Ethical Characteristics of Innovation and Change
Within Corporate Leadership
Ethics has been defined as overall standards and norms of individuals that direct the behavior of groups, organizations, and individual participants (Bottoroff, 2007). As it relates to the organization, the concept of ethics must be rooted in the basic culture of the firm. As such, leadership plays an integral role in the ethical behavior of employees and of how the firm itself conducts business.
According to Nelson (2004), a culture of ethics should consist of two interwoven parts: "shared values based on ethical guidelines and practices and an infrastructure of ethical resources that decision makers can turn to when the guidelines are not enough". For a company that strives to be innovative, it is often difficult to balance the desire to meet or surpass set goals and objectives with the need to remain ethically sound. Therefore, it is important that the CEO of the company set the tone for the rest of the firm.
Ethical challenges can impact any sized company. Enron, on the surface was looked upon as being the pinnacle of correct ethical behavior while at the same time, the top executives of the company were destroying stakeholder and shareholder value. Inner business circles reported that in its last months of operations, even the Enron employees displayed behavior that went against their own documented company culture (CEOEthics.com, 2007). Interestingly, Bottoroff (2007) suggests an important relationship where "change management requires ethics, and ethics requires change management". Truly innovative companies and those that desire real change, require ethics to establish and cement desired results into th ...