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11 - How Management Theories and Culture Fads Kill Organizational Ethics

from Part II - Business Enterprises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2019

By
Marianne M. Jennings
Edited by
Ali E. Abbas
Ali E. Abbas
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Summary

There was a time when we were all six-sigma-ing. We did so because Jack Welch had bought into the six-sigma phenomenon and he had created a phenomenally performing General Electric (GE). Then we moved along from good to great to the search for excellence to becoming great by choice to whatever superlative Jim Collins told us was the way to a company that was built to last. Then someone moved our cheese. We had no time for that because we were just one-minute managers. We smoothed earnings, incentivized employees, and created three tiers of employees – including getting rid of the bottom tier of employees, whether they deserved termination or kudos. We all wanted to be part of the Fortune 100, the Fortune Most Admired Companies, even as we were led by Fortune CEOs and CFOs of the year – many of whom ended up doing time.

Type
Chapter
Information
Next-Generation Ethics
Engineering a Better Society
 , pp. 143 - 157
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Dharmarajan, K. et al. (2017). Association of changing hospital readmission rates with partial mortality rates after hospital discharge. Journal of American Medical Association, 318(31), 270–278.Google Scholar
Drucker, P. F. (2001). The essential Drucker. New York, NY: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Grossman, L., & Jennings, M. M. (2002). Building a business through good times and bad (p. 166). Westport, CT: Quorum Books.Google Scholar
Jennings, M. (2017). The Atlanta public school system: Good scores by creative teachers (p. 343). Business ethics: Case studies and readings. Boston, MA: Cengage.Google Scholar
Lagace, M. (2002). Paul O’Neill: Values in action, Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School. Retrieved from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/paul-o-neill-values-into-actionGoogle Scholar
Mason, S. (2000). Performance-based planning for hospitals. Health Care Strategic Management, 12(14), 14.Google Scholar
Schein, E. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership (pp. 33–34). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Zemke, R., & Schaaf, D. (1989). The service edge. London: Penguin.Google Scholar

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