a company that must be approved by your instructor prior to starting work on Project 3.  If you do not want to use the name of your organization’s actual leader (CAO, CEO, COO) in this assignment, you may use Kate Lindsay’s name and title.

Case Scenario

The day after you hand in your situation audit, you notice the following headline in the business section of the newspaper: Employees Accused of Stealing from Company. Apparently, a group of employees who worked for a company similar to yours was routinely lying on their expense reports, claiming—and getting reimbursed for—personal expenditures, including Caribbean trips and four-star restaurants.

You nearly spit out your coffee when you read this. You work in the same sector! After completing your situation audit, you feel like you have a good grasp on the mission and values of your company, and you’d be very surprised if such behavior were tolerated. However, this article still makes you wonder about your industry as whole.

Once you get to your office, you discover that you aren’t the only one interested in this story; everyone is buzzing about it. You soon receive a message from the COO’s assistant stating that the COO, Kate Lindsay, wants to see you this afternoon. Why does Kate want to see you?

As you sit down in Kate’s office, Kate lives up to her reputation for being focused and direct and immediately launches into what she has to say. “You must have heard about the expense report scandal at our competitor’s organization. We need to ensure that the same thing is not happening here.” She continues, “I came to this organization because I considered it to be among the best—are we?” She begins reciting a list of questions: “How can we be sure what we believe and say matches what we actually do? How can we be sure we don’t have a culture and climate that are viewed as unethical and unhealthy? Do we put enough emphasis on ethical and caring behavior in our decisions and our actions?”

She pauses before going on. “I’m new to this position and to this sector in general. I’m clearly responsible and accountable for the climate, culture, and ethical behavior in this organization. We need to be concerned about these issues, and I need your help figuring out where we stand and what, if anything, we should be doing differently.” Your help? What does she need? You look at her expectantly.

She answers your implied question, “I read your organizational analysis last night, and given your impressive work on that, think you could handle this particular task. I’m an engineer by training and I’m methodical, thorough, and detailed,” Kate says. “This report needs to reflect my—and, more importantly, this organization’s—careful and thoughtful approach to these issues. So even though organizational culture, climate, and ethics may seem like soft issues, I expect strong critical thinking and an evidence-based report. I don’t just want opinions. It might help to imagine yourself as an independent consultant we are counting on for both expertise and objectivity.”

She glances at her phone. “I have a meeting in two minutes.” She stands up. “I really need your best thinking and good advice on this in three weeks. Talk to my assistant about making an appointment to see me then, and have a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation ready along with a brief memo summarizing your points,” she says. “Also, I trust you understand this is a matter that needs to be kept between us.” She looks at you squarely. “I don’t want to learn my questions and concerns have become the subject of general discussions in the office.”

“Absolutely!” you say as Kate heads out of her office. “Oh,” she says, turning around, “and I want to see some of your work in progress as you do this project. Talk to my assistant about that as well.”

You return to your desk thrilled that the COO has shared her concerns and asked you for your input. You have so many ideas and lots of questions—but you also realize you are going to need to proceed without all the information you would ideally have. You know you will need to rely only on publicly available information and not poke around in confidential work files or ask others in your office for input or advice.

How will you tackle this project? What evidence will you use to inform your understanding and strengthen your analysis? What will you tell Kate when you meet with her?

When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your work before submission.

· 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that substantiates the writer’s ideas.  

· 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.

· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under critical consideration.

· 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the issue or problem.

· 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized manner to determine its value and relevance to the problem.

· 2.4: Consider and analyze information in context to the issue or problem.

· 2.5: Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions, checking them against relevant criteria and benchmarks.

· 5.1: Develop constructive resolutions for ethical dilemmas based on application of ethical theories, principles and models.

Step 1: Prepare and Organize Your Work

First, review the following resources:

· description of the 
final deliverable

· instructions on how to create a 
narrated PowerPoint presentation

· remaining steps to completion for this project

After you have a good idea of the scope of work for this project, consider how you will approach an analysis of your own organization:

· First, review these brief guidelines about 
conducting research on your organization.

· Discuss with your instructor any limiting factors you may encounter as you write this report. After you’ve discussed these issues with your instructor, if you believe it’s best for you to research an organization other than your own, please read the guidelines about 
using an outside organization.

As you plan to complete this project, consider the following aspects of the work:

· the information you need

· how to get that information

· allocating appropriate time to each step

· other project management factors that may seem relevant

Keep the final deliverable (see link above) in mind as you complete the project. After you have organized your work, proceed to Step 2, collect and analyze resources for your presentation.

Step 2: Collect and Analyze Resources

Before beginning your research, there are some preliminary readings you should complete to help you develop a broad understanding of the key theories, concepts, and ideas that are relevant for this project:

·
organizational culture

·
organizational climate

·
business ethics

Keep in mind that you are expected to use and properly cite the course readings and materials provided for that apply to your organization’s culture, climate, and ethics. Of course, the relationship of culture, climate, and ethics specific to your particular organization will need to be researched by you using sources external to the course readings and materials provided.

As you read about each of the key concepts for this project—organizational culture, organizational climate, and  organizational ethics—think about the implications for industries and organizations like yours and for their leaders. Jot down ideas and questions you will need to research further to develop the expertise required to successfully complete this project. As previously suggested readings on ethics have highlighted, ethics includes many human resource focus areas: discrimination, hiring, promoting, diversity, and enforcement of a variety of federal statutes.

Once you have completed your reading and library research for this project, apply what you have learned to your organization, looking for these useful resources:

· any publicly available policies and procedures that provide helpful insights into how ethical conduct and desired organizational behaviors are managed

· any nonconfidential sources where your CEO or other leaders may have written or spoken about these topics

Next, proceed to Step 3, where you will conduct independent research.

Step 3: Conduct Independent Research

As you did for the situation audit, adopt the perspective of an 
outside consultant when working on this report. This will increase your objectivity as you examine your own company.

Independently research the concepts of organizational culture, climate, and ethics. Your independent research should focus on topics relevant to your organization’s specific culture, climate, and ethics (e.g., employee surveys, relevant history, legal compliance, recent scandals, ethical concerns, training practices, organization priorities, pay practices, benefit packages, diversity considerations, advancement opportunities, and so forth).

Determine the consequences of organizational culture, climate, and ethics to your organization’s operations. Would legal measures (employment laws) need to be used to reshape the culture, climate, or ethics of the organization? If so, what impact would that have on the workforce?

When you have completed this step, proceed to Step 4 to create an annotated resource list.

Step 4: Create and Submit an Annotated Resource List

Create an Annotated Bibliography.  An Annotated Bibliography is a list of annotated resources. For this step in the project, your Annotated Bibliography will consist of five  annotated resources. You will create an annotated resource list of five key articles or sources dealing with culture, climate, and ethics. These five resources may be used in your memo and presentation. Annotating a resource means that the APA cited resource includes an explanatory notation about the resource and a brief critical analysis of its relevance to your topic.

Three of the five annotated resources must come from the course readings provided to you for this project. A project’s resources include all the course materials made available to you, including the links found in Learning Topics, for example, to the detailed sources of information used for further research or as supporting documentation for ideas that appear in a Learning Topic.  Students are required to integrate course readings and other materials provided to them into their Project 3 analysis of a specific organization’s culture, climate, and ethics.  The other two annotated resources are generated through your independent research, as it pertains to your specific organization’s culture, climate and ethics (e.g., employee surveys, relevant history, legal compliance, recent scandals, ethical concerns, training practices, pay practices, benefit packages, organization priorities, diversity considerations, advancement opportunities, and so forth).

Consult 
creating an annotated bibliography for a more detailed discussion of selecting and annotating resources. An example annotated resource is provided to view. One of the five annotated references should deal with the impact of employment laws on organizational culture, climate, and ethics.

Keep in mind that the quality of the resources matters in determining the quality of the memo and the quality of the presentation. A well-researched study or article by an acknowledged authority published in a peer-reviewed academic journal is considered primary research. The use of primary research is preferred over using an interpretation of the same academic content that is published in a newspaper column or summarized in a magazine, trade journal, or internet source—even where such secondary sources contain quotes from the original author’s work or attribute their interpretation to that material.

When you have completed Step 4, follow the instructions in Step 5 to submit your annotated resources list to the Assignments folder for review and feedback. The annotated resource list is considered with the other graded deliverables in determining the overall grade for Project 3. Then proceed to Step 5 to present your final narrated presentation and final memo.