ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND BUSINESS ETHICS
Content (Syllabus outline):
1. Introduction: state of arts, aim of the subject and announcement of problems: time &
space contextualization, some fundamental concepts .
2. Organizational culture and its laws at the level of idea; transition of the idea from
ethnology, sociology and anthropology in the field of economy and theory of organization;
consequences in the sense of »empty signifiers« problems, problems with thinking and
understanding within the new conceptual area. Announcement of the analysis of
fundamental categories of organizational culture.
3. Normative part: foundation of central notions, culture, organization, organizational culture,
group dynamics, elements, characteristics and types of organizational culture.
4. Four theoretical and analytical parts: shaping, changing, preserving and functioning… of
organizational culture. Special emphasis: influence of organizational culture to efficiency of
organization, research and targeting the organizational culture.
5. What ethics is about, what is business, what is business ethics? When it appeared and why?
Why not before? What are the fundamental categories of ethics?
6. How to grasp the relationship between »good« and »profitability« (including that of utility
and useful-ness)? What is good, what bad and what Evil? What is use, useful, useful-ness?
How and when Good and profitability became One and the same?
7. What are the central categories around which business ethic revolves? What function in the
perspective have the next important categories from economic and business perspective:
work, management, money, begging, idleness, laziness…
8. Is ethics the same as morality? What is ethically allowed to manager, what is “moral
problem”; is the ethical dilemma the same as moral dilemma? What is in, what is out of
the reach of the »moral code(s)«, where and how is possible to locate problem of »ethical
reasoning«? What means ethical reasoning, what is the difference between reasoning,
judging and stereotyping? In what kind of relation is ethics in business situation when it
comes to the problem of stereotypes?
9. What is connection between business ethics and larger society, and in what kind of relation
to the state, law and political subsystem at large? What is the difference between
something which is “right” and of something which is being “just”? Where is the
»instance« of »just«, where of that which is right? Who is and why is »pushing« for justice.
What happen when justice and right coincide?
10.What kinds of ethics or ethical attitudes are significant for post-socialist circumstances?
What characteristics are of traditional Catholic stance, what that of Protestantism? What is
significant for communist and socialist attitude towards business, what for post-socialist
stance?
11.What is happening with ethics in post-socialist circumstances (transitional-ethics), what at
the level of globalization?
Objectives and competences:
 ability of perception and understanding of the filed of culture, organization and ethics,
grasping the problems as existing ones
 rise the sensibility for the ethical problems
 capability for analysis and acting with regard to these problems at the level of organization
 autonomous analytical thinking
 possibility of producing autonomous argumentative procedures in the field
 communicative abilities and creative capability in cooperation within the teams specially in
problematical circumstances
 ability of being ready to careful listen to the counter-arguments
Students will develop course - specifics competences:
 perception and understanding of the changes in the field within the organization and
outside of it,
 comparative approach and conflict resolution abilities in which they could find themselves
jailed between inner and outer loyalty,
 autonomy in transition of abstract and apriori theoretical solution at the level of practical
life and action in the organization,
 ability of reading, understanding and analyzing complex problems in connection with the
organizational culture and business ethics,
 openness for understanding the interconnections between micro (organizational) and
macro (social and ethical) level of life, thinking and acting,
understanding the events at the level of surrounding in connection with the events at the level
of post-socialist systems and the processes of globalization.
Intended learning outcomes:
Knowledge and understanding:
Student will:
 informed with the larger contextual problems from that inside of organization, across the
business ethic toward the understanding of ethics and culture in general
 bring in touch with the analytical possibility for connecting theoretical work in present
situation in which is embraced
 in the position of grasp the problems of using the same concept in different fields
 grasp the changes in the meaning of the concepts with regard to practice
 informed about the fundamental concepts in interdisciplinary field on the basis of interaction among the concepts, ideas
 be able to open the complex of analytical analysis of the complex situations
 ability of understanding the difference between theoretical concepts and practical
problems and structural fissure among them
 informed with the ways (methods) of research and measure the problems at the level of
the company and be able for implementing simple and less simple analytical grasps in the
direction of understanding the organizational culture in business environment
 be able to distinguish various periods and logic of the appearance of ethics and business
ethics
 understand that business ethic is not there from the very beginning of time, and not just
given, but living relation among the living people
 enabled to judge and rethink one of the fundamental problems of business ethics: namely
that Good and useful/profitable is not the same, that the distinction between the two is
basis for acting
 informed with Plato’s and Kant’s posing the problem (which is the aspect of exercises)
 knowledge in connection with genealogy of some important categories of business ethic in
historical perspective
 emphasis will be on the point of transition from the history of rejection of work and money
(ancient culture, Rome, Christianity…) and »emancipation« of money, work in the period of
reformation and in connection with the industrialization.
 warned against the equalization between ethics and morality and with regard to that
dangerous operation
 get the ability for critical reassessment of reduction of ethics to morality
 be able to grasp that ethical reasoning in closely connected with responsibility
 informed in complex context in which business ethics in functioning: society, legal and
political surrounding…
 warned about embarrassing position that »the thing« which is »just« is so to speak
»abandoned« and on his own side and shoulders, and that »that which is right«, is on the
side of the state and law
 informed about the history of various ethical forms and shapes, with their continuity and
discontinuity and ability to grasp his/her own time
 on the basis of emphasized be able to get the insight in fundamental elements of various
value systems being dominant for the time being
 informed about the globalization, specially in connection with and the context of welfare
state problems and its disappearance
 empowered to hold the argument and to counter argue with regard to the globalization
and connected problems.
Students gradings
Weight (in %)
Assessment:
Type (examination, oral,
coursework, project)
10
Short written casework
Longer written casework
Presentations
60
Final examination
(written/oral)
30
Other