Description
This NGO is one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world. It has over thirteen million volunteers in over 187 countries. The organization helps in disaster response, building safer communities, and teaching the rules of war. It reaches over 100 million people over the world every year.
In times of disaster, this NGO provides health services, food, shelter, and counseling that help the affected communities to recover. The organization works in partnership with other agencies that help the victims of disasters. Every year, this organization trains more than 9 million people in the areas of first aid, educators, and those willing to help others when disasters strike.
On the rule of war, this NGO helps military police and their families to prepare, cope, and endure the challenges of the service. It helps to communicate emergencies coupled with offering support those wounded during military operations.
Culture affects Ethical and Unethical Policies
It is easy for the management to impart unethical behavior in the minds of its subordinates (Hellriegel, 2011). For example, if an employee is harassed, the managers handling such a case motivate employees to feel part of the organization. Others scenarios may include poor and unsafe work conditions and unfair work schedules.
If the management does not defend the ethical rights of subordinates, it is likely to create unethical policies that affect the morale and motivation of its subordinates (Kelley, 2007). When an organization is working within a local community, it needs to respect the institutions of that community.
Such institutions may include county boards and city councils among others. If these institutions learn of unethical practices within the organization, they can express concerns about the same. The institutions can enforce the existing policies or create new ones to correct the unethical behavior (Vedder, 2007).In the process of correcting the behavior, the organization will be forced to create or implement ethical policies.
Some organizations have a customer-focus culture where they emphasize exceeding customers or clients’ expectations. Due to such culture, they will strive to be truthful to their advertisements by producing high-quality goods. They will also work to ensure timely deliveries to their customers.
This culture will lead to the creation of customer service policies that address the clients’ concerns proactively. The organizations will also have ethical policies to instill a sense of integrity and reliability amongst employees.
Policies due to Culture
One of the outstanding cultures of this organization is to protect the environment that societies depend on for their livelihood. Therefore, there is a culture of environmental sensitivity within the organization. Consequently, the organization has clear policies showing its commitment to the social responsibility.
The organization has engaged the services of sustainability specialists to help in the creation of these policies. Another culture in the organization is that of staff development. The organization promotes staff development through training. Employees are required to attend a minimum number of short courses annually, which are offered internally, which underscores the existence of staff training and development policies.
In addition, the organization has a culture of promoting health fitness among employees. The organization requires the staff members to attend to medical checkups and a number of exercises in a day. This aspect has led to the creation of health and fitness policies, which explain how these exercises should be conducted.
Ethical Dilemma
The investment policy of my subject NGO creates an ethical dilemma. Nonprofit organizations should adopt “socially responsible investments by ensuring that their financial positions are consistent with their values” (Sims, 2003, p. 96). Therefore, this assertion means that the organizations should be investing in businesses that promote their missions (Horton & Roche, 2010).
This aspect implies that those organizations whose activities undermine their mission should be divested. Officials of this subject organization have declined to adopt the principle of socially responsible investment. They argue that the mission of their organization can be furthered by maximizing the returns from investments. They also feel that the decisions to divest will not affect the corporate policies.
Role of Public Administrators
Public administrators can maintain responsible conduct in the NGO under discussion. One way is by ensuring that it is accountable to a wide range of stakeholders. However, this aspect is complicated by the naturally varied and complex nature of responsibilities handled by this organization. Consequently, the clients are the most important stakeholders.
The public administrators should mobilize clients to recognize that the organization has some level of formal accountability to them. Therefore, the accountability to its clients is ethical and social. Externally, this aspect may mean compliance of the organization to some industry codes of practice. Using the Cooper’s model, the ethical dilemma is solved using four steps.
The first step involves describing the ethical problem, while step two involves defining the problem. In step three, a possible course of action is identified by considering its consequences and in step four the ethical problem is solved by balancing the four elements, which are moral rule, rehearsal of defenses, hierarchy of moral rules, and the aftermath of the ethical decision (Cooper, 2012).
The ethical problem has been described above with the problem defined as lack of socially responsible investment. The course of action to solve this issue involves the creation of a standard for overseeing ethical management systems in the NGO.
This standard could promote ethical conduct in the organization as well as fulfilling the needs for compliance. The standard could also ensure that the organization is organized and managed as per the view of the common good. In a recap, providing oversight rather than regulation will resolve the ethical dilemma.
References
Cooper, R. (2012). Making the case for ethical decision-making models. Nurse Prescribing, 10(12), 607-611.
Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J. W. (2011). Organizational behavior. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Horton, K., & Roche, C. (2010). Ethical questions and international NGOs: An exchange between philosophers and NGOs. Dordrecht, Germany: Springer.
Kelley, M. (2007). Organizational culture’s affect on ethical decision-making. St Louis, MO: St Louis University.
Sims, R. (2003). Ethics and corporate social responsibility: Why giants fall. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Vedder, A. (2007). NGO involvement in international governance and policy: Sources of legitimacy. Leiden, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.