"The Ethics of Organizational Change" proposes a new model for companies with complex legacies.

• The paper guides enterprises in rebuilding trust and demonstrating their commitment to change, addressing an environment skeptical of corporate intentions.

Why it's important: Change is coming — like it or not. Organizations today are in a churn of shifting markets and social expectations, and the stakes have never been higher.

From historic empires and foundational societies to the relentless pressures of today's cancel culture, the question looms: How can organizational change happen while keeping an ethical compass?

• In a climate that demands transparency, organizations must reconnect with their core values to drive meaningful change.

Two leading experts, David W. Miller, Ph.D., and Michael J. Thate, Ph.D., examine and explore organizational values, ethics, and leadership and how companies can manage large-scale change within this turbulent landscape.

• Their roadmap equips leaders with the tools to discern between genuine change and superficial gestures.

The results: Miller outlines a new model for change dubbed a Transformation Assessment Model (TAM) to help companies self-assess and help external stakeholders assess whether a company has authentically changed. The model includes:

• Believability: A company must be willing to be honest and self-critical, clear about its motivations for change, and transparent about its rationale and the context of its actions.
• Buy-in: There must be consensus about the change among stakeholders, as well as updated incentives and financial models that support the change.
• Barometers: A company must set milestones and thresholds to measure its progress against the proposed change.

How it's done: Stakeholders assess each characteristic or vector from within the organization as well as outside of it.

• All the way down: The vector applies within the company from the most senior executive to the most junior employee.
• All the way around: The vector is measured against the perspectives and expectations of external stakeholders.

The idea: The paper argues that our cultural propensity toward "canceling" a company for past harms is counterproductive. Its method calls for a more balanced approach that allows for authentic change.

In other words: "We need to develop more civilized redemption and restoration practices [than exclusionary cancel culture]," the report says.

• "Our proposed framework is an initial step toward a nobler criticism and a prosocial suspicion, both for those purporting to change…and those purporting to advocate for the public good."

Download the new white paper on organizational change.