The subprime mortgage crisis from the perspective of the decade: contribution to the analysis of the role of organizational culture and ethical standards in the financial institutions management
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26485/SPE/2020/117/16Keywords:
globalization, ethic, cognitive moral development, Ordnungsethik, world economic crisis of 2007–2010Abstract
Background: From the perspective of the one decade anniversary, it seems worth looking at the 2007–2010 crisis from an axiological perspective and analysing the impact of the culture of an organization and ethics of its employees on the functioning of financial institutions in the situation of crisis.
Research purpose: The purpose of the study is to determine if the axiological crisis of financial institutions can be thought as a one of the most important origins of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Methods: The author conducted a conceptual analysis of the literature on the subject and interdependence analysis of the factors (organizational culture and ethical standards) in the context of the processes of liberalization and incomplete globalization as systemic causes of the crisis.
Conclusions: The 2007–2010 crisis was a crisis of trust in the financial system itself, caused by its common lack of ethics and the shock caused by the level of abuse gradually being revealed. It is possible to indicate the following factors connected with the role of ethics in managing financial institutions: 1) Organization culture: The dysfunctionality of many financial institutions seems to be conditioned by the dominating type of culture of the organization – an extreme form of the market culture, whose aim is to maximize profit in the short run and achieving stock exchange indicators satisfying the shareholders; 2) Ethics and morality of the people involved in finance: A special responsibility is placed on middle and upper-level managers, employees implementing the worked out solutions as well as on investors, who actively cocreate the strategy of functioning of those institutions. Progressive deregulation and liberalization of financial markets without providing the institutional basis for the creation and enforcement of global regulations and imposing boundary conditions that would provide protection against actions taken by dysfunctional institutions and their not always ethical employees can be the cause of the 2007–2010 crisis and subsequent ones. In addition to rebuilding the financial system in the spirit of Ordnungsethik, in order to create appropriate boundary conditions for the functioning of financial institutions, it also seems necessary to change the business ethics paradigm. The business ethics should promote specific patterns of activity and axiological assessment of the actions taken, their effects, as well as the leadership, the culture of the organization and its nature.
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