ORGANIZATION – UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE www.umaryland.edu (PLEASE BE SURE TO USE THIS ORGANIZATION’S EXACT NAME AND WEBSITE)

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.

DETAILS

Create a seven- to eight-slide PowerPoint presentation. Include a cover page and reference section (these are not included in the length requirement) and write a two- to three-page memo to the COO (CAO, CEO, or comparable leader) that highlights the main points of your project’s findings. Include your notes for each slide in the note section of your presentation for each slide. The presentation and memo must both include proper in-text citations, a references section in APA format AND an annotated resource list.

Consider the following among the key things your presentation will need to address:

• Define concepts—Define organizational culture, climate, and ethical decisions and practices. Use the academic sources embedded in the steps or other resources of like quality, written by authoritative sources.
• Identify consequences—Describe the likely consequences of these concepts for an organization’s operations. See sample questions below.
• Describe culture and climate—Describe and differentiate between the current organizational culture and climate of your organization. See sample questions below.
• Describe approach to ethical decisions and practices—Think about the meaning of ethics and how they are applied in your organization. Does your leadership model them? Are employees placed in uncomfortable situations? How are ethics communicated?
• Assess implications for organization—Assess the implications of the above issues for your organization. For example, what does it mean to your organization’s practices that the organization has the type of culture, climate, and ethics you identified?
• Recommend actions—Recommend actions your COO (CAO, CEO, or comparable leader) should consider implementing to facilitate a shift in the organization’s culture, climate, and ethics to ensure desired or improved outcomes for your organization such as meeting its mission and values. If you don’t see a need for any changes, why?

Use these sample questions to guide your work:

• What is organizational culture? How do authorities on culture define it? How does it relate to my organization? How would I describe the culture of my organization? Does the culture need to be changed? How can that be accomplished? If not, why not?
• What is organizational climate? How do authorities define climate? Do people enjoy working here? If so, why? If not, why not? Are our motivation, evaluation and reward system perceived as fair and equitable? What effect do such measures have on climate? Do we do climate surveys? What do they indicate as key concerns? Should we measure climate? How?
• What are organizational ethics? How do authorities define ethics? How does my organization enforce ethics? Do we have fair employment practices? Are we provided clear ethical guidelines? Do we receive ethics training? How do we measure compliance? Do our leaders shape ethical decision making or not? Do we ask or imply certain marginal practices are okay? Any past scandals? How were they dealt with? What steps have been or need to be taken to eliminate recurrences?