Organizational culture is difficult to define but plays a key role in individual and ethical behaviors within an organization. A strong culture can positively or negatively influence employees depending on whether the underlying values support or reward ethical conduct. For law enforcement organizations, unethical behaviors may stem from cultural elements like conflicts of interest or observed practices that are encouraged by goals, structures, incentives or lack of clear ethics policies. Shifting the culture to better align these factors could help increase ethical conduct.

1. What does culture have to do with it?
Culture is an area that we focus on in different ways when discussing organizational life.
Culture is difficult to define, but it holds the key to individual behavior and ethical
environments within organizations. We are familiar with strong organizational cultures,
such as is evident in the United States armed forces. Each branch of the armed forces has a
different culture that is made up of the underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values of the
membership. Some of these cultural elements are shared among the branches, and others
are unique to specific branches. For instance, the U.S. Soldier’s Creed provides soldiers with
an understanding of their shared belief and value system. A strong positive culture that has
an underlying focus on ethical behavior has as much influence on an individual employee’s
and manager’s behavior as a negative culture; however, in the news we hear most about the
impacts of negative cultures on ethical behavior. As Gilbert (2016) points out, it is almost
impossible for employees and managers to behave ethically if their organization’s systems
are designed to support and reward unethical behavior. Therefore, managers need to
understand that the organizational goals and objectives, structure, environment, ethics
policies, and incentive systems have a fundamental impact on the way in which culture
develops and affects ethical behavior. For your discussion: (Use Policing/law enforcement
as my organization’s culture) Consider your current (or previous) organization’s culture.
Describe the values, beliefs, and assumptions that drive the culture. Explain some of the
unethical behavior that occurs within your organization. This might be based on conflicts of
interest and/or observed practices. Describe how organizational goals and objectives,
structure, environment, ethics policies, and/or incentive systems affect these unethical
behaviors. Make at least one recommendation to shift the organization’s culture in order to
increase ethical behavior.#culture