Lockheed Martin Code Of Ethics

Culture, Climate, and Ethics – Preliminary Summary

Introduction

Over the years, a number of companies have been implicated in business scandals involving issues such as stealing, cheating, violating company policy, or breaking the law. These scandals can ruin the reputation of an organization and cause the business to fail. The study of organizational behavior tells us that an organization’s culture and climate have a direct impact on the organization’s ethics. Currently, Lockheed Martin’s culture and climate contribute to a healthy and ethical environment. However, given current events the organization must continue to monitor key performance indicators and revise its ethics program as necessary.

Overview

Charles Glisson, PhD, a national

leader in assessing organizational culture and climate, defines organizational culture as, “the behavioral norms and expectations that characterize a work environment.” Organizational culture shapes the way employees approach their work and identify priorities. Organization climate, on the other hand, is the employees’, “shared perceptions of psychological impact of their work environment on their own personal well-being and functioning.” (Glisson, 2015). Finally, ethics is “the study of what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust.” (Clarke, 2011) As with other companies, Lockheed Martin’s culture, climate, and ethical environment directly impact the organization’s operations.
Lockheed Martin’s culture is one of performance. This culture enables Lockheed Martin to achieve excellent financial performance. Lockheed Martin aspires to maintain a healthy organizational climate. Without a healthy organizational climate, the corporation risks missing performance objectives and losing their talented workforce to competitors. Finally, Lockheed Martin deeply emphasizes ethics in all aspects of the organization, as ethics breaches could prevent the corporation from doing business.
Observations
Lockheed Martin possesses a performance-drive culture. That is easily identified by reviewing the organization’s mission, which is—in part—to solve complex challenges, advance scientific discovery and deliver innovative solutions. It is also identified in the corporation’s vision to, “Be the global leader…” Finally, that culture of performance is most easily identified as an attribute of the organization’s value to “Perform with Excellence.” This culture enables Lockheed Martin to achieve excellent financial performance.
It is evident that Lockheed Martin aspires to maintain a healthy work climate. The corporation’s values include respecting others. In addition, one of the core issues included in the organization’s sustainability report is employee wellbeing. Historically, the organization has been successful at maintaining workplace safety, creating an inclusive environment, and providing employees with the skills to achieve performance objectives. Creating a balanced organization climate enables Lockheed Martin’s workforce to achieve organization goals. Without a healthy climate, the corporation risks missing performance objectives and losing their highly skilled workforce to competitors.
Finally it is also evident that Lockheed Martin deeply emphasizes ethics in all aspects of the organization.

Ethics are woven into Lockheed Martin’s values (“Do What’s Right; Respect Others; Performance with Excellence), the corporation’s governance (Ethics and Sustainability Special Committees), employee satisfaction surveys, and performance objectives. Lockheed Martin clearly understands the consequence of not doing business ethically. In the case of Lockheed Martin, ethics violations could cause the corporation to lose its reputation, lose customers, incur large financial penalties, be debarred as a government contractor, and go out of

business.
Current Events
Recently, Lockheed Martin divested its Information Systems & Global Solutions business and acquired Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and integrated Sikorsky into its newly realigned Rotary, Missions, and Systems business. In the Human Side of Mergers and Acquisitions, Anthony Buono explains that following an acquisition the workforce may “often feel stressed, disoriented, frustrated, confused, or even frightened…On an organizational level, these feels are typically manifested in lowered commitment to productivity, increased dissatisfaction and disloyalty, high turnover among key managers…and, in general, a rise in dysfunctional work-related behaviors.” (Buono, 2003) These types of behaviors put organizations, such as Lockheed Martin at significant risk for ethical issues.
In addition, it is common knowledge that the workforce is changing. Baby Boomers are retiring and soon the Millennial Generation will make up the majority of the labor pool. In the Journal of Organizational Learning & Leadership, Farrell has reported that Millennial learns differently from earlier generations. Most notable are the Millennials preference to use technology and have structured, hands-on, interactive coursework and receive immediate feedback (Farrell & Hurt, 2014). The change in workforce composition may make it necessary for Lockheed Martin to reassess current training modules and make updates where necessary.
Recommendations
While Lockheed Martin has taken significant steps to ensure an ethical organization, leaders must remain cognizant of current events that can potentially impact the organization’s climate and take the appropriate action to mitigate risks when necessary.

In Lockheed Martin’s case, leadership must carefully analyze key performance indicators related to culture, climate, and ethics to ensure the current ethics program is still effective. After analyzing key performance indicators the corporation must take the appropriate action to mitigate any identified risks. The mitigation efforts could involve actions such as providing transformation leadership training, social-skills training (Cuadra-Peralta, 2017), fostering an environment where it is demonstrated that the organization cares about employees and their perceptions (Falke, 2004). In addition, the organization can promote work life balance, referring employees to Employee Assistance Programs, and increasing the promotion of the ethics program. Finally, the corporation should review and revise its current ethics training modules and resources as necessary to ensure the programs continued effectives given the changing

workforce.