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Moral Mandates for Hypothetical Non-for-Profit Organization (HNO) (Organization to Help Military Officials and Veterans-OHMOV)
When it comes to the ethical management of ethical organizations (non-for-profit organizations), there are various ethical mandates that the managers in such organizations must consider, so as to ensure that the operations of the organization are based on ethics and morals. The most important moral mandates for OHMOV include the integrity embedded in the core values of the organization, clarity and openness, and the accountability as military services are crucial in maintaining the peace of a country.
Integrity
Integrity is such a moral mandate that applies not only on the individuals, but it must be represented as a core value in OHMOV. Integrity is represented as the zero difference between the action and intention, and quality and standards of such organization. Integrity should be made a corporate value so as to help employees in order to perform ethical grounds. Without integrity as an ethical mandate in OHMOV, the employees can come up with their own mandates to justify their military actions. Thus, integrity as a core value defines the organization’s stance on honesty and quality services, especially in military services.
Openness
Openness not only means the clarity in organizational practices, but clarity in organizational mission and vision as well. Particularly in American culture, openness is an integral attribute of society at large. If some part of a larger whole is hidden from the eyes of the general public, then upon its exposure, it is received with great skepticism. In OHMOV, openness is one of the foremost ethical mandates to ensure the transparency of organizational goals and practices towards communities and country at large. The consideration of secret and under-cover operations in maintaining openness is even more crucial.
Accountability
Without the fear of accountability, no organization would ever perform to its fullest caliber, no matter what the nature of the organization is. Accountability of employees in OHMOV as well as managers means that the job roles, duties, approaches, and ideas are all under the scrutiny of the country’s laws, general military agenda, community, and the public at a generic level. Accountability also helps in holding the right individual responsible for a malpractice.
It may not be easy to implement ethical mandates described above as well many other morals in OHMOV, due to the complex operations of military organizations. The managers must not reward the negative behaviors of the individuals in the organization, even if those behaviors are beneficial to the organization in terms of monetary gains such as fundraising. There should be a reward system formulated and implemented that rewards an employee for his/her honesty in job performance, no matter what the circumstances are. For instance, accessing critical information from an intelligence agency might be beneficial to the firm, but it is against the moral conduct of a non-for-profit organization.
Independent Sector Questions
Summarize the most important points of its Code of Ethics
“Independent Sector’s Statement of Values and Code of Ethics was adapted from the model code of ethics for nonprofit organizations drafted by a special task force of the IS Ethics and Accountability Committee.” (Independentsector.org, 2015)
The most important ethical values described on the website include personal and professional integrity, openness, legal compliance, responsible stewardship, program evaluation, and inclusiveness and diversity. While integrity, openness, and responsibility and accountability stay as the most important points in the Code of Ethics, the legal compliance and diversity are vital ethical considerations as well, which implies that a diverse workforce is mandatory for a non-for-profit organization.
Analyze the Code of Ethics for practical application, i.e., will it make a difference or is it just words on a paper to impress the reader?
While the Code of Ethics is a good example of the ethical mandate for non-for-profit organizations, it might be difficult to implement each and every point that is presented in detail under the various ethical values. For instance, the Code of Ethics claims that all the professionals and employees perform while keeping integrity as the basis of their practice, it might not be the case as implementing absolute honesty throughout the organization is a subjective goal that is hard to achieve. While there is nothing wrong about focusing on integrity, there must be an explanation of the implementation strategy to ensure the adoption of integrity in the organization. In this manner, there is a lot said on the website but little explained and expressed to support the practicality of these values.Explain how you might use the information gleaned from this web page to create a Values statement of your own.
As explained earlier, OHMOV focuses most on integrity, openness, and accountability, the website has included these mandates as part of the Code of Ethics of Independent Sector as well. In order to formulate a Values statement, the website can be of great help as it has all the details required in explaining these mandates. The Values statement can include professional integrity on the same pattern by describing point-to-point aspects of organizational integrity. In describing openness as an ethical mandate on the same pattern, the Values statement can mention the availability of financial statements, policies, procedures, and Code of Ethics. In terms of accountability, the details of the division of funds can be given in the company profiles as well as describe the expected employee performance.
WORKS CITED
Independentsector.org,. (2015). Code of Ethics | Independent Sector. Retrieved 23 July 2015, from https://www.independentsector.org/code_of_ethics
