Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T17:42:36.352Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethics Programs and the Paradox of Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Jason Stansbury and
Bruce Barry
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

We analyze corporate ethics programs as control systems, arguing that how control is exercised may have pernicious consequences and be morally problematic. In particular, the control cultivated by ethics programs may weaken employees’ ability and motivation to exercise their own moral judgment, especially in novel situations. We develop this argument first by examining how organization theorists analyze control as an instrument of management coordination, and by addressing the political implications of control. We discuss coercive and enabling control as variations that help account for the distinction between compliance-based ethics programs and values-based ethics programs. We then explore three potential drawbacks of ethics programs: the specter of indoctrination, a politicization of ethics, and an atrophy of competence. Ethics programs that rely on coercive control may undermine their own effectiveness at stemming misbehavior.

Information

Type
Special Section: The Ethics of Organizational Ethics Initiatives
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 2007, pp. 239 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adler, P. S., & Borys, B. 1996. Two Types of Bureaucracy: Enabling and Coercive. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 61–89.Google Scholar
Barker, J. R. 1993. Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 408–37.Google Scholar
Barnard, C. 1938/2001. The functions of the executive, 30th anniversary edition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
BellSouth. 2004. About ethics. http://ethics.bellsouth.com/aboutethics.html. Accessed December 13, 2004.Google Scholar
Bird, F. B., & Waters, J. A. 1989. The moral muteness of managers. California Management Review, 32(1): 73–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, J. 1989. Crime, shame, and reintegration. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braverman, H. 1974. Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Brehm, J. W. 1966. A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brehm, S. S., & Brehm, J. W. 1981. Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brehm, S. S., & Weinraub, M. 1977. Physical barriers and psychological reactance: 2-year-olds’ responses to threats to freedom. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35: 830–36.Google Scholar
Clark, M. A., & Leonard, S. L. 1998. Can corporate codes of ethics influence behavior? Journal of Business Ethics, 17: 619–31.Google Scholar
Collins, J., & Porras, J. I. 2002. Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. New York: HarperBusiness Essentials.Google Scholar
Cropanzano, R., Howes, J. C., Grandey, A. A., & Toth, P. 1997. The relationship of organizational politics and support to work behaviors, attitudes, and stress. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18(2): 159–80.Google Scholar
Desio, P. 2004. An overview of the organizational guidelines. Washington DC: United States Sentencing Commission. http://www.ussc.gov/TRAINING/corpover.PDF. Accessed December 15, 2004.Google Scholar
Drory, A., & Romm, T. 1988. Politics in organization and its perception within the organization. Organization Studies, 9(2): 165–79.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. 1990. The moral dimension: Toward a new economics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ezzamel, M. & Willmott, H. 1998. Accounting for teamwork: A critical study of group-based systems of organizational control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43: 358–96.Google Scholar
Falbe, C. M., & Yukl, G. 1992. Consequences for managers of using single influence tactics and combinations of tactics. Academy of Management Journal, 35: 638–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferris, G., & Kacmar, K. M. 1992. Perceptions of organizational politics. Journal of Management, 18(1): 93–116.Google Scholar
Fields, G. 2005. Ruling on sentencing guidelines may also affect corporate crime. The Wall Street Journal (January 17): A4.Google Scholar
Frankel, M. S. 1989. Professional codes: Why, how, and with what impact? Journal of Business Ethics, 8 (2,3): 109–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. 1970. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times Magazine (September 13).Google Scholar
Garrison, R. H., & Noreen, E. W. 1997. Managerial accounting (8th ed.). Chicago: Irwin.Google Scholar
Gullapalli, D. 2004. Lapses at Fannie vindicate the case for the tough rules on accountability. Wall Street Journal (October 4): C1.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1990. Moral consciousness and communicative action, trans. Lenhardt, C. & Nicholson, S. W.Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1993. Justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics, trans. Cronin, C.Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
HamiltonJ. B., III J. B., III, & Berken, E. J. 2005. Exxon at Grand Bois, Louisiana: A three-level analysis of management decision making and corporate conduct. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15: 385–408.Google Scholar
Jackall, R. 1988. Moral mazes. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson & Johnson. 2004. Our credo history. http://www.jnj.com/our_company/our_credo_history/index.htm. Accessed December 15, 2004.Google Scholar
Joseph, J. 2003. National business ethics survey: How employees view ethics in their organizations. Washington DC: Ethics Resource Center.Google Scholar
Kelman, H. C. 1958. Compliance, identification, and internalization: Three processes of attitude change. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2: 51–60.Google Scholar
Laura, R. S. 1983. To educate or to indoctrinate: That is still the question. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 15: 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LawlerE. L., III E. L., III, & Rhode, J. G. 1976. Information and control in organizations. Pacific Palisades CA: Goodyear.Google Scholar
Lunsford, J. L., & Pasztor, A. 2004. Higher plane: New boss struggles to lift Boeing above military scandals. The Wall Street Journal (July 14), A1.Google Scholar
Makkai, T., & Braithwaite, J. 1994. Reintegrative shaming and compliance with regulatory standards. Criminology, 32: 361–86.Google Scholar
McCabe, D. L., Treviño, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. 1996. The influence of collegiate and corporate codes of conduct on ethics-related behavior in the workplace. Business Ethics Quarterly, 6: 461–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metzger, M., Dalton, D. R., & Hill, J. W. 1993. The organization of ethics and the ethics of organizations: The case for expanded organizational ethics audits. Business Ethics Quarterly, 3: 27–43.Google Scholar
Mintzberg, H. 1985. The organization as political arena. Journal of Management Studies, 22(2): 133–54.Google Scholar
Morrill, C., Zald, M. N., & Rao, H. 2003. Covert political conflict in organizations: Challenges from below. Annual Review of Sociology, 29: 391–415.Google Scholar
Paine, L. S. 1994. Managing for organizational integrity. Harvard Business Review, 72(2): 106–19.Google Scholar
Parker, C. P., Dipboye, R. L., & Jackson, S. L. 1995. Perceptions of organizational politics: An investigation of antecedents and consequences. Journal of Management, 21(5): 891–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perrow, C. 1986. Complex organizations: A critical essay (3rd ed.). New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Pershing, J. L. 2003. To snitch or not to snitch? Applying the concept of neutralization techniques to the enforcement of occupational misconduct. Sociological Perspectives, 46(2): 149–78.Google Scholar
Pfeffer, J. 1981. Power in organizations. Marshfield MA: Pitman.Google Scholar
Rest, J. R. 1994. Theory and research. In Rest, J. R. and Narvaez, D. (Eds.), Moral development in the professions: Psychology and applied ethics. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. 1977. Who gets power—and how they hold on to it: A strategic-contingency model of power. Organizational Dynamics (Winter): 3–21.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A. 1947/1997. Administrative behavior (4th ed.). New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, M. L., & Wicklund, R. A. 1976. Prior exercise of freedom and reactance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12: 120–30.Google Scholar
Sonenshein, S. 2005. Business ethics and internal social criticism. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15(3): 475–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, C. 2004. Indoctrination, imagination, and moral education. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Imagination and Education: Imagination in Educational Philosophy and Research, 1–13. http://www.ierg.net/confs/2004/Proceedings/Tan_Charlene.pdf. Accessed December 14, 2005.Google Scholar
Treviño, L. K., Weaver, G. R., Gibson, D. G., & Toffler, B. L. 1999. Managing ethics and legal compliance: What works and what hurts. California Management Review, 4(2): 131–51.Google Scholar
United States Sentencing Commission (USSC). 2004. Federal sentencing guidelines for organizations, chapter 8, part B—remedying harm from criminal conduct, and effective compliance and ethics program. http://www.ussc.gov/2004guid/8b2_1.htm. Accessed December 15, 2004.Google Scholar
Vaughan, D. 1990. Autonomy, interdependence, and social control: NASA and the Space Shuttle Challenger. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35: 225–57.Google Scholar
Walzer, M. 1994. Thick and thin: Moral argument at home and abroad. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warhurst, C. 1998. Recognizing the possible: The organization and control of a socialist labor process. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43: 470–97.Google Scholar
Weaver, G. R., & Treviño, L. K. 1999. Compliance and values oriented ethics programs: Influences on employees’ attitudes and behavior. Business Ethics Quarterly, 9: 315–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, G. R., & Treviño, L. K. 2001. The role of human resources in ethics/compliance management: A fairness perspective. Human Resource Management Review, 11: 113–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, G. R., Treviño, L. K., & Cochran, P. L. 1999a. Corporate ethics practices in the mid-1990s: An empirical study of the Fortune 1000. Journal of Business Ethics, 18(3): 283–94.Google Scholar
Weaver, G. R., Treviño, L. K., & Cochran, P. L. 1999b. Corporate ethics programs as control systems: Influences of executive commitment and environmental factors. Academy of Management Journal, 42: 41–57.Google Scholar
Weber, M. 1946. “Bureaucracy.” In Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Werhane, P. 1999. Moral imagination and management decision making. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wicklund, R. A. 1974. Freedom and reactance. Potomac MD: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Worchel, S., & Brehm, J. W. 1970. Effect of threats to attitudinal freedom as a function of agreement with the communicator. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14: 18–22.Google Scholar