An Approach to Organizational Ethics

Abstract

When we talk about Organizational Ethics we are referring to the set of values that identify an organization, from within (which comes down to the understanding that those who are part of the organization have about it) as well as from outside (which comes down to the perception that those who have a relation with an organization have of it). Such set of values can be considered in a broad sense (that is, the set of values structuring the organization and its practices, be they instrumental or final values, positive or negative) or in a stricter sense (and then we will refer only to those values that express the vision, the raison d’être and the commitments of the organization, and that are linked to their corporate and moral identity). Synthetically we could say that in the first case we would find those organizations that ask themselves how to make progress in search of excellence; in the second, those organizations that ask themselves what is necessary for corporate moral excellence?

Keywords: corporate culture, learning, organizational citizenship, management, values