Assignment: Ethics in Organizational Culture

The social environment in which an organization exists
influences the way it operates when dealing with clients and employees.
Viewing organizational life through the values embedded in its culture
can help leaders create and sustain agencies of integrity. Regardless of
whether the organization is in the government or nonprofit sector,
administrative attention to the organizational culture can promote
ethical behavior among employees. Government and nonprofit public
administrators must have an understanding of how an organization?s
culture might lead to potentially unethical policies and practices.

In this Assignment, you examine how an organization’s culture influences ethical decision making in an organization.

To prepare for this Assignment, review this week?s resources.
Select a government or nonprofit organization with which you are
familiar and a specific policy or practice within that organization.
Avoid choosing an organization or agency where you currently work or
have worked in the past. If you do choose such an agency, do not name it
or individuals who work in it specifically. Remember to protect
confidentiality.

Consider how organizational culture can influence the creation
of ethical and potentially unethical policies and practices within the
government or nonprofit organization you selected. Also, think about how
the organizational culture might have influenced decision making and
the development of specific policies and practices. Finally, consider
how the specific policy or practice you selected presents an ethical
dilemma and how you might resolve it by using Cooper?s ethical
decision-making model from the text.

The Assignment (3?4 pages in APA format): Your paper should include the following:

• A brief description of the government or nonprofit organization
• A brief summary of how an organization?s culture can
  influence the creation of ethical and potentially unethical policies and
  practices
• An explanation of how the organization?s culture (norms,
  customs, and traditions) might have influenced decision making and the
  creation of specific policies and practices
• A description of a specific policy or practice that presents
  an ethical dilemma and an explanation of how that specific policy or
  practice creates the dilemma
• An explanation of how public administrators might use
  internal and external controls to maintain responsible conduct in the
  public organization
• An explanation of how, as a public administrator, you might
  resolve the ethical dilemma, using the ethical decision-making model
  presented in the text

Support your Assignment with specific references to all
resources used in its preparation. Provide a reference list with all
resources included in the paper.

Your Assignment must demonstrate both breadth and depth of
knowledge and critical thinking appropriate to graduate-level
scholarship. It must follow APA Publication Manual guidelines
and be free of typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. The
Assignment should be 3?4 pages in length (double-spaced), not including
the title page, abstract, and references.