Building and ethical organization procedure and characteristics the case of Medicare Services Ltd - Essay Example

Building and ethical organization – procedure and characteristics – the case of Medicare Services Ltd I. Introduction In order to build an organization, one of the main issues that need to be taken into account is its area of activities. In this context it has been found in literature that in certain business areas the design, development, operation and supervision of an organization can be achieved only on a thorough examination and analysis of the business activities in the general commercial market. In case of healthcare services, the difficulties seem to be various and severe as there are also standards that need to be held in order for an organization to operate successfully. According to Kabell (1990, 14) ‘health services must be integral to the social development of communities, not merely provided from outside for passive acceptance; the implementation of this principle often requires decentralisation of government health administrations and re-allocation, re-orientation and retraining towards PHC of personnel in the health sector; moreover, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. On the other hand, Benatar et al. (1995, 16) noticed that ‘the explosion in scientific knowledge, its costly application to medicine and health care, coupled with rapid population growth and changing disease profiles during this century, have led to intense debates on the design, structure, and funding of health care systems while no perfect solutions have been found and health care systems in many countries are both of a mixed nature and in unstable states of change’. Current paper examines the case of Medicare Services, an organization that offers health care and human services on a twenty-four hours basis of operation. The organization has been designed in order to respond to the increased needs of the people in the specific area combining the provision of human support with the use of high technology for the successful confrontation of various medical problems. II. Description of the Organization The organization has been divided into two major parts, the Human Needs section and the Medical Needs section. The first one refers exclusively to the provision of psychological support in various cases including mental illnesses of temporary or permanent character. The above support is provided without a differentiation between the mental illnesses that have a genetic cause and those that have been developed gradually or by accident after a severe psychological pressure. As for the pure Medical department, this can handle all types of medical problems even severe injuries. The reason for such an extended area of activity is that the institute’s human resources department decided to include a multi – skills element when deciding the structure, the roles and the knowledge of the organizational workforce. The only problem seems to be the absence of sufficient space for a long-term ‘residence’ of patients. At the moment, in both departments only a short term residence is available, however, there is a plan for the extension of the institute’s space through the‘re-construction’ of a near-by building which is also included in the institute’s property. III. Mission Statement The organization has set as its priority the promotion of the health (both physical and mental) of the people in the area. Moreover, the provision of services of high standards is also included among the elements of the organizational strategy. It has also to be noticed that the provision of effective and appropriate care services is not the only issue when designing the corporate strategy; the behaviour towards the patient/ client has been set as one of the most important issues of the institute’s operation. The cost and the quality of the provided services are also checked regularly in order to be adapted to the customers’ needs and strengths. IV. Values Statement The organization has set a series of priorities regarding its daily operations. Customer is regarded as a valuable ‘asset’ for the corporate development. Employees are also regarded as having an ‘equal’ and ‘intense’ role in the firm’s growth. The particular business has based its strategy on the protection and the support of the locals in accordance with the promotion of quality of life in the specific area (through the provision of medical and human services of high standards). The firm also recognizes the significant role of its stakeholders and its supply chain to the achievement of its targets. For this reason, the corporate strategy includes a series of ‘provisions’ especially for the above two categories. Moreover, the corporate activities are going to be supervised constantly in order to check the application of the above principles in all the business sectors. V. Code of Ethics Ethics means ‘pursuing “the good life“; Business ethics can be defined as the pur­suit of a good business life; Ethical grounds for such reflection can be found, for example, in utilitarian­ism, the ethics of utility, and in deontol­ogy, the ethics of duty’ (Takala, 2006, 4). The above definition although including all the necessary – and most usual – elements of an ‘ethical’ behaviour should be transformed in order to respond to the character and the operation of the specific organization. Of course, in general terms it can be used for the formulation of a ‘fair’ and ‘socially accepted’ corporate strategy. Another main driver of ethics development is ‘the issue of trust; The immaterial value of trust has reached a cen­tral position in the post-industrial and post-positivist society; Thus, the ethics code constitutes legitimacy, a ‘license to operate’ in a world of integrated diversity; If suc­cessful, it creates a good image – but vice versa, if unsuccessful it may cause a scandal; As the interpretation of the ethics code must partly be left to various stakeholders and other actors, also the good image of a successful company is partly left to the pow­ers of individual interpretation when people across the world make sense of an ethics code of a particular company’ (Lindfelt, 2006, 12). The above researcher presents the issue of ethics in an organizational environment as been connected mostly with a certain piece of text, a code of ethics, which is supposed to be adequate for the confrontation of the daily problems that arise in the relevant area. However, in many cases the existence of a written code is not a ‘sufficient’ element for the formulation of an ‘ethical’ organization. According to Takala (2006, 4) ‘an ordinary enterprise that wishes to become ethical can start by basing its operations, its business idea, on some hu­mane value; it can also try to pursue its corporate social responsibil­ity in an honest and genuine manner; For a large-scale business, for example, this means implementing a broad social responsibility programme alongside its business strategy, while simultaneously fulfilling its responsibility as an employer’. The view of the above researcher seems to be broader and more effective regarding the installation of an ‘ethical culture’ in a business environment. For this reason in the organization of the case the creation of a written code of ethics should be combined with the daily supervision of its application among all business sectors. VI. Organization culture The issue of culture in the business area can have many aspects. According to Black (1994, 70) ‘the differences in the workplace can refer to a series of issues, like the race, the gender, the educational level or even the mental conditions of the employees involved’. In the same context, Brief et al. (2002, 281) found that ‘the performance of an organization cannot be influenced solely by the fact that a series of differences can be observed among its employees’. In fact it has been found that even in cases that ‘no differentiations in the cultural backgrounds can be observed in a specific workplace, severe cases of deviance may occur which could not be regarded as expected’. In the above context, it seems that diversity can be a severe issue for the corporate strategy. According to the study of Ferris et al. (1993, 41) diversity can be viewed as ‘a problem regarding the organizational structure and operations, however it can also be considered as a challenge that can lead to the increase of the business performance’. However, it has been found by Bain (2004) that the prerequisite for such a development is that the people participated in a firm’s workforce should be treated equally and should be offered the chance to use their competencies aiming to the increase of the organizational performance. Under these terms, Feinauer et al. (2004) found that cultural assessment could be used in order to evaluate the differences in views and perceptions particularly among the management team of an organization. However, the design and the application of a specific ‘cultural’ plan should be in accordance with the business strengths, its area of operation and its real needs towards the achievement of the corporate targets. VII. Leadership Leadership in modern business area has to face a series of difficulties. Moreover, according to O’Neill (2002, 15) in order to ensure government reform, the leadership must answer the following questions: ‘a) what were the critical success factors in previous successful change efforts? b) what caused other efforts to fail? Are you prepared to take on the obstacles? c) who can veto? Can anyone say yes? d) what is the organizations risk profile? e) what has created a window of opportunity? How long might it last? f) what is the up side for stakeholders? g) what Have We Learned?’ On the other hand, Smith (1994, 22) tried to analyze the nature of leadership by presenting its contents and its specific value for the business. He mentioned that if we want to understand the ‘roots of leadership’ we should begin from the ‘analysis of the techniques used by supervisors in the workplace’. From another point of view, Mosley (1998) examined the existed leadership theories trying to assess the possible connection between the diversity issues (that could be arisen in the management area) and the behavioural approach of the leadership. She found that behavioural approach could ‘provide leaders with a specific technique based on sound theory and research results that can help to obtain a truly multicultural organization’. Moreover, Krishnan and Daewoo (1998) studied the influence of two major leadership characteristics (demographic and psychological traits) on corporate refocusing and they came to the result that in order ‘to succeed at refocusing organizations need strong leaderships’. Such a leadership should be characterized by ‘a strong leader and an equally committed top management team that communicates effectively with the employees, shares ideas and resources, is willing to empower the employees and is willing to initiate changes’. The above theoretical approaches prove that the role of leadership cannot be specified in advance within a specific organization. It seems that leadership in a particular business is formulated gradually in accordance with the local needs, the financial strength of the organization and the resources available for the achievement of the corporate aims. VIII. Oversight In order to achieve the principles and the provisions included in the corporate strategy, the management team of the organization should cooperate on a constant basis. In the above context, O’Neill (2002, 15) found that in order to achieve ‘a successful transformation, the management team of an organization should apply the following: a) focus, b) committed and engaged leadership, c) setting the bar high, d) sustained excellence, e) result desired is an exponential increase in performance, f) measure the right things and g) clear expectations for individual and collective goals’. Another issue should be the regular control of the firm’s leadership. Regarding the regeneration of a company’s leadership it is stated by Bruer et al. (1996, 16) that succession planning ‘needs to be modified if it is to remain a relevant means of regenerating a companys leadership’. However, the above researcher admits that ‘there are several causes of the gap between the promises of traditional succession planning and what is delivered but the most important goal is developing strong leadership teams for strategic tasks; the means of doing this lies in succession management, which offers a more flexible and dynamic approach for developing strong leadership teams’. A possible solution towards the creation of an effective organizational planning is the Strategic human resource management (SHRM) which has been defined (Klingner, 1993, 565) as ‘the purposeful resolution of human resource administration and policy issues so as to enhance a public agencys effectiveness; it requires understanding how personnel functions interrelate in context, recognition of their importance, and commitment by personnel managers, employees, supervisors and political leaders to work together for change and it is characterized by: recognition that human resources are critical, a shift from position management to work and employees, more innovation, asset development and cost control, and a movement from EEO/AA compliance to workforce diversity’. The above strategy should however be combined with all the above mentioned measures (constant control of the business operation, fair treatment of employees and customers etc.) in order to produce an organizational plan that can confront any possible turbulence of the market. Conclusion The application of all the measures and plans described above can be considered as the most appropriate strategy for the achievement of a long term corporate growth. However, in modern commercial market stability does not last for a long time. For this reason Lindfelt (2006, 14) stated that ‘in a glocal society with chaoplexity drivers for ethics issues, firms need to aim for integrated diversity; Inte­grated diversity implies that a firm with a corporate global eth­ics approach may see that this is implied differently in locally diverse regions; Therefore, a real challenge is to formulate one general corporate ethics code for a global company; The claim on integrated diversity implies that words are not easily trans­formed into equally perceived deeds’. Of course the constant change of financial, cultural and ethical standards as described above should not be regarded as a severe threat for the strategy of the specific organization. This assumption can be based on the fact that the business plan applied in the particular institute is based on several principles, elements and alternative solutions being as much flexible as possible. In this way any possible turbulence of the market could be handled successfully or at least its consequences would be limited for the specific organization. References Bain, B., Peterson A., M., Rubio, R. (2004). An Evaluation Study of Diversity Training for Field Instructors: A Collaborative Approach to Enhancing Cultural Competence. Journal of Social Work Education 40(1): 27-36 Black, K. R. (1994). Personality Screening in Employment. American Business Law Journal, 32(1): 69-124 Brief, A. P., Weiss, H. M. (2002). Organizational Behavior: Affect in the Workplace. Annual Review of Psychology: 279-301 Bruer, R. A., Leibman, M., Maki, B. R. (1996). Succession Management: The Next Generation of Succession Planning. Human Resource Planning, 19(3): 16-27 Feinauer, D., Gudmundson, D., Sridhar, B. S. (2004). Cultural Assessment: Differences in Perceptions between Boards of Directors and Other Organizational Members. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 69(4): 31-38 Ferris, G. R., Frink, D. 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