An organization that practices "the organizational good" is one in which members are acculturated to behave morally according to specified principles. Various boards and CEOs may have different ideas of what these principles imply. Some CEOs doubt whether they can fully practice honesty, for example, and stay in business because they do not expect that their competitors will be honest. Other CEOs grow their business around principles of honesty and ethical behavior. Despite differences in their missions, organizations are moral agents. Organizations frame their mission statements, pledges to clients, and commitment to affirmative action, and hang them in their waiting rooms, but the morality of an organization is best seen in the behavior of the people who belong to it. An organization's good is what it is in practice. An organization's good is the fingerprint the organization wants to leave with the public. The locus of "good" in an organization involves standards of excellence, continuous improvement, and consistency in adherence to rules by everyone in the organization, how people perform their job, telling the truth, how people are treated, and the values underlying the organization's bottom line. 

J. Collier, in his article entitled “Theorizing the Ethical Organization” has expressed the essence of "the organizational good" - "good practice produces not only good products, but over time it also produces good people" "The organizational good" is the soul of an organization; it shouldn't change. Boards, CEOs and management teams can reinforce "the good", or destroy it.

"The organizational good" is composed of four major interacting components. First, the leadership of an organization must be people of character. Second, the leadership of the organization is responsible for a clear statement of the organization's virtues and its bottom line. Third, members observe and model leaders who walk their talk. Fourth, all members of the organization are behaviorally accountable for meeting the criteria of "the organizational good." No organization is ethically perfect; therefore it is an assumption of "the organizational good" that everyone in the organization can improve. The bottom line in the functioning of "the organizational good" is behavioral accountability along with other aspects of performance. This means that leaders and managers cannot soft pedal or be defensive about confronting behavioral accountability if the organization is to be what it says it is.

Results of a survey of Fortune 1000 industrial and service organizations showed that, while the majority of corporations had adopted ethics policies, there was a wide range in how these policies were implemented and supported by management. The vast majority of the companies were committed to a low cost, symbolic side of ethics management. Ethics management was usually delegated to Human Resources. Other studies have found that ethical issues are discussed more with fellow employees than with managers. How to communicate ethical values remains a serious and unresolved issue for most organizations. If the principles underlying "the organizational good" are not modeled at the top, and are not discussed and emphasized throughout the rank and file, they will not be believed and followed.