Description
Perhaps, one of the most famous nonprofit organizations, Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV) has become a household name in people’s lives all over the United States. Founded in 1975, the organization has been providing support for the victims of domestic violence ever since. According to the official mission statement of the organization, PADV is aimed at improving the overall wellbeing of families all over the world and helping those that suffer from domestic violence (About us, 2014)
The organization’s primary goal is to meet the needs of the people that have experienced domestic violence and to support them in their attempts at healing their emotional scars. In addition, PADV does everything possible to spread awareness concerning domestic violence so that the instances of domestic violence occurrences could be brought down to zero.
Organizational Culture
As it has been stressed above, the provision of decent services is the primary concern of the leaders of PADV. Consequently, the improvement of the staff’s performance and consistent upgrading of their skills makes the basis for the company’s organizational culture.
To be more specific, the organization is obviously aimed at creating the environment that will help the victims of domestic abuse recover faster. While the members of the PADV organization never spell it out exactly they still make it rather obvious that their efforts are aimed primarily at the people that have suffered domestic abuse.
Effects of Norms, Customs and Traditions on Decision Making
Seeing that people, who have experienced pressure and/or physical violence from the members of their families make the primary audience that PADV works with, the fact that the organization puts a very strong emphasis on the significance of cooperation and trust between the patients and the PADV members is quite understandable.
Indeed, according to the official statement made by the organization, a reciprocal and unceasing communication with the victims of domestic abuse, which PADV assists in dealing with their emotional traumas, is the key premise for the successful operation of the organization and the efficient delivery of the corresponding services (Domestic violence in the workplace, 2012).
Company’s Policies and Ethical Dilemmas
It would be wrong to assume, however, that the company, with its rigid moral polities and ethical standards, does not have to deal with any moral dilemmas whatsoever; quite on the contrary, facing a range of issues related to child health, the organization must make very complicated choices on a regular basis.
Seeing that the organization’s decision must be indispensable and at the same time must align with the set of moral principles, which PADV members comply with, it is crucial that the required choices should benefit their target audience, i.e., domestic abuse victims.
However, a comparatively recent report claims that the 2010 PADV Organization is aimed primarily at acquiring financial resources rather than considering whether the products marketed by it are actually harmless, not to mention taking the concerned parents’ opinion into account (Partnership Against Domestic Violence benefits from ProviDyn’s private cloud, relocates headquarters with ease, 2012).
For an organization that has been devoted to providing charity services to people in need, even the slightest deviation from the established ethical principles may turn out disastrous. Therefore, the issue needs an immediate solution (Cooper, 2012).
Internal and External Controls as a Tool for Public Administration
Much to the credit of the organization, PADV uses both the internal and external tools for controlling its processes in general and the process of communicating with its audience in particular. As the organization’s leader claims, numerous audits are the key tools for facilitating a smooth and uninterrupted performance of PADV staff, whereas the modern communication tools serve as the basic external controls (Smith, 2013).
While the specified tools can be viewed as rather efficient, the results that they deliver cannot be considered fully credible, though. While an audit allows for only a rather subjective opinion to be shaped for the most part, questionnaires, in their turn, have the opposite problem; as a rule, their results are often overly generalized. Therefore, it can be suggested that an additional tool for evaluating the efficacy of the company’s performance should be introduced into the existing framework.
Solutions to the Ethical Dilemma
Since the decisions that are taken regarding the means of attracting the target audience and promoting to it, as well as the sponsorship and advertising concerns, are dealt with on the corporate level, but on the level of the company’s numerous affiliates, it will be reasonable test the efficacy of the existing leadership approach adopted in PADV.
While the principle of laissez-faire, which is the model that is currently adopted in the company, is incontrovertibly efficient for creating the premises for sustainable use of the company’s resources and adequate human resource management, it still weakens the cohesion between the company’s departments.
As a result, controlling the possible breaches of the corporate ethics becomes complicated. Hence, tightening internal and external controls with the help of a more efficient supervision system, i.e., a flexible system of audits and reports, can be a viable solution for the ethical dilemma in question.
Reference List
About us. (2014). PADV. Web.
Cooper, T. L. (2012). The responsible administrator. An approach to ethics for the administrative role (6th ed.) New York, NY: Jossey-Bass.
Domestic violence in the workplace. (2012). PADV. Web.
Partnership Against Domestic Violence benefits from ProviDyn’s private cloud, relocates headquarters with ease. (2012). RedCribt. Web.
Smith, J. C. (2013). PADV Atlanta. Web.