Case Study: Alcoa's Core Values, Ethics, and Cultural Considerations

This case study delves into the ethical dimensions of Alcoa, a prominent aluminum company. It explores Alcoa's organizationally-based ethical climate, emphasizing its value-driven culture established since 1985 and its commitment to ethics and compliance programs across all global branches. The study highlights how Alcoa's top management, including Alain Belda and Perry Minnis, has significantly influenced its ethical culture through initiatives like the Integrity System, which trains staff and suppliers on ethical and safety policies. The analysis also addresses two cultural questions relevant to Alcoa: its monochronic approach to time and its neutral emotional style in the workplace. The study references Alcoa's commitment to ethical conduct and its adaptation to diverse cultural contexts to ensure smooth business operations. The case study concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethics in achieving company performance and maintaining its leading position in the aluminum sector.

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Case Study: Alcoa’s Core Values in Practice
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Case Study: Alcoa’s Core Values in Practice
Alcoa, also known as the Aluminium Company of America is a company that was
established in 1888 and is a powerhouse in the aluminum sector. The company is characterized
by a spirit of innovation and over the years has also received numerous awards for practicing
high ethical standards (Paul, 2008). This paper looks at various facets of ethics as pertains to
Alcoa.
Alcoa’s Ethical Work Climate
Alcoa’s ethical climate can be considered as organizationally-based. This is because the
company has always had a culture that is value-based, and this applies to all global branches. The
company had maintained most of its values and documented them since 1985 when Fred
Fetterolf was the president. The company has established programs that have enabled a focus on
ethics and compliance across the business (ALCOA, 2018). The company has made it a policy to
make sure that ethics is instilled in each of the employees that join the company. Due to its
ethical policies, the company has been able to receive some awards that are ethics-related
(Weber, 2015). The company keeps revising its guide to business conduct which is a 22-page
document that aims at clarifying to the employees the responsibilities that they have towards all
the company’s stakeholders and one another. The basic theme of the guide is, ‘Do what is Right.’
How Top Management has Influenced Ethics
The top management of Alcoa has had an integral part in the company’s current ethical
culture. In 1994, the then Chief Operating Officer, Alain Belda started streamlining processes
that saw the company be ready to embrace change swiftly. Perry Minnis was appointed as Ethics
and Compliance Director in 2000, and while he was at the helm, he came up with a program
called the Integrity System. This was used in training staff and suppliers on ethical and safety
policies of Alcoa. The program applied to all countries and was targeted to specific employees. It
is mandatory that employees follow the program or they can face disciplinary action. Another
step that the company has taken is the ethics auditors having to follow strict guidelines and being
audited independently by audit firms. Suppliers are also involved and educated via the integrity
system (ALCOA, 2018). These policies have enabled the employees to work ethically hence

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focus on company performance, hence making Alcoa the top company globally in the aluminum
sector.
Two Cultural Questions that Apply to Alcoa
The two cultural questions that can apply to Alcoa are how do we deal with the time
difference and what is our emotional style. Alcoa, when it comes to time has a monochronic
culture. The company is used to working with schedules and doing things in an organized
manner. They like pre-arranged meetings with agendas that have been well set-out. Since the
company operates globally, they have found themselves in cultures that are polychromic, and for
the sake of business, they have had to adapt. When it comes to emotions, Alcoa is the type of
company that has a neutral culture since in the workplace it is important how one displays their
emotions (Ferraro & Briody, 2017). They encourage managers to be there for the employees and
issues to be resolved amicably.

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References
ALCOA (2018). Home. [Online]. Retrieved from http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/home.asp
Ferraro, G. P., & Briody, E. K. (2017). The cultural dimension of global business. Taylor &
Francis.
Paul, K. (2008). Corporate sustainability, citizenship and social responsibility reporting. Journal
of Corporate Citizenship, 32(32), 63-78.
Weber, J. (2015). Investigating and assessing the quality of employee ethics training programs
among US-based global organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), 27-42.