The mutual and integral relationship between a firm's culture and its business ethic with regard to organisational sustainability

In recognising the mutual, and integral, relationship that exists between a firm's culture and its business ethic, opportunities for the direction, and manipulation, of culture in order to form a desirable state of business ethic within organisations become apparent. In this paper, Robinson's Values Journey Model is presented to enable identification of organisational cultural orientation, predict developmental outcomes, and help determine preventative actions required to ensure the healthy, and principled, development pathway for an organisation. Abstraction of model phases leads to organisational characteristic states of mad, bad, and sad, which correlates with pathological conditions of type A, B, and C. Scenarios that represent organisations belonging to each state and suffering from its associated pathological condition are illustrated, with examples of organisational activities required to rectify the condition provided. The application of this model can enable an organisation that finds itself in a perplexing state of disorder to recognise detrimental behaviours and enact changes to restore organisational wellbeing and facilitate a transition into a more composed, productive, ethical, and sustainable, enterprise.