Department/School
Ethics and Business Law; Veritas Institute
Date of this version
2004
Document Type
Article
Keywords
Baldrige, Caux Round Table, corporate responsibility, corporate self-assessment, ethics, governance
Abstract
In this paper we describe and explore a management tool called the Self-Assessment and Improvement Process (SAIP). Based upon the Caux Round Table Principles for Business – a stakeholder-based, transcultural statement of business values – the SAIP assists executives with the task of shaping their firm’s conscience through anorganizational self-appraisal process. This process is modeled after the self-assessment methodology pioneered by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program. After briefly describing the SAIP, we address three topics. First, we examine similarities and differences between the Baldrige approach to corporate self-assessment and the self-assessment process utilized within the SAIP. Second, we report initial
findings from two beta tests of the tool. These illustrate both the SAIP’s ability to help organizations strengthen their commitment to ethically responsible conduct, and some of the tool’s limitations. Third, we briefly analyze various dimensions of the business scandals of 2001-2002 (Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc.) in light of the ethical requirements articulated with the SAIP. This analysis suggests that the SAIP can help link the current concerns of stakeholders – for example, investors and the general public – to organizational practice, by providing companies with a practical way to incorporate critical lessons from these unfortunate events.
Published in
Science and Engineering Ethics
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Citation/Other Information
Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 10, No. 2 (April 2004), pp. 243-258.