OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

My situation is of my current employer a commercial HVAC company here in the valley

we will call them “Cool AC”. Cool AC was originally apart of a parent company who we
ill call Chill AC. Well in 2015 Chill AC was a company of around 200 plus employees
operating throughout the southwest and decided to sell a large portion of their company,
at this time Cool AC was formed and split off from chill ac. This resulted in many of the
employees who were at chill ac for 10-20 years to suddenly shift to a much smaller
organizational structure as they were now a company of 10-15. I am now a project
coordinator for a new division within Cool AC and the company is currently
experiencing major growth as we are now up to roughly 200 employees headquartered in
Phoenix but spanning the southwest. This internal role has allowed me quite a bit of
insight as I am first hand experiencing a cultural shift in the organization to a more
structured corporate environment. I will be observing the shift in this culture within the
organization throughout the remainder of this course

2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

Ethics are prevalent throughout business, and cool ac is no exception. As we see in this
situation, the continued growth of the organization poses many challenges and in order to
overcome these issues and set yourself up for sustainable success you must view ethics as
a top priority. From hiring to supporting employees it is important that they are treated
with respect and that no divisions grow as some parts of the company may be more
profitable due to the natures of their product. Also when establishing higher workloads or
taking on more complex projects acting in good faith has bought cool a quite a bit of
leeway with some of our more trusted contractors. This is huge because as with any
young company you can surely expect a few missteps and growing pains along the way.

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 Overall I believe that ethics have been pivotal in cool ac being able to reach and sustain
the multi branch level of growth they have achieved. I know for a fact that when I was
going through my hiring process the ethical way the company hiring board displayed
their character to me was a huge differentiator and a main reason in me choosing to work
with them. This is a sentiment I see often repeated, and by those who have been here
some time they point to this as the standard in this organization as opposed to the
exception. This ethical mind set is important as cool ac vets potential employees and
teaches many of them fresh out of college how to navigate the corporate landscape.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

The ethical community which I would choose to apply is almost certainly in place already
at cool ac but it is one I would double down on, this will be the Family. What stands out
to me about this is the emphasis put on caring and love. By this I think that we could
further benefit from growing the younger generation of oworkers in this company into a
community which sets a precedent of valuing and caring for our collective well beings.
This is something that starts at the top as is the case at cool ac by having servant leaders
display and normalize this kind of care for their employees which may then trickle down
and make for a great working environment.
Allowing for love and caring to be a mainstay within the organization you may then
come to grow a culture which is predicated on doing right by one another. In my opinion
this is the trajectory we may already be on but it is easy to veer off as the work required
to maintain this can be quite daunting. Displaying a family culture is something that I
believe has prevented turnover as many of the employees who are around from the split
have been there 10-20 years and in the case of my manager she has been with the
organization 23 years with a break in there somewhere to pursue other ventures. This is
all to say that an ethical community of caring does right by your people and helps make
you an organization worth working for!

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.

As stated above I do not think that there is much I would do differently had I been the
one in charge of overseeing this organizational growth. Leading and creating a great
culture is similar to a tall tree, by this I mean that no matter how green or how high the
tree top reaches you must build and maintain strong roots in order to keep the tree up and
alive. This is a great reflection of the ethical community displayed here at cool ac as they
are protecting their own roots and ensuring their rapid growth is fostered and cared for in
order to hold up in the long term.
What I do think I can do as opposed to doubling down or changing course from my
employers methods is to look at what I can learn from this situation and what

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 perspectives can be taken from my perspective on it. This would simply serve as a
reminder that in life and in business it is best to be yourself, and to surround yourself with
positive people who will care about your growth and their own. Overall it is yet to be
seen how this will all play out in the long run but I do believe that building an ethical
community which prides itself on family values as opposed to only speaking about them
is something that will resonate and empower employees.

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th  ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass