title: Steps to strengthen ethics in organizations: research findings, ethics placebos, and what works.
abstract: Research shows that many organizations overlook needs and opportunities to strengthen ethics. Barriers can make it hard to see the need for stronger ethics and even harder to take effective action. These barriers include the organization's misleading use of language, misuse of an ethics code, culture of silence, strategies of justification, institutional betrayal, and ethical fallacies. Ethics placebos tend to take the place of steps to see, solve, and prevent problems. This article reviews relevant research and specific steps that create change.
authors.affiliation: a Licensed Psychologist in Independent Practice, Norwalk , Connecticut , USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Pope
mesh_terms: D032781:Codes of Ethics; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D009938:Organizations / Q000941:ethics*; D035642:Whistleblowing / Q000941:ethics
keywords: ethics; ethics codes; ethics enforcement; institutional betrayal; moral courage; organizations; whistleblower