Ethics and Contract Management, Part 2

The first article in this series looked at how increasing public interest in ethical corporate behavior is causing a significant shift in company practices. Where some companies may have previously pursued profit above all else, even at the expense of the public welfare, high profile scandals have driven a campaign to rejuvenate corporate culture and increase organizational transparency.

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a recent approach to business management where organizations take their ethical role more seriously, in the name of leaving a positive impact on culture and attracting previously disillusioned customers.

On its own, the specific requirements of CSR can seem vague, with each company free to interpret its social responsibility as it sees fit. Within the field of contract management, for example, the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) maintains its own code of ethics that is intended to trickle down to various CM professionals. Even so, there is considerable room for improvement, with the following recommendations having been proposed to help organizations improve their ethical image:

1. Ethics training – Just as organizations train new employees to do their specific jobs, it is also important that organizations observe employees and attempt to coach them on improving their ethical consciousness. Different organizations may have to experiment to find how best to do this; some may benefit from holding training sessions, while others may prefer to have managers lead by example.
2. Hold an internal perception audit – It is typically important for organizations to have a sense of what their employees think about their executives. Such information not only can help them improve executive behavior; it also reveals the values that employees find important. A perception audit can help executives anticipate morale issues and identify risky behavior before any information reaches the public.
3. Emphasize personal leadership – While it is important for organizations to emphasize overall ethical policy, lasting changes are often brought about by having inspirational leaders. If employees see their managers behaving poorly, no amount of ethical prescription will likely improve their feelings toward the company.
4. Explore alternative frameworks – Organizations should experiment to find an approach to ethical conduct that works for them. While there are frameworks in place to help them do this, such as the Beauchamp and Childress framework, CSR is not one-size-fits-all.
5. Empower ethics advocates – All employees have a responsibility to pursue ethical behavior to a degree. That said, CM professionals are well placed to take positions of responsibility as organizational ethics advocates. By helping organizations choose contracts that are ethically sound, CM professionals ensure that companies are only engaging in relationships that help the company image. It is important that such professionals have the power necessary to act when ethically sound contracts become available.

Implement Change with CSR

While some degree of unethical behavior may always exist in the workplace, the CSR movement is helping organizations make significant changes. As consumers, we should continue to demand ethical business practices by our companies in the hope that such demands will inspire change. There are, however, still many steps to be taken.

Organizations should continue to experiment with CSR to find the best way to implement ethical improvements in the workplace. CM professionals are uniquely positioned to spearhead this change.