What Ethical Issues May Be Confronted in a Change Process

question 72

Essay

What ethical issues may be confronted in a change process and what if anything,can a manager do to promote change initiatives that are ethical? Organizational change involves applying powerful behavioral science knowledge by a change agent to bring about performance improvements.The ethical issues turn on the power relationships of the various participants in the change effort.At the most fundamental level,critics note that change is based largely on the existing power relationships in the organization because the effort is initiated by managers.As a managerial technique,change necessarily implements managerial values regardless of the values of the change agent.The change can be inherently unethical because it restricts the range of values that can legitimately be considered in bringing about the change.Even though a change may bring about performance improvements in the organization,the basic power relationships remain unchanged.
Opportunities for unethical behavior can be seen in change-related activities.For example,the purposes of a particular intervention can be misrepresented to the participants to win their participation.Managers may say that they want to implement management by objectives (MBO)to provide greater employee participation when,in fact,they're attracted to MBO as a means of performance evaluation that holds individuals responsible for results rather than activities.A second change activity involves data analysis.Change agents collect and analyze data to diagnose the nature of the problem and to evaluate the solution.The change agents' allegiance to the people who hire them (the organization managers)will inevitably lead to misuse when the data conflict with managers' preferences.Data indicative of management incompetence can be misused so as to indicate employee incompetence.Finally,change may involve manipulation of individuals without informed consent.Employees who are subjects of change interventions aren't given the choice to participate,particularly when the focus of the change is group and organizational performance.Manipulation can,in fact,turn into coercion when the individual must choose between participating in the process or being fired.
Thus,the argument for the unethical nature of change proceeds from the recognition that it inherently reflects but one possible set of values,managerial values.As a consequence,organizational change activities that involve ethical choices will always be guided by the underlying values of management,even when those choices involve misrepresentation,misuse,and manipulation.
The best protection against misrepresentation,misuse,and manipulation is managers who create and foster an organizational culture that encourages ethical behavior.Such a culture would begin with top management's formal declaration that ethical behavior is the norm and that in all actions,individuals-including change agents-are to conduct themselves in an ethical manner,even when such conduct may be costly to the organization in economic and technical terms.Through the actions of top management,ethical behavior can become part of the everyday activities and decisions of everyone in the organization.
Codes of ethics are suggested means for institutionalizing ethical behavior.Top management demonstrates its commitment to the code through its daily behavior.In addition,to avoid the danger of overreliance on productivity data,the manager can generate ad hoc information to measure employee attitudes and morale.A benchmark for evaluation would be available if an attitude survey had been used in the diagnosis phase.The definition of acceptable improvement is difficult when attitudinal data are evaluated because the matter involves "how much more" productive they should be.Nevertheless,if a complete analysis of results is to be

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