What does it profit an organization if it gains the whole world and loses its own soul?

There are many indicators of serious decline in the moral and ethical standards of many public and private organizations. These declines have been marked by increased violence and aggression in the workplace, by slipping standards for technical functions like accounting, and a general sense of greed at the highest levels of management. Although these types of behaviors are not new, the increasing frequency with which they occur is concerning. The purpose of this article is to review some general concepts of ethical and moral thought, and then to apply those concepts to organizations. Highly structured, mandated ethics programs being applied to corporate settings may prove to be of some operational value but are not adequate to address the broad moral challenges faced in organizational life today. Instead, fundamental structural and behavioral change in the character of organizations is advanced as the only reasonable solution. Consulting psychologists, it is suggested, are well situated to facilitate the challenging processes organizational members must engage in to explore and define the moral dimensions of working and living together as a fundamental organizational change process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)