Topic > Boeing's organizational behavior - 1562

1a). The violation of individual rights is evident in the case of former Lockheed manager Kenneth Branch who illegally gained access to “25,000 documents containing Lockheed's proprietary cost and technical information.” This concerns Lockheed's copyright and privacy issue. Distributional injustice was demonstrated by surveys which showed that male employees were paid more than their female counterparts. This is also evident in the scandal involving former CEO Harry and a female vice president; Harry is inconsistent with the company's code of conduct that he wants his employees to abide by. Because of their personal relationship, he could gain exclusive rewards and privileges that his colleagues could not enjoy. Finally, by conducting illegal labor negotiations with a Pentagon official, the former Boeing chief financial officer violated the principle of utilitarianism. Furthermore, the concealment of internal study findings regarding gender pay further illustrates this ethical lapse at Boeing.1b). The author believes that Boeing is plagued by bad corporate norms. Previous CEOs were people with low ethical sensitivity who did not lead by example. Stonecipher committed an ethical lapse by having an affair with an employee while Philip and Stonecipher were traveling on a luxury business jet with personal assistants. Subconsciously, they were sending a company-wide message: Boeing tolerates an ethical lapse; power and privileges are rights reserved for higher-ranking personnel. McNerney agrees that bureaucracy has given upper-level staff too much autonomy, so much so that breaches of ethical codes can be overlooked as little or no one in the company can penalize them. The company has a culture of not questioning when something wrong surfaces in the company. Take for example the Lockheed documents incident, where the 25,000 documents were viewed at the company for almost 3 years before anyone expressed their concerns about them. This unhealthy culture not only allows unethical practices to prevail but also hinders the growth of the company. Strong internal rivalry between post-merger Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corp is also contributing to the company's ethics scandals. As competition between each party becomes stiffer, employees may tend to resort to ethical violations to gain competitive advantages so as to outshine each other. I certainly agree with the author and McNerney that the unethical and dysfunctional corporate norm is the root cause of the ethical problem. It is this norm created by predecessors who never set good ethical examples that influences employees. They believed that the politically safest way to perform tasks would be to imitate the way their superiors do their jobs.