Windows on Corporate Ethics

Abstract

Corporate disasters arising from ethical failures have irreversibly eroded the public's trust in organisations. Predictably, executives' public commitments to ethical practices are now routinely viewed with scepticism. Although this obscures the identification of organisations' authentic ethical orientation, organisational change practices can reveal this ethical orientation i.e. function as ‘windows' on corporate ethics. Extending earlier work by Van Tonder, it is argued that organisational change practices have an implicit propensity for risk and harm, substantially ‘fit' with ethical frameworks and are consequently amenable to analysis on a range of ethical parameters. Employing ethics heuristics adapted for organisational change, Quaker Oats' acquisition of Snapple is analysed to reveal how change practices function as ‘windows' on corporate ethics. The implications for management are briefly considered.