Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk about How to Do It Right, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 6

MANAGING ETHICS AND LEGAL COMPLIANCE

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 5 presented ethics as organizational culture, but it may have raised as many questions as it answered, such as “What are real organizations doing to create and communicate an ethical organizational culture?” This chapter is designed to help answer that question by focusing more narrowly on ethics and legal compliance programs in several large American corporations. These programs are designed to manage and communicate ethics in a variety of ways.

Whatever your organizational level, you should find the information in this chapter helpful. If you're at a high level, it should give you ideas about how to manage ethics and legal compliance in your firm. If you're at a lower or middle management level, it should help you understand your own organization's approach to ethics management and how it compares to what other organizations are currently doing. If you're a student, it will help you think about what to look for during the job search.

In preparing this chapter, we spoke with executives from four companies in a variety of industries: Lockheed Martin Corporation (global security); United Technologies Corporation (UTC—Otis elevators, Carrier air conditioners, Pratt & Whitney jet engines, Sikorsky helicopters); Merck (medicines, vaccines, and consumer care and animal health products); and Adelphia (telecommunications/cable). We are grateful to these executives for their time and contributions to this book. These ...