Collective Concerns for the Future of All
Zen Benefiel
Leadership 520
University
of Phoenix
Ethical issues abound in all areas of professional involvement. Consistent with each area, there are similar issues present within each. One might think that each area, because of its seemingly separate agenda (profit, service, pleasure), would also have separate and distinct issues. Of course this is true. However, there are some basic issues that are prevalent throughout. We will explore the areas of advertising, education, health care, intellectual property, internet regulation, public safety, and technology. The following applies in some way to all of them without detailing specificity.
The foundations of the most notable issues for present time lay in the environmental and social concerns for our developing global village. We are one planet, after all, and we need to address this area with a globalized mindset. Just how do we co-create, or re-tool, for profit and pleasure? From profits come salaries and wages. Living comfortably brings a certain amount of pleasure. As we move toward what appears to be a Type 1 Civilization:
These civilizations can effectively control the entire resources of their planet; they can predict weather patterns and earthquakes very accurately, and even control them using artificially induced greenhouse effects or space-based lasers. A Type 1 Civilization could conceivably halt an ice-age.
Conceivably we
could arrive at this place within our lifetimes. Many adjustments and changes
will have to occur within the collective consciousness of mankind to achieve
this, which might include food, clothing, housing, and health care for those on
the lower end of the economic spectrum currently. The greatest factor and force of change is the corporate atmosphere.
Sabine O’hara writes for the International Journal of Social Economics. In a
recent article, the questions of sustainability arise:
Perceived
tensions or compatibilities between economic activity and ecological
sustainability are as varied as its definitions. While some refer to sustainable
economic development, or sustainable production others refer to sustainable
growth. The tension between these interpretations is evident in the WCED’s
Brundland report:
Many people fear that a more rapidly growing world economy will apply environmental pressures that are no more sustainable than the pressure presented by growing poverty. The increased demand for energy and other non-renewable raw materials could significantly raise the price of these items relative to other goods. The Commission’s overall assessment is that the international economy must speed up world growth while respecting the environmental constraints (WCED, 1987, p. 89).
History
We
have to be aware of what brilliance, initiative and persistence can do. Relevant
information is increasing exponentially with the boon of research and
technology. Our previous decision trees (national and international) have new
perspectives that confront the old paradigms. We also
may not want to squelch such individual or collective actions that ultimately provide benefit for the
greater good. Ivan Seidenberg, writing for Business & Society Review, gives
a great example of how our ideals and our actions do not always align:
Microsoft Example. For example, look at the area of antitrust and competition. We are a large business. People worry about whether or not we're too large. So we have issues of compliance with that. Here's an example of how that plays out. Look at what Bill Gates is going through right now at Microsoft. He fits under the adage that "no good deed goes unpunished." He built a business all by himself ... with no help ... with no franchise. He proved to be as smart as anyone can ever be in that business. And now he's so big and so threatening, that there are those that would like to regulate him.
In an article by Vicky Arnold and James Lampe, writing
for the Journal of Applied Business Research, the point of slow change and
questionable results is made clear:
The importance of ethical decision making being
dictated by organizational culture is embedded in the slow evolutionary manner
in which cultures change. The complexities of dealing with deep-rooted cultures
was apparent in the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict where hatreds were suppressed
for almost five decades before freedom of choice led to the freedom to once
again hate. While corporate organizations have quicker turnover in membership
than societies, cultural change takes years of perseverance-perhaps even
decades.
Timeliness
Over time, officials of all levels of business and society are recognizing that change does indeed need to occur... rapidly. There was a recent roundtable discussion between lawyers during a conference on corporate policy-making in regard to compliance programs and how they are managed. One of the key questions and an obvious, although difficult, answer follows. This was covered by the Corporate Legal Times publication:
De Monaco, Dickie, McCamey: What roles do top management and board members play with regard to corporate compliance and corporate governance as it relates to compliance?
Diggs, PPG: Let me start by saying the obvious: They play a critical role. All of us understand the importance of the messages the top executives send. Regardless of what staff people are doing to put programs out and bring them to the fore, unless top management buys in and actively supports those programs, they won't work.
In any corporate setting, there will be trade-offs
between profitability, employee relations’ issues, ethics, etc., and you have
to balance those things out.
Insofar as the social responsibility toward the global village, the area of confusion
remains to be the profitability of the company at whatever level in the
economic venue of capitalism that is being served. Profitability doesn’t
necessarily have to be lost in the long-term as adjustments are made to ensure
the sustainability of not only business; having a healthy planet is just as
important as we are becoming painfully aware. As mentioned by Arnold and Lampe,
the timeline for a cultural shift can be quite long. Imagine that same shift
occurring in the corporate society, which has as much invested in equipment and
facilities as it does in human resources in most cases. Is it reasonable to
expect that our leadership, especially in the corporate environment throughout
the aforementioned areas, will continue to question the long-term affects of any
product’s manufacturing and distribution?
Potential
Adjusting
our collective rules and regulations to ensure corporate responsibility has
taken the forefront in developing sound business practices in the United States.
Our leadership in ethical and moral areas now comes from a nearly disastrous
development of the Industrial Age. Businesses were allowed to grow with no
constraints or concerns for life or limb imposed on them. Consequently we have
neglected the social responsibility, let alone the environmental.
It
seems that we have now begun the slow, arduous process of bringing everyone back to
the same page. This means that the long forgotten needs of human beings, to
maintain their internal integrity, are now being revisited. Unfortunately,
we’ve allowed ourselves to exhibit self-absorbed habits, in business, culture,
and in governments. These habits, like any, can be very hard to break. Kevin Gibson,
writing for Business Horizons, reflects on this critical issue of corporate
culture.
The 1991 Federal Sentencing Guidelines (FSG) have
brought new urgency to questions of morality in the workplace. Under these
guidelines, a corporation faces liability if it has demonstrated a pattern of
noncompliance with a corporate code of conduct, or improper behavior. Once
corporate morality was a question of sifting out "bad apples," but now
more than ever we need to be concerned with the overall moral climate in a
corporation.
Why do otherwise decent people deviate from what they
know to be right? Naturally, some noncompliance stems from deliberate wrongdoing
by particular individuals. But there are some common rationalizations to which
we can all unconsciously fall prey. Once we recognize the dubious worth of these
kinds of excuses, we can effectively influence the corporate moral climate.
Conclusion
Now we can at least be aware of the critical need to become self-reflective to the point of long-term affects of our actions, individually and collectively. Indigenous decision-making philosophy hinges on considering seven generations before and after the present time. It is important to note that even with the most contemporary and expeditious methodologies for change, time is still a major factor. Results of these efforts may be too little too late as our planet becomes more polluted daily, even with the developing compliances of corporations once held in ethical and moral contempt by the Cultural Creatives. The Cultural Creatives are those forward thinking individuals who are educated professional people that recognize the need for a global change toward a developing planetary administration that champions the cause of collective responsibility, both environmentally and socially. Currently, the Genesis II Community and Spectrum Academy concepts are inclusive of these considerations, seeking a bridge between the worlds of profit, pride, environmental and social responsibility. We feel that concerns for responsibility will exponentiate in the next decade, which will provide the doorway to create our communities and prove their worth in a global society and village model.
References
Astrobiology: Types of Civilizations; http://library.thinkquest.org/C003763/index.php?page=concepts04&tqskip1=1&tqtime=0613
O'Hara, Sabine U.; Economics, ethics and
sustainability: Redefining connections, International Journal of Social
Economics, 19980101, Vol. 25, Issue 1
Seidenberg, Ivan; Ethics as a competitive edge.,
Business & Society Review, Vol. 104, Issue 3
Gibson, Kevin; Excuses, Excuses: Moral Slippage in
the Workplace., Business Horizons, Vol. 43, Issue 6
Arnold, Vicky; Lampe, James; Understanding The
Factors Underlying Ethical Organizations: Enabling Continuous..., Journal of
Applied Business Research, Vol. 15, Issue 3