The Responsibility Project

The Responsibility Project

Ethical principles are something that can address any organizations issues. How to use these ethical principles are what we will address in this article. From the website “The Responsibility Project”, we will see how ethical principles are important in any organization, and how they can shape and change them. From the website, we will be reviewing the film “Good Vibrations”.

Why are the issues in the film important?

Good Vibrations is an animated tale all about a community’s responsibility, and the cost to be complacent. Although the film is more about a community’s responsibility, the issues addressed within the film are the same within organizations and communities just the same. The film showed an entire building of employees who would laugh at helpless individuals who were being injured as they tripped on a loose brick on the outside sidewalk. Finally, an employee opens a window to shout out a warning to an elderly man who was about to encounter the loose brick. The employee then proceeds to place a caution sign near the brick to prevent other people from getting hurt.

A person with morals could say that the problem in this film is the laziness or failure of the entire building of people to prevent the accidents from happening. Instead, they find it more amusing to let people be hurt for their own pleasure. Many organizations are faced everyday with the same personality types each day. On the same level, there are people who know this behavior is wrong, but choose to ignore or go along with the behavior to avoid conflict. The problem an organization will face with personalities like this is the problem is like a small snowball rolling down a hill. The snowball (the problem) will start as a small issue, but as it rolls down hill, the snowball will continue to get bigger and bigger until there is no way to stop it.

What role do external social pressures have in influencing organizational ethics?

External social pressures play a very important role in influencing organizational ethics. There tends to be many different stakeholders within any organization, each individual stakeholder has their own agendas, and these agendas will overlap one another. These stakeholders will include the consumers, communities, employees, and its shareholders. An example of this situation would be Enron, who in 2006 were in a scheme whereas they had constructed several off-the-books partnerships. These partnerships were used to hide the massive debts of Enron, which in turn artificially inflated there stock prices (Trevino and Nelson, 2011). This was a shameless attempt to keep current stockholders happy and attract new shareholders.