FACTORS IN THE FAILURE OF ETHICS MANAGEMENT           1600w

guides both management and employees in making crucial decisions. For example, Johnson and Johnson’s well-known decision to pull Tylenol bottles off the shelves and repackage them at a $100 million expense was believed to be guided by their written code (McNamara n.d.), which only shows that they value ethical principles more than profit.

However, based on some studies, managers should be careful of the strategy they would be implementing when establishing a well-defined code of conduct. Steinmann & Scherer (2000) studied the case of Levi Strauss & Co and concluded that the integrity approach was more preferable than the compliance approach of implementing a code of ethics in the company. The reason was that the authoritative style of having rules only causes more rules to be formulated. The latter strategy resulted to a pile-up of paperwork and the solving of ethical issues needed new regulations to be established. But the most compelling reason for rejecting this was its ineffectiveness in preventing employees from “exercising poor judgment and making questionable decisions.” The method which was intended to promote ethical practices instead destroyed the “intrinsic motivation and the positive attitude of the employees towards the company”.

The fourth factor that contributes to ethical management failure is miscommunication. The lack of open and honest rapport between higher and lower levels, as well as the absence of timely feedback creates an environment devoid of value congruency and goal thrust. An effective means of disseminating desired work ethics and results, including the immediate feedback from monitors enables the identification of problem areas and the timely application of a solution for it. T