Chapter 2– Organizational justice, ethics, and corporate social responsibility

Bottom-line mentality / The belief that an organization’s financial success is the only thing that matters.
Code of ethics / A document describing what an organization stands for and the general rules of conduct expected of employees (e.g., to avoid conflicts of interest, to be honest, and so on)
Cognitive moral development / Differences among people in the capacity to engage in the kind of reasoning that enables them to make moral judgments.
Conventional level of moral reasoning / In Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development, the level attained by most people, in which they judge right and wrong in terms of what is good for others and society as a whole.
Corporate ethics programs / Formal, systematic efforts designed to promote ethics by making people sensitive to potentially unethical behavior and discouraging them from engaging in unethical acts.
Corporate social responsibility / Business practices that adhere to ethical values that comply with legal requirements, that demonstrate respect for individuals, and that promote the betterment of the community at large and the environment.
Counternorms / Practices that are accepted within an organization despite the fact that they are contrary to the prevailing ethical standards of society at large.
Distributive justice / The form of organizational justice that focuses on people’s beliefs that they have received fair amounts of valued work-related outcomes (e.g., pay, recognition, etc..)
Ethical imperialism / The belief that the ethical standards of one’s own country should be imposed when doing business in other countries ( the opposite of ethical relativism)
Ethical relativism / The belief that no culture’s ethics are better than any other’s and that there are no internationally acceptable standards of right and worn ( the opposite of ethical imperialism).
Ethics / Standards of conduct that guide people’s decisions and behavior (e.g. not stealing from others).
Ethics audit / The practice of assessing an organization’s ethical practices by actively investigating and documenting incidents of dubious ethical value, discussing them in an open and honest fashion, and developing a concrete plan to avoid such actions in the future.
Ethics committee / A group composed of senior-level managers from various areas of an organization who assist an organization’s CEO in making ethical decisions by developing and evaluating company-wide ethics policies.
Ethics hotlines (ethics helplines) / Special telephone lines that employees can call to ask questions about ethical behavior and to report anonymously any ethical misdeeds they may have observed.
Ethics officer / A high-ranking organizational official (e.g. the general counsel of vice president of ethics) who is expected to provide strategies for ensuring ethical conduct throughout an organization.
Exploitative mentality / The belief that one’s own immediate interests are more important than concern for others.
Fair process effect / The tendency for people to better accept outcomes into which they have had some input in determining than when they have no such involvement.
Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations / Guidelines for federal judges to follow when imposing penalties on organizations (e.g. restitution, fines, etc.) found guilty of breaking federal laws.
Group-value explanation (of organizational justice) / The idea that people believe they are an important part of the organization when an organizational official takes the time to explain thoroughly to them the rationale behind a decision.
Informational justice / People’s perceptions of the fairness of the information used as the basis for making a decision.
Interpersonal justice / People’s perceptions of the fairness of the manner in which they are treated by others (typically, authority figures).
Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development / The theory based on the idea that people develop over the years in their capacity to understand what is right and wrong.
Madison Avenue mentality / A way of viewing the world according to which people are more concerned about how things appear to others than how they really are – that is, the appearance of doing the right thing matters more than the actual behavior.
Moral values (morals) / People’s fundamental beliefs regarding what is right or wrong, good or bad.
Multifoci approach to justice / A conceptualization of organizational justice recognizing that people take into account both individuals and larger units when assessing fairness.
Organizational justice / The study of people’s perceptions of fairness in organizations.
Postconventional level of moral reasoning / In Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development, the level at which people judge what is right and wrong not solely in terms of their interpersonal and societal obligations, but in terms of complex philosophical principles of duty, justice and rights
Preconventional level of moral reasoning / In Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development, the level at which people (e.g. young children and some adults) haven’t yet developed the capacity to assume the perspective of others, leading them to interpret what is right solely with respect to themselves.
Procedural justice / People’s perceptions of the fairness of the procedures used to determine the outcomes they receive.
Pyramid of corporate social responsibility / The term used to describe an organization’s four most basic forms of responsibility, in order from economic responsibility, to legal responsibility, to ethical responsibility, to philanthropic (i.e. charitable) responsibility.
SOX, Sarbanes-Oxley Act / A law enacted to guard against future accounting scandals (such as occurred at Enron), by initiating reforms in the standards by which public companies report accounting data.
Stonewalling / The practice of willingly hiding relevant information by being secretive and deceitful, which occurs when organizations punish individuals who are open and honest and reward those who go along with unethical behavior.
Virtuous circle / The tendency for companies that are successful financially to invest in social causes because they can afford to do so (i.e. they “do good by doing well”) and for socially responsible companies to perform well financially (i.e. they “do well by doing good”).