A major organisation has a major ethical failing. What do you expect/prefer to happen next?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Some major organisation, let’s say one that does a lot of things that are socially very useful, also has a history of egregious systemic failure in some aspect of their ethical behaviours (we’ll have an example in a moment, but I want to ask the question first).

What do you expect to happen next? Is reform good enough? If they say they want to reform, will you believe it? (and what factors might affect that belief or disbelief?)
Should they be made to disband? And if the latter, what of the loss of those services that were not part of the bad side of the organisation?

What should happen to such an organisation?

An example of such an organisation is the Salvation Army. A church that provides a lot of vital support to homeless people, well, some of them - because the Sally Ann has a pretty terrible track record of interaction (or maybe non-interaction through shunning) of LGBT+ people.
Given that it’s a Victorian offshoot of the Christian church, it’s not a massive surprise that this would have been so, but of course such prejudice in action is not acceptable.

Apparently as a response to the realisation that this is unacceptable, they have published an inclusion statement/policy that appears to earnestly reject their former behaviours and, as an organisation that styles itself as a pseudo-military entity, perhaps it is reasonable to expect that the policy will be enforced with discipline and rigour. Time will tell, I suppose.

Now I realise that one possible answer here is ‘religion sucks, therefore it should not exist, therefore of course they should disband’ - and that’s a valid point of view, but I think it’s maybe outside of the scope of the question I want to ask here, because, let’s say it wasn’t the Salvation Army, but was instead some completely secular or commercial or governmental body, that had some entrenched ethical failing - would the immediate question of ‘what now?’ have a different answer?
I think maybe it would depend more on how big is the problem in relation to the total function of the organisation. If it’s an organisation that exists for the purpose of being awful, then it’s obvious that it should be shut down. If it’s an organisation that ostensibly exists for the purpose of uplifting humanity, but it fails egregiously on one area, what should happen next?

2

The cynic in me says if it’s not illegal, nothing will happen.

3

The other possibility is a groundswell of public opinion that interferes with the organization’s mission (i.e., “PR disaster”). But that doesn’t happen often, especially in a manner that doesn’t involve some degree of lawbreaking.

4

I’m pretty cynical myself but what moves private companies, besides profit, is public opinion. If they are caught in a systemic unethical practice and this is made public (this is a major reason to have independent thriving media), and if there is universal opprobrium, then I would hope and prefer to see some substantive 1. apology and 2. change.

Generally they hope that some corporate-speak handwaving is sufficient without any change, of course, and that’s what I expect. Not prefer.

If the expected nothing changes occurs, then what I hope is that the CEO is visited by three ghosts on successive nights. Each more terrifying than the last.

5

What happens next depends very much on what kind of body it is. For profit-driven entities, government entities, or non-profits and NGOs, you would apply different levers of force. These levers include public opinion, moral suasion, and legal recourse, depending on circumstances.

Also “what should happen” to this entity is a different consideration from “how should I personally react.”

6

Please feel free to discuss that too - I think it fits here.

7

Some of you may remember it:

Jerry Sandusky, an assistant football coach at Penn State University, headed an organization to help troubled youth and their families: the Second Mile. Sandusky turned out to be a pedophile and had gotten some of his victims via Second Mile. The University knew about it but covered it up. The University had to pay a lot of money, famed football coach Joe Paterno got fired and the Second Mile was shut down after its programs were transferred to other organizations.

8

That’s an interesting case, and in that context, it seems appropriate that it was shut down - if the figurehead/founder of the organisation taints the whole thing.

But in general, I think organisations are potentially more redeemable than individual humans - because organisations can fire people and can impose decisive change to the way they behave, in a way that individual humans cannot (or at least do not, always).

9

So … I really dislike the salvation army on a lot of levels, but looking beyond that, to your general question…

I believe that organizations can change. I saw my employer go from homophobic to supportive of sexual minorities in a couple of years. In that case, it was mostly due to the retirement of the the CEO and the head of HR, but there are cases of people changing, too.

So i do believe that reform can be good enough, but I’m general, I’m sceptical about reform.

In practice, there are some retail companies that have been boycotted for things that bother me, have made changes to those things, and that I’ve resumed buying from. I feel like there ought to be a carrot as well as a stick.

Still, it’s easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk.

10

Keeping specifically to the Salvation Army example given.

I personally don’t do anything to help homeless people. I do vote for local politicians that at least support some sort of assistance, but that’s probably coincidental to my general liberal voting pattern.

So it’s hard for me to tell the Salvation Army they have an ethical failing. I don’t know exactly what the positive things they do are. Soup kitchens, shelters? But I, personally, don’t feed or house any homeless people.

On a philosophical grounds I guess any charity that has conditions required, such as you must reject homosexuality and accept Jesus Christ, isn’t really a charity. They are coercing people. Starving? Want some food? Ok well after Church we are going to give away some food.

Terrorist/Militias sometimes take on a de facto government role in an area they control. Of course obedience is required of the population.

So I guess I don’t know where I’d draw the line between the Salvation Army and Hezbollah.

11

For me it depends on how the organization reacts. Do they issue the standard statement about their high ethical values, and do nothing? Or does the person responsible resign or be fired with no benefit package. If the culture of the organization is tied to the offense, I’m not going to believe they will change.
In the Bay Area there was a scandal with United Way. The first company I worked for when I moved out here didn’t seem to care, and I was stuck doing soliciting with lots of pressure. The CEO of the company I moved to didn’t want anything to do with them because of the scandal. I can understand that.

12

If an organization has genuinely changed for the better, then what’s the point in shutting them down? Who benefits from that?

13

I tend to agree. Also, it’s probably better to keep them in the light and hold them accountable to their new found principles than it is to scatter them to the winds.

14

I think the operative word is not “has” (has a pretty terrible track record ) but “had”.

And if it is 'ethical" and not 'illegal" then nothing really bad should happen.

But that’s is the point- a company/org is not doing well on some issue. They repent, and reform. But it doesnt matter. The Internet will damn them for all eternity.

Kinda says to me- why even bother repenting and reforming if you are gonna be damned forever.

Lots of things-

Disaster relief

Youth groups

Work against exploitation. - combating slavery and human trafficking.

Covid relief.

and more.

The Salvation Army does not have those conditions.

Exactly.

But the internet never forgets.

15

‘Track record’ is past performance by definition. ‘Has’ is correct.

‘Had’ might imply that the track record is lost or gone.

16

Reform is good enough if there is actual change, not merely a concept of a plan to change.

This means if processes are bad, they need to be changed before the org is considered reformed. If people are bad, they need to visibly, genuinely change or get out.

As for services rendered by a bad org - IME, the world doesn’t lack do-gooder orgs. Resources should just go to a different org.

17

I retired from the largest healthcare system in Memphis five years ago. They are non-profit and affiliated with the United Methodist church. A year before I retired, a local reporter did an extensive investigation into the collections practices they used. The system owned a collection agency and patients were being aggressively harassed, wages were being garnished and they were being taken to court in large numbers. Most of those people lived at or below the poverty level. Many of those people were actual employees of the system.

When the story came out, it was a huge scandal. They had sued over 8000 people in the last five years. Many of the patients owed over twice their original bill due to interest and attorney fees. It was shameful behavior and a shock to the employees since our “mission” and “guiding principles” were constantly being stressed by leadership who themselves could not live up to them.

Of course, there was no punishment that could be handed out because nothing they were doing was illegal, just unconscionable. And people couldn’t boycott them because most had no choice of providers in their employee sponsored insurance plans. Still, their reputation took a huge hit. There were apologies and a promise to reform procedures. And some of the most egregious cases were settled. To get back on the good side of the employees, they raised the minimum pay rate to $15 an hour and adjusted all hourly pay above that. But no one lost their job over it which just shows it was not an unknown issue and would have no doubt continued had they not been exposed.

The Nonprofit Hospital That Makes Millions, Owns a Collection Agency and Relentlessly Sues the Poor — ProPublica

18

To my ear, if you have (present tense) a track record, it implies that you are (likely) still doing something, and if you had (past sense) a track record, you did something before but are (probably) not doing it now.

Perhaps it’s a regional thing…

19

Absolutely. I work with a Scout troop, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, and some people who volunteered with that organization previously had serious ethical failings, to say it euphamistically.

The organization always had lofty ideals, but failed their membership. Today, it’s very different, as far as I can tell, youth protection is job #1.

The leadership of the organization decides what actions are allowed under the organization’s banner. In organizations with a large volunteer force like Scouting America and I assume the Salvation Army as well, enforcement can be slower as you don’t have a rigid hierarchy and threat of job dismissal. Volunteers can choose to do things “their way” until you forcibly eject them.

20

Maybe. I’ve always understood track record to mean past performance (possibly continuing up to some very recent point, but very much a term meaning ‘history of behaviour or performance’ - it doesn’t need additional specification to say that it is a thing that happened in the past).

If someone has a history of x, it means they did x in the past, possibly right up to now. Maybe it implies an expectation that they will continue, or haven’t stopped.

If someone had a history of x, that implies, to my ear, that the x behaviour already stopped, possibly for some time - they had a history of x, but [something changed], therefore ‘had’, not ‘has’.

The Salvation Army has not yet put its track record resoundly in the distant past, IMO.

Either way, it’s a bloody silly nitpick and this annoys me.