Formal Ethics Training in Organizations: Cosmetic or Effective?

This essay delves into the debate surrounding formal ethics training in organizations, questioning whether it is truly effective or merely superficial. It begins by defining formal ethics and its basis in ethical principles and theories, such as those of Kant and Hare. The essay explores the governmental funding of ethics programs aimed at fostering ethical cultures and reducing workplace offenses, while acknowledging criticisms that these programs are often cosmetic. It then examines the role of ethics in business, influencing practices and interactions, and evaluates the impact of formal ethics programs on organizational culture. The analysis incorporates ethical theories like Virtue Ethics, Duty Ethics, Right Ethics, and Utilitarianism, demonstrating their relevance to professional ethics training. The essay also discusses the impact of ethics training programs in different countries, employee awareness, and the debate over whether these programs are effective. Additionally, it considers alternative factors, such as employee motivation and retention, that may contribute to ethical behavior in the workplace, concluding that while ethics training has grown, other factors can be equally, if not more, important in fostering ethical conduct.

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Essay
Is Formal Ethics Training in Organizations Merely Cosmetic?

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 1
Formal ethics can be understood as Ethical principles and its study which is based on the
golden rule of “Treat others the way you want to be treated”. It is also based on the ethical
theories of Kant and Hare. It involves the concepts of racism, moral education and many
other social concerns. In many countries the government is providing firms with the funds to
develop formal ethics so that it can ultimately promote the ethical culture of the organisations
and to decrease the offenses and crimes at the workplace. But this is often criticised by many
of the authors that these kinds of ethics programs are merely cosmetic (Webley and Werner,
2008). It means that these programs do not solve the purpose but are the show-off. Ethics are
the actions and standards which influence humans to act well and make a difference between
right or wrong and ethics in business is something which influences the practices, methods
and interactions with each other at the workplace. The essay will include the study about the
formal ethics program in different organisation and its results. The impacts of the formal
ethics program on the culture of organisation are evaluated to see whether it actually make
any sense or it is merely cosmetic. The findings of the essay will be based on the study of
theories, concepts and practices which raise the formal ethical behaviour in the organisations.
Ethics is all about the fair and good practices followed in the personal and professional life.
Ethics is developed at the workplace and in the personal life through theories and experience.
There are different factors which affect business ethics and their influence. These factors
include the individual characteristics of the employees, intensity of the issues created in the
organisations and the development of the country. There is even the relationship between
ethics and law. On one hand, where law establishes minimum standards, ethics extends the
minimum domain. There are certain business activities which are legal but are unethical and
vice versa (Johnson, 2015).
Ethical training is the concept used in the organisations which helps in training the
individuals to take decisions in any given situation. As per Dobrin (2012), ethics and law are
not same but they are different and interconnected with each other. The legal considerations
always affect the ethical decisions of the individuals. Ethical training and education is must
for the companies. It does not only help in building up professional etiquettes but also helps
in facing the trouble. There are many associations which formulate the professional code of
conduct and help the employees in understanding the professional codes which they should
follow in their routine activities. But is not so easy to deal with the ethics education that
means it is not easy to implement these set of values. There are number of reasons behind it

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 2
(Richardson, 2014). The foremost reason is that it is tough to make people believe that they
lack in ethics and they need to be educated for it. Another reason is that the people who are
given this training are the busy professionals who need real and immediate solutions for the
practical problems at the workplace. Ethics is a long term benefit program in which
immediate actions is not always gained. The take away benefit from the ethical training
program is not always instant rather it is time taking procedure. It is not easy for people to
deal with the values and related training. They might fear with the controversy they might
face while getting engaged with the ethical training programs but there are some way outs
through which the ethical training can be a success (Rossouw, et al., 2010).
Ethical decision making is essential in business which is done with the consensus of everyone
in the organisation. Also, the ethical decisions making is affected by the personal variables
like personal values, characteristics, character or identity, also by the situational variables like
culture of the organisation, climate and the industry. So basically, both the individual
characteristics and the organisational characteristics are the influencers of the ethical decision
making in an organisation. Ethics are the principles of human conduct and it determines how
an individual should react or behave in an organisation. Ethics are relevant to the
professionals and so do ethical training (George, 2011).
There are some theories which support the training and involvement of formal ethics in the
organisations. There are different ethical theories like Virtue ethics, Duty ethics, Right ethics,
Utilitarianism and other theories which show how it is so helpful in determining ethics at the
workplace. Different theories are discussed here as under to show their relationship with the
use of training in the professional world.
Virtue ethics: Virtue ethics can be understood as an approach which highlights the character
of an individual. It is the oldest theory which started with Aristotle. The theory suggests that
people certainly do the right thing because they have developed various habits. It focuses on
the characteristics like responsibility, honesty, competence and loyalty. This theory suggests
that the intentions of the person should be good in in good spirit which ensures moral actions
from them. The training given to people can be success if the virtues of the employees
support them (Abdullah and Valentine, 2009).
Duty ethics: Duty ethics can be understood as an approach which focuses on the right or
wrong actions of individuals as compared to the right and wrong of the actions of the

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 3
individuals. Here the moral duties are fundamental and ethical actions are considered as the
duty which includes respect for all. The theory suggests that when an individual realises his
own duties, there are obvious ethical actions. The person in this theory is considered as a
rational person who has no self-interest and has knowledge about the society and human
psychology. The theory is basically based on two principles, the first one is that every person
is allowed to have liberty without restricting others and one can be more beneficial for
society and economy than others.
Right Ethics: Right ethics is an approach to the ethical theory in which is it believed that
humans have the right to life and property. The theory suggests that the humans have right to
show the concern for other people and they also have basic community rights. There are some
negative and positive rights. Negative rights is when a person gets an entitlement to be left
alone and get privacy and positive rights is when an individual gets right to attain something
like right to education or medical facilities (Abdullah and Valentine, 2009).
Theory of utilitarianism: In this theory, it is believed that the theory examines each and every
action whether its good or bad, or is creating good for a huge no of people or not. It is all
about maximising the goodness for people. It tries to make a balance between the good and
bad results and pay attention on the society as a whole instead of focussing on the
individuals. Utilitarianism is in different forms which are Act Utilitarianism & Rule
Utilitarianism, Act Utilitarianism focuses on the actions of the individuals and it suggests
that the rules can be broken if it’s for the good of most of the people. Rule Utilitarianism is
when adhering to the moral rules is most important and it is believed that it will lead to the
maximisation of benefits for all. It can be considered as rigid in which the rules are to be
followed by the people (Secchi, 2007).
Through all these theories, it is clear that moral values and the ethics aim at one single thing
which is maximising the benefit for all. In the organisations, the formal ethics training also
aims at making everyone attentive for following ethics. It can also be evidenced from some of
the examples where it has been proved that the formal ethics training is beneficial for good
decision making and for creating ethical workplace (Gilman, 2005).
As per the survey conducted by Johnson (2015), a question was asked that is the formal
ethics program effective in inserting the ethical values in the culture and behaviour of the
organisation. It is found that the impact of training programmes is different in different

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 4
countries. This may be because it depends on the individual characteristics and perceptions.
The main findings suggest that in the formal ethics programs has brought a change in the
employee honesty and integrity at the workplace (Meinert, 2014). This shows that the
practice of ethics training has grown over the years. The survey shows that the employees are
aware of the ethics awareness programmes taking place in the organisations. In Britain, the
survey showed that the organisations where the employee ethics training program took place
have shown positive experience of ethics at the workplace. It has shown improvement in the
management behaviour, communication, business conduct, enforcement of business
standards and better decisions making (Randall, 2012). It is also found that the younger
employees are more in expectation of the ethical conduct from the business organisations
than the older and experienced employees. This shows that the employees of the age group
(16-34) are more aware of the employee ethical training programme (Robinson, 2007).
There are surveys which indicated that the training programmes for formal ethics are
effective and they play a significant role in giving a positive effect to the decision making in
the organisations. Recently, the number of organisations who adopted the training programs
on ethics has been increased but only few of the employees believed that it made any
difference. Most of the employees were of the view that it is merely a formality which is to
be done by the organisations to prove it ethical. For an individual it is harder to be ethical all
the time because it creates a pressure to face everyone and the pressure of competition but
ethical training can create a culture which is followed by all and is understood by all
(Ermongkonchai, 2010).
Ethical training at the workplace may not be the best way to approach people and to make
them familiar to maintaining ethics. There are other factors which help the employees to
follow ethics and to maintain a good and supportive environment at the workplace. There are
many factors which are against the support of training for maintaining ethics at workplace.
These factors are motivation at the workplace and employee retention (Brink, Cereola &
Menk, 2015). It is often seen that Motivation given to the employees brings the moral
sensitivity in the employees from different perspectives. Motivation includes providing
performance reviews, regular meetings, rewards and recognition to the employees, open
discussions, regular feedbacks, etc. which enhances the motivation level of the employees
and helps in enhancing the moral sensitivity in them. This could generate a feeling of
evaluating the own actions in the employees and sharing with others. This also increases the

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 5
alertness in the employees to handle the issues in the routine decisions of the organisations
(Nafei, 2015).
Another factor is retention of employees in which the employer/ leaders or managers could
practice such methods which drive commitment in the employees and make them responsible
for their own actions (Ahmad, et. al., 2014). The organisation could regularly provide the
growth opportunities and rewards to the employees which ultimately help in retaining the
employees at the workplace. This also creates a feeling of working together as a team and
with a positive attitude. If the employees are committed and are strong enough to make a
difference between right or wrong, there will be no need of training the employee for formal
ethics at the workplace which is time taking and involves cost as well (Arulrajah, 2015).
Ethical behaviour requires the consensus of all individuals and welfare of the employees at
the workplace which can be gained with the help of motivation methods and practices and the
employee retention programmes. This is difficult as making choices between right and easy is
difficult but once, the employees get this feeling of choosing right from within, it becomes
easier for them. Ethical framework is established to review the systems and actions
systematically for having a long term perspective and for positively affecting the stakeholders
(Morais, et al, 2014).
It can be concluded that formal ethics is the one which promotes the culture of making
decisions between right or wrong. It is the practice which reduces the number of offences and
wrong actions in the organisation. The essay discusses that formal training for the ethics is
the method through which the ethics can be maintained at the workplace but it is also
criticised by some of the authors. Ethical training and its concepts are discussed in the essay
with different theories of ethics which shows that how ethical training is essential for the
benefit of the employees and the organisation as a whole. It is criticised that official ethical
training is not so effective because people do not take these trainings seriously and they are
not in the habit of accepting the good habits because of training and coaching. The statistics
are also collected and discussed that how training has helped people to adopt ethics at the
workplace.
At last, two factors have been discussed i.e. motivation and employee retention practices
which against training helps in driving the employee commitment and ultimately helps in
establishing ethics at the workplace. The essay discusses that how these factors can work
better than the ethics training. I would prefer going with training because the ethics and

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 6
compliance programs cultivate the ethical culture at the workplace which becomes a part of
routine life of the workers and become permanent.

Is Formal Ethics Training in Organisations Merely Cosmetic? 7
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