The Importance Of Ethics In The Army

The United States (U.S.) Army is a tremendous organization that has made many changes over the years to adapt to an ever evolving ethics and cultural environment. The Army is becoming more diverse as the military continues to work more and more alongside civilians on a daily basis. The military members join the organizations from many different locations, at different ages, and with various levels of work experience that place strain upon the civilian workforce that has continued with the organization. The general moral principles are taught to every service member when they enlist, however, the pressure for results and productivity continue to cause ethical lapses in judgment. These different instances of ethical dilemmas have changed the …show more content…
Values are core beliefs such as duty, honor, and integrity that motivate attitudes and actions. The Army uses Department of Defense Directive 5500.7, Standards of Conduct, to provide guidance to military personnel on standards of conduct and ethics. (Powers, n.d.). The ethical values a soldier possesses are the values that each person has to differentiate between right and wrong. Unethical behavior occurs within many different organizations and at many different levels. According to Kreitner & Kinicki (2013), organizations that foster a pressure-cooker atmosphere for results, unwittingly allows managers to set the stage for unethical shortcuts by employees who seek to please the boss and protect their jobs. Within the military, this is evident by the high rewards for accomplishing goals and then the punishment for not obtaining them. When an ethical lapse occurs it impacts the organizational culture. The organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values and beliefs that governs how people behave in organizations. This culture is comprised of the organizations observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values. It provides boundaries and guidelines that help members of the organization know the correct way to perform their jobs. The observable artifacts consist of the physical manifestations of the organizations culture. The espoused values are the stated …show more content…
The Army is continuously providing ethical training, but still has an issue of fostering a specific environment that places soldiers on the ethical line too often. The many different steps to control ethical behavior have been taken over time, but there still seems to be an issue with soldiers consistently making unethical decisions. These decisions impact the organization making it difficult to maintain an effective organizational culture. Then the management has to correct the bad behavior and try to mold a new organizational culture depending on the environment and situation. While analyzing the cause and effect relationship of unethical decisions within an organization and its organizational culture, it becomes clear that organizations need to ensure they have clear guidelines in regards to ethics. These need to be taught and shown by management on a daily basis to influence others to not make unethical decisions. Then an environment that fosters ethical behavior must be present as well. The presentation of ethical behavior will help an organization also align the espoused and enacted values within the organization. The alignment of these values will then not only promote an ethical environment, but also will ensure that the organization is more productive. The less an organization has to worry about ethical dilemmas, the more focused they can be on