Business Ethics: Chapter 8 - Organizational Factors: The Role of Ethical Culture and Relationships

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering corporate culture, ethical frameworks, regulatory structures, whistleblowing mechanisms, and group dimensions from Chapter 8 of Business Ethics.

Corporate Culture

The shared values, norms, and artifacts that influence employees and determine behavior within an organization.

Sarbanes–Oxley Section 404

A statutory requirement that mandates management to assess the effectiveness of an organization's internal controls and commission audits of these controls by an external auditor.

Sarbanes–Oxley Section 406

A legal provision requiring public companies to adopt a code of ethics specifically for top financial officers.

Tone at the Top

The leadership commitment and communication regarding integrity, core values, and ethics codes that serves as a determining factor in creating a high-integrity organization.

Apathetic Culture

An organizational culture that exhibits minimal concern for both people and performance.

Caring Culture

An organizational culture characterized by high concern for people but minimal concern for performance issues.

Exacting Culture

An organizational culture that shows little concern for people but places a high emphasis on performance.

Integrative Culture

An organizational culture that combines a high concern for people with a high concern for performance.

Cultural Audit

An assessment of an organization's values, usually conducted by outside consultants but capable of being performed internally.

Compliance Culture

A legalistic approach to ethics that uses laws and regulatory rules to establish codes, policies, and regulations, often lacking a long-term focus on values and integrity.

Values-Based Ethics Culture

An ethical culture that relies on an explicit mission statement defining core values and outlining how customers and employees should be treated.

Differential Association

The concept that individuals learn ethical or unethical behavior through interactions with members of their role-sets or other intimate personal groups.

Whistleblowing

The practice of exposing an employer's wrongdoing to external parties, such as regulatory agencies or media, or reporting misconduct internally through anonymous hotlines.

Qui Tam Relator

An employee who brings actionable information about corporate wrongdoing to the government under the Federal False Claims Act.

Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations (FSGO)

A legal framework that institutionalized internal whistleblowing and provides rewards or mitigation for companies that systematically detect and address misconduct.

Centralized Organization

An organizational structure in which decision-making authority is concentrated in top-level management with minimal authority delegated to lower levels.

Decentralized Organization

An organizational structure in which decision-making authority is delegated as far down the chain of command as possible.

Formal Group

An assembly of individuals with an organized, explicitly recognized structure that is formally accepted by its members.

Committee

A specific type of formal group assigned to complete an assigned task or duty within an organization.

Workgroups

Formal divisions used within specific functional areas of an organization to subdivide departmental duties.

Team

A formal group that brings together employees across diverse functional areas where the leader facilitates discussions and members share in decision-making and assignment distribution.

Informal Group

Two or more individuals who share common interests and communicate without an explicit organizational structure or predefined hierarchy.

Grapevine

An informal network of communication that flows across organizational boundaries and serves as a key channel for evaluating ethical climate and behavior.

Group Norms

Standards of conduct that groups expect from their members, defining acceptable limits of behavior and exerting pressure toward conformity.