Some Considerations on the Construction of Ethics Policies. Shared Ethics and Communicative Action

Abstract

In this paper we propose to differentiate the ethical values of an organization into constitutive ethical values around which the organization was formed and operates, and the operational values - around which are set the organization's good practices. Constitutive values are correlated with the organization's mission, while operational values are correlated with the policies of the organization, its products and services. The purpose of research is to identify the core and instrumental values that underlie the construction of coherent ethical policies in the organization, with particular reference to public administration (Matei, 2010). We are interested how are operationalized the existing ethical values into ethics policies of an organization, and which are the strategies through which organizations build among their members the set of specific ethical skills according to ethics policies. Operational ethical values of the organization, understood as the source of its success, are: strengthening the relations with customers, suppliers and communities, perfect behaviour, honesty, respect for others, treating (others) with dignity. Are analysed the ethical principles considered in the construction of ethics policy of the organization, like for example distributive justice inspired by the work of John Rawls. The expression of the ethical principle is transposed into the organization's policy through: commitment to good practices; assumed equal opportunities and assumed competition; honesty; commitment to legislation. Implementation tools of ethics policies are represented by the ethics code, ethics committee, ethics counselling and supervising, ethics audit.

Keywords: construction of ethics; policies; communicative action; shared ethics.

JEL Classification: I29