Culture at Devils Den

Week 7, Discussion 1

Describe the Culture at Devils Den.

The culture at Devil’s Den allowed employees and student managers not to be held accountable for unethical behavior. The company, CFS did not hold managers responsible for ensuring individuals did not steal and allowed for a climate that tolerated illegal, criminal, and unethical behavior. Students felt that it was acceptable to allow stealing and felt they were not in a place to question unethical actions. This was a campus snack bar that hired mainly student staff with no senior management oversight by someone else than another student.

Identify and discuss the drivers of unethical behavior at the Devil’s Den.

The unethical behavior stemmed from hiring young student managers based on time in the job and minimum experience as a leader. Since most of the nighttime managers were students they were friends with many of the employees and customers, so they allowed them to steal and not be accountable for their unethical behaviors. This type of management is the immoral manager who seem to have no regard for ethical standards in their performance as a manager. The company paid low wages and provided minimum incentives to for promotions. Since students felt that they were under paid it was acceptable to take more food than what was authorized. The company had very weak standards, rules, and policies that were not enforced. There was a definite lack of inventory control and accountability for loss of inventory. As discussed in Chapter 9, poor oversight by top management that implicitly allows the overzealous pursuit of personal gain, wealth, and other self-interests (Thompson, Strickland, & Gamble, 2010, p 299). This has allowed individuals to believe it is acceptable to take food since no one was being held accountable for their actions.

Discuss how the organization may go about changing its ethical standards?

The company needs to be more selective in the hiring of managers and they...