What Happens When We Compromise Our Core Values

a post by Tim Brownson for the Tiny Buddha blog


“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” ~Roy E. Disney

I got out of the car and could immediately tell that something was amiss. There were far too many glum-looking people milling around outside the building my meeting was scheduled to take place in. I worked for Yellow Pages at the time, and I regularly met with business owners who were interested in placing ads.

At that moment two burly men exited through the warehouse adjoining the office carrying a filing cabinet. A man who was carrying what looked like a paper shredder followed them.

There were probably ten men, most of whom were wearing coveralls, stood around smoking, talking in hushed tones and generally looking despondent

I turned around to look at my manager. She shrugged and motioned for me to go into the office.

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Hard hitting but very revealing if you can do the exercise that is suggested.

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The political economy of human rights organizations’ codes of ethics

an article by Saif AlZahir (University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) and Han Donker and John Nofsinger (University of Alaska Anchorage, USA) published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society Volume 16 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
This paper scrutinizes the impact of socioeconomic, political, legal and religious factors on the internal ethical values of human rights organizations (HROs) worldwide. The authors aim to examine the Code of Ethics for 279 HROs in 67 countries and the social and legal settings in which they operate.

Design/methodology/approach
Using the framework of protect, respect and remedy, the authors look for keywords that represent the human rights lexicon in these three areas. In the protection of human rights, the authors select the terms: peace, transparency, freedom and security. For the respect of humans, the authors use the terms: dignity, equality, respect and rights. Sources of remedies come from justice and ethics. The analysis seeks to determine what political economy settings drive the ethical value choices of the organizations. Those choices are proxied by those keywords they mention in their Code of Ethics.

Findings
The analysis show that the scope of ethical values mentioned are higher when the HRO is in a country with more domestic violence, lower income inequality, French civil or Islamic legal origin and higher trust in politicians. In regard to the determinants of the ten keywords individually, the authors conclude that the status of the socioeconomic, political, religious and legal settings impact with local HROs mention each of the keywords: peace, justice, transparency, dignity, equality, ethics, respect, freedom, security and rights.

Research limitations/implications
The analysis is based on HROs that have a webpage in English and list the employee Code of Conduct.

Originality/value
This study is the first to examine the Code of Ethics for HROs. The authors demonstrate that country-specific characteristics help to drive their internal ethical values.

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The Big Society, values and co-operation

an article by Fiona Wilson and Donald MacLean (University of Glasgow) published in Work, Employment & Society Volume 26 Number 3 (June 2012)

Abstract

In a context of government promotion of co-operatives, a growth in the co-operative economy, and in times when use of the term ‘co-operative’ appears to have broadened to include any form of employee ownership, this article sets out a research agenda for exploring producer co-operatives, focusing on what co-operation means to those who work in them.

Based on exploratory research in three producer co-operatives, the article argues that the values and principles are being used so liberally that co-operatives have a very wide appeal, making co-operation attractive to a wide spectrum of political ideals and values – perhaps surprisingly, those associated with individualism alongside those of co-operation.

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