An Organic Perspective on Organisational Ethics

Published in the Australian Institute of Management, ‘Management’ Magazine, October 1996. Reprinted in the newsletter of the St. James Ethics Centre, ‘City Ethics’, Summer 1997.

We’ve all felt the brutal ramifications of the unbridled ‘Greed is good’ attitude that went hand in hand with the halcyon times of business in the eighties. The recession that followed ensured that. We’ve also seen numerous business leaders of the time either dragged through the courts in the cases of Bond and Elliot or flee the country in the case of Skase. Now we’re hearing the pleadings of the business community that things are being cleaned up.

Regulators, peak bodies and associations have reacted to concerns about business ethics, some may say predictably, by instigating new sets of rules and regulations in the form of ‘Codes of Conduct’ or ‘Codes of Ethics’. Many companies have also followed suit, by either dusting off old ‘Codes of Conduct’ or writing new ones afresh. But are they missing the point? Will laying down the law, in the form of rules and regulations, really solve the problem of unethical behaviour? A new survey indicates that it won’t.

Studies were undertaken recently¹