INFORMAL CULTURAL SYSTEMS

In addition to the formal systems described previously, ethical culture is kept alive informally and symbolically through informal norms, heroes, rituals, myths, and stories. Employees experience the ‘‘real’’ organization through these informal systems, and information about them is carried through informal communication systems such as the grapevine and water cooler gatherings. In this way, people come to know what behaviors are ‘‘really’’ rewarded, how decisions are ‘‘really’’ made, and what organizational leaders ‘‘really’’ care about and expect. If messages from the formal and informal cultural systems differ, the ethical culture is out of alignment. It’s important to note that employees are more likely to believe the messages carried by the informal system. Recent research has found that employees’ perceptions of informal cultural systems influence their ethics-related behavior more than the formal systems do. Therefore management of these informal systems is extremely important.

Much socialization about ethics is informally conducted by role models and mentors. Role models may be senior managers, immediate superiors, or just more experienced coworkers. Kent Druyvesteyn, former staff vice president of ethics, General Dynamics Corporation, made an important point about senior leaders as ethical role models. ‘‘People in leadership need to . . . set the tone by the example of their own conduct. We could have had all the workshops in the world. We could have even had Jesus and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha come and speak at our workshops. But, if after all of that, someone in a leadership position then behaved in a way which was contrary to the standards, that instance of misconduct by a person in a leadership position would teach more than all the experts in the world.’’ By contrast, if senior

Norms are standards of daily behavior that are accepted as appropriate by members of a group. They exert a powerful influence on individual behavior in organizations, and they can serve to support an ethical or unethical culture. For example, imagine an individual entering a computer software sales job who is told immediately by peers in the sales force that customers should always be dealt with honestly because longterm customer relations are so important to the firm. Here, the norm of honesty with customers supports ethical conduct and an ethical culture. On the other hand, consider the individual who begins a new job and is told by his or her colleagues that making the sale is all that counts, even if you have to lie to the customer about the capabilities of the software or delivery dates. This norm supports unethical conduct and contributes to an unethical culture. Either kind of norm  can become ‘‘the way we do things around here’’ in the organization.

Formal rules are often inconsistent with the informal norms that develop. For example, the salesperson described previously may have attended a mandatory ethics training session that taught rules of honesty in customer relationships. But if the message being sent on the job is to make the sale no matter what, the formal rule is overridden. , at a fast-food restaurant, new employees may be told about a rule against eating food without paying for it. However, once on the job, they may see coworkers eating while the supervisor looks the other way. These coworkers may rationalize their behavior because of their low pay or poor working conditions, or because the supervisor doesn’t seem to care or eats food himself or herself. Encouraged to join in, the new employee is likely to do so, having learned the ‘‘real’’ rules. Thus, despite formal rules, regulations, codes, and credos, informal norms are frequently the most influential behavior guides and clues to the culture. When the formal messages are consistent with the informal norms, this contributes to an ethical culture in alignment. And when informal norms are inconsistent with formal rules and codes, the culture is clearly out of alignment.