6.2.1. Example 1: the climate, a common idea of “catastrophism”

By catastrophism, a word commonly used in ecology, we tend to mean a societal situation which may be generated and often developed by the media, then amplified by the Web, like a breaking revelation. Based on an example, we will show how, in the field of ecology, people are tackling “ecologism” (i.e. ecology + ideology) rather than sustainability. We should avoid falling into this trap.

If we analyze the behavior of some alterglobalists, one interpretation could be as follows. They often imagine complicated and Machiavellian fixtures not devoid of hidden political motivations; they are sometimes quite arrogant and would like to dominate society, pulling businesses, controlling some markets. Moreover, because of their more local approaches and lack of systemic view, they cannot fully embrace an issue and could cause economic disasters or be partly responsible for a crisis. Alterglobalists do not show what it means to be global.

A simplistic view of life ignores the complexity of systems based on a large number of nonlinear interactions that make any ecosystem a non-predictable one. The appropriation of property, goods and the power of control by a few people, in order to give out and share them within a population, does not change anything. It is impossible to regulate or control the SIC (Sensitivity to Initial Conditions) criterion and we cannot predict what the situation will be a few months later. This is especially true if we study the impact of the last paradigm change described above, that is, the move from a society of duty (based on notions such as “all-work-and-no-play”) and moving toward a more hedonistic way of life (of the “flamboyant display” type). As a consequence, we are observing more individualization in society, a need for freedom and a greedy attitude geared toward getting more money fast. Within this framework, and to achieve such a goal, society has to be “deconstructed”, that is, lose its traditional references and moral values. This has already been reported by two Nobel Prize winners, Albert Camus and Joseph Stiglitz. During his introduction speech in Stockholm more than fifty years ago, Albert Camus said that “each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.”

Another relevant comment concerns the notion of “rights” and “duties”. The problem is related to the fact that, in our society, many people consider that they have rights but not duties. It is a result of our growing dependence on rules, regulations, laws, and management systems decreed by a state power or by an authoritarian hierarchy. The power of “duty”-based attitudes is that people are empowered, they pay more attention to others and are more inclined to apply ethical behaviors respectful toward others and sustainability.

6.2.2. Example 2: ethics and scientific advances

In Greek mythology, Prometheus and Titan stole the fire belonging to Zeus to give it as a gift to humanity and to teach it the art of metallurgy. Today, Prometheanism still triggers a fear of Chaos, which stands in agreement with the principle of “ambivalence” so common in nature. Yet in terms of governance, how can we manage this? Two types of people exist:

• – People who will use, support or benefit from a new scientific or technological advance. Each progression brings new hopes and can always feed discussions, for example for those individuals involved in medical ethics, pollution, global warming, etc. Many people feel concerned and involved in these processes, through blogs on the Internet for example and provide comments, criticisms and free advice accordingly.
• – In contrast, people who initiate actions: decision makers, some scientists, etc. Human beings are typically fascinated by their influence, ambition, developments and discoveries. Some think they are able to control nature and regulate any deviation to protect humans and adapt it to our needs. In case of a natural disaster, they would feel responsible about human activities and their impacts on nature, such as global warming, ocean pollution, and so on; sometimes, they suggest a policy of zero economic growth. When an earthquake occurs, as in Haiti in 2010, they would say the time has come for humanity to pay for its misconducts and impose its repentance on others.

These attitudes are pretentious and ingenuous: such thinking ignores the power and capacity of evolution in nature. We have to control any attitude of “sardonic nihilism” since self-organization will help in self-regulating the system under study. Again, it is an unethical attitude.

6.2.3. Example 3: ethics, risks and uncertainties in the economy

Every day we are discovering how systems are interconnected and interrelated. The evolution of our planet, where everything is interacting with everything, is such that the world is getting “smarter and smaller”. Smarter in that it is becoming more sophisticated, able to emulate the brain’s abilities as a human being, and smaller in the sense that the dimensions of space–time are reduced in size.

Some of these connections and interactions are the result of human activity, which not only created diversification thanks to imagination and could integrate innovations in many technological, economic and natural systems, but also created some disequilibria, pollution, damages, etc. If we are subject to an earthquake, a power plant could be destroyed following the ensuing tsunami (e.g. in Japan): the consequences are many and can be analyzed in a global way in terms of flows of products and information, risks, etc.

On both the above sides of any organizational or entrepreneurial hierarchy, a human being remains proud and cocky but also disturbed, superstitious and religious. At the same time, we are interested in everything related to the survival of our species, its evolution or extinction. This is the reason why management will appear so vague and uncertain. Besides, about the survival issue – which is a specific factor of sustainability – what can we say about the loss of the human species? What are the direct or indirect impacts? Some considerations are as follows:

• – For some, 2012 was to be a collapse, the end of the world – this statement being a factual interpretation coming from the Mayan calendar (although recently this interpretation changed again!).
• – Every day, lots of people living in developed countries are talking about saving the planet and humankind.
• – When an accident or disaster occurs, and for whatever reason, we collectively try to find and understand its associated causes and we look toward legislating and preventing any future occurrence, following a “never again” statement.
• – As part of our collective life and consciousness, we speak in terms of “citizenship and moral crisis” or the loss of ethics and moral values in younger generations.
• – Lastly, the so-called crisis of modern capitalism and profit-oriented businesses are, for some, the source of all ills, inequities and deviances in our society.

There are two possible interpretations, more or less ethical:

1. 1) That these approaches are a way not to manage the risk but to reject it. This is a management attitude which could conduct a better control of the population by generating fears and bids to extend a better political grip, finally enslaving a population.
2. 2) Alternatively, a more human-centric approach relevant to a selfish ideology and Promethean philosophy says that human beings need to be comforted through the development of an easier way of life. Such individualism is a societal fact, people are inherently selfish and altruistic as well: they want more security, safety and risk prevention. Here, the “precautionary principle” applies, sometimes excessively. We have to keep in mind, however, that the suppression of any risk will translate into the end of some adaptation capabilities and limit the diversification of the species.

Consequently, this second assumption can be interpreted as being on the way to the death of a civilization, an enterprise or any kind of organization. Thus, as well as the “Greedy Attitude” there arises the concept of the “Green Attitude”: preventing the fulfilment of our fears about the evolution of our environment. In each above case, everything starts with good intentions and a collective consciousness, moves forward with more and more ideology or dogmatism and finally ends with business or any external domination under the pretext of bringing either more freedom or help and release.

As we see, an evolution always happens in approaches and goals pursued either by individuals or by “strong” management, which stems from our contradictory behaviors since we are, at the same time in our life, both producers and consumers. We want:

• – to get lower energy prices for movement and travel but to reduce energy pollution;
• – to secure our product supply chain in order not to change our habits and not to be in a situation of shortage but to face neither the energy problem nor the delocalization of our supply of components;
• – nuclear power plants to run a razor or hair dryer at the lowest cost but we are against nuclear risks;
• – wealth and jobs to be maintained or created but with a fair distribution of wealth, no excessive profits and more flexibility;
• – to agree on the creation of new ideas and ways of governance but with the co-existence of different ways of living, without either changing the old ones or continuing to think and believe as done previously.

COMMENTS.– All these above examples fall under people’s hedonistic pressure: to want everything faster and cheaper! Indeed, hedonism argues that happiness is the main good we are looking for; the aim is to maximize a net pleasure. In ethical hedonism, the idea is that people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them and to bypass any amount of pain. When faced with a huge difficulty, hedonism is certainly not the appropriate and ethical approach.

However, we have to keep in mind that we are surrounded by a nonlinear dynamic system (that is all too common in nature: a plant, the weather, a population behavior, etc.); the same phenomenon is observed: a stable or steady stage is never permanent. As soon as a given “order” is reached, a disturbance or disruption may occur which leads to “chaos” in the sense of systems complexity, followed by a self-organization mechanism from which a new order can then emerge.

In regards to situations presently observed in our society, after a period of order or steady economic growth (usually comforting and profitable) and a period of technological advance (more oriented toward well-being), we dread any disarray or change. An excessive attitude far from the cardinal virtues may subject these virtues to abuses or misuses. Here, after a catastrophe, we can easily detect what is wrong when a decision is taken: it is always easier to observe what is non-ethical. In contrast, it is not possible to determine what ethical behavior should be implemented to avoid such a disruption or to better monitor and control such a complex system.

This is why ethics has to be introduced in the very first moments of the monitoring and control of the PLM.

6.3.1. Example 4: social relationships and the “Inclusive society”

Around us, there are a lot of people who know what exclusion means. Is it ethical to live in an exclusive world? Here, we will review and adapt some concepts developed under the paradigm of so-called “inclusive fitness” as defined by bio-sociologists and we will develop these notions through a well-known area: aging.

What are the links between aging, eusociality and inclusivity? During trips to Africa, South America and Haiti, I was required to help in implementing a new set of relationships in order to develop an “inclusive society”. Briefly, eusociality is essential for developing “inclusive societies” because of its three characteristics that allow the assimilation of different groups of the population and their development in a consistent way, that is to say by propagating moral values and basic references.

As a reminder, eusociality results from a high level of organization. It is common to living communities. It is defined as a cooperative brood mode of life (including brood care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups (speciation) within a living society (animal or human), which are sometimes called “castes”.

Eusociality has to be distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform at least one behavioral characteristic of individuals in another caste: this is what we observe with corporativism, a sociopolitical organization of a society by major interest groups. It is very common on the Web to build-up social or vocational groups, architects, developers, agricultural businesses, ethnic, military, scientific affiliations etc. on the basis of common skills and interests. Such communities are very comfortable and useful but individualistic and closed in terms of objectives and ROI. So we have to be very careful, as eusociality contributes to unethical behaviors quickly.

Eusociality is a more global approach than one only based on cooperation. Indeed project managers in enterprises mostly focus on “cooperation” in their methodological approaches. It is a good intention but in sufficient because cooperation is mainly used for sharing means and resources (and is not synergy-oriented since our education system is often geared toward selection and competition). For that purpose, we will come back to the so-called “inclusive fitness” well studied in sociology. Two characteristics are often notified:

1. 1) Altruism is part of inclusive fitness: natural selection can perpetuate altruism. If there is an “altruism gene” (or complex of genes) that influences an organism’s behavior toward being helpful and protective of relatives and their offspring, this behavior also increases the proportion of the altruism gene in the population because relatives are likely to share genes with the altruist due to common descent. This can quickly happen since the crossing over of chromosomes fosters mutation, then diversification. We have to specify that altruism is often kin selection and oriented toward survival (following the prisoner’s dilemma, based on the long-term benefits of cooperating and the reduction of selfish behaviors).
2. 2) Inclusive fitness and parental care: parental investment (parental care) contributes to inclusive fitness. The distinctions between the kind of beneficiaries nurtured (collateral vs. descendant relatives) and the kind of finesses used (inclusive vs. personal) are orthogonal concepts. This type of care is well known by those who are working in complex organizations: in order to make hiring easier, and to facilitate the integration of newcomers, an experienced mentor will be assigned and help them in their first steps; thus, some mistakes can be avoided and learning will be faster.

In addition, we will quote Dozier [DOZ 02] who thinks that war is a stupid thing and states that the two main causes of such a problem are Fear and Hate. We can relate and develop this as follows:

1. 1) The chain moves from fear → violence → hate. “Fear” must be fought through its antagonistic value or virtue which is called “courage” or “fortitude”. It is one among the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage). “Cardinal” comes from the Latin cardo or hinge; these cardinal virtues are so called because they are hinges upon which the door of the moral life swings. They were initially defined by Plato in his Protagoras and also include piety (hosiotes).
2. 2) “Hate”, even related to fear, is antagonistic to “love”. Here, we are addressing some of the theological values (which are Faith, Hope and Charity or Love).

These observations are very important: they mean that to adequately control and manage a complex system, and to improve it (within the framework of a consistent evolution), some qualitative approaches based on cooperation, altruism and mentoring are necessary. However, these characteristics are tactical and organizational ones. A “good” management also requires more spiritual and religious thinking (in the general sense of the terms) in order to adopt specific attitudes in agreement with the “seven virtues” as described previously by Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato; indeed, they have to be adjusted or reactivated according to the dominant religion where we stand. It may be a problem since some countries where we are doing business are either secular or only influenced by religion.

At this point, we should keep in mind the works of mathematician René Thom [THO 82] who developed catastrophe theory a differential topology which is a subset of bifurcation theory that aims at building a simple model able to study a set of discontinuous phenomena. It motivates a qualitative approach to explain how solutions and behavior depend on the number of parameters they contain. The term “disaster” refers to the place where a function abruptly changes shape: it is called a singularity and corresponds to a paradigm change. This theory represents a very important advance in mathematics and nonlinear dynamic systems, as it enables us to understand how sustainability can be handled in complex systems.

Another comment related to the necessity of eusociality for moving toward a more inclusive society: are human beings eusocial?

The answer is quite clear: no! Humans, as for birds, insects, animals, etc. have presocial behaviors. Presociality is a phenomenon in which animals exhibit more than just sexual interactions with members of the same species but fall short of qualifying as eusocial. That is, human beings can display communal living, cooperative care of young, or primitive, conventional and reproductive divisions of labor. Generally, they do not display at the same time and in an integrated way the three criteria required by eusociality:

• – Overlap of adult generations, or experienced people and workers with beginners.
• – Reproductive division of labor and workers; task assignment by clusters according to skill and affinity.
• – Cooperative (rather than individual) care of the young population (or newly hired people).

Again, in order to be more precise, this presociality can be split into two categories:

• – Subsociality, which means that old employees in a company interact with recently hired people or beginners (like in a family, when parents interact with young children) but there is not a permanent and real overlap.
• – Parasociality, where groups of individuals within the same generation or possessing similar skills live in a single, cooperative dwelling/colony or corporation and interact with each other within this brood. By brood, we mean a social family or social network developed through the Internet. In such organizations, there is no corporate structure or clusters involving novices and experts together, sharing professional or ethical values and learning through mutualism.

As we can see, human beings are not “eusocial beings” and are not ready for implementing the precepts of inclusive society especially when finance (in reference to the greedy attitude) shows its face to us. This is a normal fact since eusociality is not a genetic predisposition: to have people and workers more eusocially oriented and permanently motivated in such areas, the implementation of a cultural approach involving young and old employees, is mandatory.

In addition, the advantage of intergenerational involvement (or diversified intergroup involvement) is obvious: a greater duration of companionship, intergenerational support and interaction to promote reciprocal influences and an emphasis on complementary relationships such as competition or cooperation as appropriate. The nature of these exchanges varies at different stages of the life course and modifies the challenges related to the speciation and distribution of skills, decision power and domination in the economic field [LOR 06].

6.3.2. The challenge of aging in a company or in our society: proper ethics?

The management of the problems related to aging is a typical study in which ethics is a necessary approach to enabling population inclusivity. Aging of a population often leads to exclusion of a target population from a global society.

Aging not only involves old people versus babies and young people. Aging is encountered in any enterprise where experienced people are sometimes fired just because their salary becomes too high compared to the short term and reduced objectives assigned to them. We cannot easily imagine a company whose vision is short-sighted, where employees cannot benefit from the skills and experiences of older workers. Indeed, aging and intergenerational structures are necessary since they enable people to share and experience various events and stories which can contribute to the development of the so-called “cognitive assets” of a company. These are characterized by:

• – a collective storage/memory at level of strategy, know-how, processes and products;
• – a strong sense of belonging which is very important in terms of “company culture”;
• – common organizational values and references;
• – common moral and “cardinal” virtues: courage (strength), justice (fairness), prudence (wisdom), temperance (restraint), etc.

In terms of meta-governance, the issues of the inclusive society and citizen management are frequently spoken of. Top-level managers abide by them but being governed by finance they have progressively excluded the intergenerational phenomenon. More and more in the future, the objective will not be to dispose of aging populations or to transfer the full responsibility of aging people to governments but to responsibly integrate both old and young people, productive and nonproductive people, direct and indirect work forces, men and women, top-down and bottom-up processes, etc.

This kind of overlapping is fertile. It is a cultural foundation:

• – An inclusive society for all ages and skills allows you to see life as a whole and to make it sensible in a continuous way.
• – The interdependence of age brackets is a response to changes in society, to family breakdowns and reconstructions, to the crisis of social cohesion, to the decline of institutions and to the competitivity of companies by offering the best inter-social and global solutions.

It is also a whole set of moral values and assets:

• – to fight against stereotypes of aging and the loss or alienation of skills;
• – to develop the skills, wealth and know-how of each person;
• – to transfer technologies and experience;
• – to promote participation and motivation of complementary skills;
• – to achieve solidarity between generations and/or groups of workers;
• – to fight against the isolation and depression of aging people;
• – to develop dialogue and facilitate information exchange within an organization;
• – to develop reciprocity and breakthroughs: each one takes and brings back different data. Intergenerational actions are not just intended for the old but also for everybody;
• – to attain cardinal and theological values essential for inclusivity.

At last, to summarize what is said about the presociality of human beings:

• – Eusociality is an improvement process, a way of thinking, a finality.
• – It is a path to better efficiency and effectiveness.
• – It is a way to more solidarity, respect and inclusivity. Indeed, solidarity must be global, not considered as assistance, charity, etc. It is just a question of the performance of duty in our society.
• – It is a perpetual challenge.

As of today, in industry and commercial organization, eusociality is not yet a fashionable word, even if some aspects related to it have existed for a long time: in the past, intergenerational interaction and overlapping existed in a natural way.

Eusociality is beneficial for all generations of people, workers, skills sets, etc. It is essential to live according to normal life standards, to feel alive and to feel useful. This is much better than implementing practices where any extraordinary or non-standard people are excluded: being in an excluding society is the worst degradation.

There is no alternative because in our age of productivity, with the rise of individualism and the importance of the “greed attitude”, a lot of deviances appear: our concept of society is itself aging! We cannot continue to ask about the predominant role of the nation or government, which is becoming more and more important every day: it is a welfare nation providing social assistance, pensions and allowances, organization and management of collective accommodations for an elderly society! It overrides family solidarity but does not develop the social responsibilities of anyone.

In any enterprise, the goal of the decision makers (in addition to the usual objectives to be reached) is to:

• – implement the means of the revitalization of family ethics and society values capable of developing solidarity and collective intelligence;
• – support linkages and understand what has to be fostered between generations of people, skills and workers, to achieve the optimal performance of duty;
• – build interactions and bridges between generations, a mesh of solidarity and cooperation in order to get an inclusive society;
• – fight against stereotypes by developing the skills of each age and, additionaly, enabling the ability to better switch to new paradigms.

6.4.1. Ethics and virtues: a reminder

A “virtue” may be defined as a habit of mind (animi) in harmony with reason and the order of nature. It is of key importance since it has an influence on the mind of a decision maker.

According to Aristotle (384–322 BC), disciple of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great: “Virtue is essentially that in and through which a human makes himself superior to destiny, through the control of his passions and the exploitation of his consciousness and capability to evaluate options for any action or decision”.

In the following we will remind ourselves of some notions related to cardinal virtues and theological virtues.

1. 1) The cardinal virtues comprise a set of four virtues, which consist of the following qualities:
   • – Prudence: also described as wisdom, the ability to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time.
   • – Justice: also considered as fairness, the most extensive and most important virtue, the Greek word also having the meaning of righteousness and harmony.
   • – Temperance: also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, discretion and moderation; tempering the appetite or addiction, especially of one’s desire, hence the meaning of chastity.
   • – Courage: also termed fortitude, forbearance, strength, endurance and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty and intimidation.

This group of four virtues was first reported by Pythagoras during his trip to the Middle-Eastern countries, further described by Socrates, then highlighted by Plato and his disciple Aristotle. Here, we refer to the works and writings of Plato: specifically his Republic, written around 380 BCE, on the topic “justice” in the business and politics of a city. Behind the word “justice”, there are the characteristics of the “just city-state” and the “just man”. These cardinal virtues are tied to Western philosophy and political theory. Initially, there was no religious overtone and the ranking of these virtues was as follows: (1) prudence, (2) temperance, (3) justice and (4) courage.

In reporting and writing his discussions, Plato defines some qualities we can attribute to a decision maker. “Clearly, it will be wise, brave, temperate [literally: healthy-minded], and just”¹. In addition, temperance is common to all classes but primarily associated with the producing classes, farmers and craftsmen, and with the animal appetites to which no special virtue is assigned; fortitude and courage are assigned to the warrior class and to the spirited element in man; prudence to the rulers and to reason. Lastly, justice stands outside the caste system and the divisions of society and rules the proper relationship among the three of them.

The cardinal virtues form some of the constitutive elements we will find in the ethical rules applied in a company or business. There are of course adaptations specific to the contexts: according to the type of organization considered, the objectives pursued, the corporate culture, the sensitivity of the manager etc., different variants will appear but the fundamental components are invariant.

1. 2) The three theological virtues are:
   • – Faith: belief in God and in the so-called “truth”.
   • – Hope: the expectation and desire of receiving; refraining from despair and the capability to not give up. It is the belief that God, or Nature (for a non-religious person), will be eternally present in every human’s life and that one should never give up on His love.
   • – Charity: a supernatural virtue that helps us love God and our neighbors more than ourselves.

The theological virtues are so named because their object is the divine being (theos). They help individuals grow in their relationship with God and other people or with any living creature on our planet.

As is often said, nature is based on dialogic processes: the presence of ambivalences is a common fact and any situation will be the result of tiny equilibria. Therefore, a virtue is always counterbalanced by a vice, a perfection, a defect, etc. For each theological virtue, an opposite (a vice) can be defined:

• – Lack of faith may give way to incredulity, atheism, agnosticism, apostasy, etc.
• – Lack of hope may give way to despair or an attitude motivated by derision and selfishness.
• – Lack of love may give way to hate, anger or indifference.

6.4.2. Ethics, virtue and corporate culture in a company

Here, considering the religious or non-religious environments in our society, we have to outline that in large companies or organizations, theological virtues are those we try to develop to reinforce employees commitment to a brand, their motivation, their keen sense of responsibility and loyalty to the company, etc.

To achieve that goal we will call for so-called corporate culture, or organizational culture in the context of organizational behavior. This is a set of particular elements that explain the basis of an organization’s (private or public) configuration, how we have to work together. It is, in a sense, a set of values, symbols and signs shared by the majority of stakeholders involved in a business. It can also be defined as the set of rules and procedures of an organization (a private enterprise, a public administration, etc.) that everybody will use.

As the most common way of dealing with entrepreneurial problems, and to convey these above values, is “corporate culture” we have to define this concept. The 1987 IBM internal policies defines it as follows: “Corporate culture characterizes a company and distinguishes it from others, in its appearance and, above all, in its ways of reacting to current situations in the life of the company such as dealing with a market, setting its standard of efficiency or dealing with Problems.”.

Corporate culture has the property of being the most shared and least formalized thing. In the world of formalization, the use of informal and unstructured values is of key importance: the “informal” eludes us when it is a true differentiation from competitors. One of the methods for adhesion to a market requires the call for a set of ways of thinking and acting, a set of explicit or implicit rules, a mode of cohesion and coherence that allows an organization to operate and develop. This task will be easier if we are able to show some faith, hope and love to the basics of the enterprise.

6.6.1. Consequence and aggregation of the concepts of ethics

Through this above example, we understand why many large companies develop the so-called “Entrepreneurial Organizational Culture” (EOC).

Stephen McGuire [MCG 03] defined and validated a model of organizational culture that predicts revenue from new sources. An Entrepreneurial Organizational Culture (EOC) is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of the members of an organization, including valuing creativity and tolerance of creative people; believing that innovation and the seizing of market opportunities are appropriate behaviors to deal with problems of survival and prosperity, environmental uncertainty, and competitors’ threats; and expecting organizational members to behave accordingly.

6.6.2. Elements involved in a corporate ethics

• – People- and empowerment-focused;
• – value creation through innovation and change;
• – attention to the basics;
• – hands-on management;
• – doing the right thing;
• – freedom to grow and to fail;
• – commitment and personal responsibility;
• – emphasis on the future.

We can quote [STA 17] on this issue:

“Corporate culture has been conceptualized in many ways. N.K. Sethia and Mary Ann Von Glinow proposed two basic dimensions to describe an organization’s culture:

1. 1) Concern for people: the organization’s efforts to care for its employees’ well-being.
2. 2) Concern for performance: the organization’s efforts to focus on output and employee productivity.

Four organizational cultures can be classified as apathetic, caring, exacting and integrative:

• – an apathetic culture shows minimum concern for either people or performance;
• – a caring culture exhibits high concern for people but minimum concern for performance issues;
• – an exacting culture shows little concern for people but a high concern for performance;
• – an integrative culture combines a high concern for people and performance.

Companies can formalize their corporate culture and identify their specific values, norms, beliefs and customs by conducting a cultural audit. The cultural audit is an assessment of organization’s values. According to some sources, the an audit can be performed by outside consultants, but may also be performed internally”.

6.7. Ethics and the Rotary culture

In the Rotary culture, it is usual to say: “in right there is might” and the main principle is to do our best to always be right, then to provide a “service” relevant to a given ethics.

In industry, there are many codes of ethics but they are diverse, too complicated, almost impossible to memorize and impractical: it is obvious that we cannot yet model (with the available technologies) the cognitive, psychic and unstructured information associated with our consciousness.

To measure how we can efficiently “serve”, a simple measuring stick of ethics has been defined that everyone in the organization can quickly memorize. It is called the “4-Way” test; it does not tell our people what they must do but asks them questions which would make it possible for them to find out whether their proposed plans, policies, statements or actions are right or wrong.

The 4-Way test is also a way to develop respect and understanding among peoples. Indeed, in any circumstances, everywhere and whatever the subject matter considered, we can check our thoughts, words, talk, decisions, actions and deeds with it.

The Rotary measuring stick of ethics was formalized in July 1932. This simple guide enables us to evaluate the things we think, say or do as follows:

• – Is it the truth?
• – Is it fair to all concerned?
• – Does it promote good will and better friendship?
• – Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

The 4-Way test is now being used successfully around the world in businesses, governments and schools as an effective measuring stick for conduct. It is a guide to right thinking that every Rotarian can apply in their daily activities.

If memorized and constantly applied to relations with others, it will make a definite contribution toward more effective and friendlier relationships. Also, the experience of others has shown that it will help you become more happy and successful.

In parallel, we have to note that a new and additional way of thinking is under deployment within the Rotary organizations. It is intended to support their development (as said in previous sections, the notions of ethics can be shaped according to an objective, for instance resilience or innovation).

In this study, we can summarize the numerous guidelines issued from many Rotary Clubs as follows:

• – Guidance can be associated either directly or indirectly with the existing organizational culture.
• – A healthy and robust organizational culture is based on the globalization of the structure and its adaptation to many cultures and innovative challenges.
• – To continue championing the Rotary philosophy and development, we can include the following elements of action:
  • - competitive edges derived from five innovative and active “global service” areas;
  • - consistent, efficient membership performance;
  • - team cohesiveness and high member morale;
  • - strong Rotary alignment toward achievement of goals. In this scope, it is “leadership” that affects the organizational culture rather than “management”.

Indeed, when we want to change an aspect of the culture of an organization, we have to keep in mind that this is a long-term project. Everybody knows that a new or adapted corporate culture is always very hard to change: people are reluctant to changes and they need time to get used to new ways of organizing and acting.