To: The Chief Operating Officer
From: Ime Uw
Subject: Organizational culture, climate, and ethics at McDonald’s
The main focus of this memo is to determine how organizational culture, values, climate, and ethics can be shaped to avoid unethical practices such as employees stealing from an organization.
Organizational culture refers to a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions that employees hold while working in a particular organization. Organizational culture reflects what employees should be doing, and how they should be doing and shapes the behaviors of employees in an organization. Organizational climate is somewhat different from organizational culture. Organizational climate refers to the perceived working environment or context. It refers to perceptions that employees hold while working at a particular organization and these perceptions affect motivation and job performance of employees. Organizational ethics are standards and principles that determine what is right or wrong. Fairness, integrity, honor, and equity are some examples of ethical organizational practices.
Organizational culture determines how employees should be working and organizational structure too. For instance, if the culture of the organization is flexible, there would be fewer bureaucratic levels. Employees would have the freedom to make their own decisions. They would be creative. They would be more open to their supervisors. However, if the culture is rigid, employees would be less creative. They would be more managerial levels. Employees wouldn’t be empowered. Organizational climate also shapes employee motivation and job performance. For instance, the culture of Netflix greatly impacts how employees work. They have an open door policy, there are no doors, and everyone, including a manager, works on the same floor. This creates a perception among employees that they are equally treated, they can communicate with anyone they want, and they are as important as other members of the organization. This climate motivates and instills creativity and empowerment among employees. Organizational ethics determine what is right or wrong. In organizations where equity and fairness are stressed, every decision is ensured to match these ethical values. For instance, when appraising employees, managers ensure that every single employee is fairly evaluated.
The culture of McDonald’s is focused on four key points. These are individual learning, organizational learning, employee focus, and diversity. McDonald’s ensures that employees are provided sufficient opportunities to enhance their learning and skills. When employees are skilled, they contribute towards the high performance or the organization. Individual learning also ensures organizational learning. It pushes organizational knowledge to a new level. It ensures that organizations attain heights of success. Employees’ needs are focused on at McDonald’s; they are prioritized because when employees are happy, customers are happy, too. Diversity ensures people from different backgrounds work together and use their diverse skills to attain organizational goals (THOMPSON, 2017).
Organizational culture and ethics can be managed perfectly by looking at the best practices exercised by top-notch companies. For instance, America Express values integrity, fairness, teamwork, organizational citizenship behavior, and a win-win approach (Gerard, n.d.). Google ensures that a home-like environment prevails at the organization, where employees work in a stress-free environment. At Google, employees can even bring their pets to work. There are gyms, salons, and cafes inside the office space. Organizational culture and ethics can be well managed by looking at how successful companies manage their culture and ethics (Patel, 2015).
Mc Donald’s had a climate where quality, cleanliness, services, and values and stressed. Food is ensured to meet health and cleanliness standards. Free kitchen trips provide the opportunity for customers to see the clean environment of McDonald’s restaurants. The culture of this organization is focused on centricity, diversity, employee and organizational learning. There are many areas that the organization is ignoring. To ensure that an organization like McDonald’s is not stuck in scandals like stealing, it needs to focus on following culture and ethical values:
- • Integrity
- • Fairness
- • Equity
- • Transparency
- • Employee citizenship behavior
- • loyalty
Integrity, fairness, equity, and transparency will ensure that employees exhibit behaviors that do not harm the integrity of the company. Employee citizenship behavior will enable employees to do much more for the benefit of the organization than just performing their jobs. When employees are loyal, they do not indulge in any practice that would harm the repute of their company.
References
Gerard, J. (n.d.). Best Practices: Building an Ethical Corporate Culture at American Express. Retrieved from I-Sight Website: https://i-sight.com/resources/best-practices-ethical-corporate-culture-american-express/
The article outlines best culture practices adopted by American express and how it impacts the organization.
Patel, S. (2015, August 6). 10 Examples, of Companies With Fantastic Cultures. Retrieved from Entrepreneur Website: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249174
The article discusses best cultural practices of ten well-known companies and how these practices have benefited these companies.
THOMPSON, A. (2017, February 5). McDonald’s Organizational Culture Analysis. Retrieved from Panmore Institute Website: http://panmore.com/mcdonalds-organizational-culture-analysis
The article outlines cultural values and ethical practices at McDonald along with organizational climate properties.
Ime Uw
