Reinforcing Ethical Decision Making Through Organizational Structure

In this paper I examine how the constituent elements of a firm's organizational structure affect the ethical behavior of workers. The formal features of organizations I examine are the compensation practices, performance and evaluation systems, and decision-making assignments. I argue that the formal organizational structure, which is distinguished from corporate culture, is necessary, though not sufficient, in solving ethical problems within firms. At best the formal structure should not undermine the ethical actions of workers. When combined with a strong culture, however, the organizational structure may be sufficient in promoting ethical conduct. While helpful, ethics training and corporate codes are neither necessary nor sufficient in promoting ethical behavior within firms.     

Staff Attitudes to Talking Openly About Ethical Dilemmas: The Role of Business Ethics Conceptions and Trust

To ensure ethical employee behavior, companies often utilize several forms of mostly one-way communication such as codes of conduct. The extent to which these efforts, in addition to informing about the company stance on ethics, are able to positively influence behavior is disputed. In contrast, research on business ethics communication and behavior indicates a relatively clear, positive link between open workplace dialogue about ethical issues and ethical conduct. In this article, I therefore address the question: What influences employee attitudes to talking openly about ethical issues? Answers are proposed on the basis of focus group interviews with staff at the Denmark and Brazil affiliates of the global healthcare company Novo Nordisk. It was found that interest in discussing ethical issues was influenced by two main factors: employee conceptualizations of business ethics and the level of inter-collegial trust, credibility, and confidence. In this article, by examining these phenomena, I aim at providing insight that can both inform scholars in these fields as well as help managers in their attempts to promote open workplace dialogue about ethical issues.     

Ethical Codes of Conduct and Organizational Context: A Study of the Relationship Between Codes of Conduct, Employee Behavior and Organizational Values

Codes of ethics are being increasingly adopted in organizations worldwide, yet their effects on employee perceptions and behavior have not been thoroughly addressed. This study used a sample of 613 management accountants drawn from the United States to study the relationship between corporate and professional codes of ethics and employee attitudes and behaviors. The presence of corporate codes of ethics was associated with less perceived wrongdoing in organizations, but not with an increased propensity to report observed unethical behavior. Further, organizations that adopted formal codes of ethics exhibited value orientations that went beyond financial performance to include responsibility to the commonweal. In contrast to corporate codes of ethics, professional codes of ethical conduct had no influence on perceived wrongdoing in organization nor these codes affect the propensity to report observed unethical activities.     

Corporate Codes of Conduct: The Effects of Code Content and Quality on Ethical Performance

Corporate codes of conduct are a practical corporate social responsibility (CSR) instrument commonly used to govern employee behavior and establish a socially responsible organizational culture. The effectiveness of these codes has been widely discussed on theoretical grounds and empirically tested in numerous previous reports that directly compare companies with and without codes of conduct. Empirical research has yielded inconsistent results that may be explained by multiple ancillary factors, including the quality of code content and implementation, which are excluded from analyses based solely on the presence or absence of codes. This study investigated the importance of code content in determining code effectiveness by examining the relationship between code of conduct quality and ethical performance. Companies maintaining high quality codes of conduct were significantly more represented among top CSR ranking systems for corporate citizenship, sustainability, ethical behavior, and public perception. Further, a significant relationship was observed between code quality and CSR performance, across a full range of ethical rankings. These findings suggest code quality may play a crucial role in the effectiveness of codes of conduct and their ability to transform organizational cultures. Future research efforts should transcend traditional comparisons based on the presence or absence of ethical codes and begin to examine the essential factors leading to the effective establishment of CSR policies and sustainable business practices in corporate culture.     

Ethical decision–making in business: focus on Mauritius

This paper explores management attitudes towards ethical issues in an attempt to shed some light on the determinants of ethical issue intensity in the context of business. A sample of business executives in Mauritius was surveyed in order to establish their ethical perceptions when exposed to potentially questionable business practices. The findings demonstrated the significant influence of factors associated with moral deliberations on strategies for ethical decision–making as compared with the impact of company policy and legal requirements. Participants revealed that, irrespective of codes of conduct, personal ethics predominate when it comes to making ethical choices. Some view the behaviour of management as a key determinant of ethical conduct. This trend differs from predictions in the literature. To date, research conducted in the developed world shows that employee perception of ethics of their superiors is a stronger predictor of behaviour than employees' personal ethical beliefs. This article focuses on Mauritius as an emerging economy, and looks at potential strategies for ethical decision–making, where business people do not necessarily operate under a specific code of conduct.     

Ethical Consumerism: A View From the Food Industry in Morocco

Both consumers and firms are now more concerned about ethics as a way to make business transactions a win–win deal. As consumers ensure profitability to businesses, they expect fair practices and honest behaviors toward society. The study reported here attempts to investigate Moroccans’ perceptions and attitudes toward ethical consumerism of food. Consumers’ willingness to buy those products and their motives for such purchases as well as factors preventing ethical purchases is investigated. Besides price, which drives most their decision to buy a food or not, Moroccans are driven by ethical claims such as “healthy,” “no fat,” “pasteurized,” etc. It was shown that consumers trust information on the labels of products besides information provided by consumer authorities. In relation to ethical aspects, Moroccans are mostly concerned about the environment and religion. Older men with high income are shown to be a good target for the ethical food market.     

Marketing

In carrying out their jobs marketers face many ethical dilemmas. Several examples of such dilemmas and how managers may reduce unethical marketing behavior are discussed. Managers must expose unethical marketing practices and encourage ethical behavior. This can be done by establishing organizational goals, providing supportive corporate environments, and drafting codes of conduct or codes of ethics. Each of these factors is discussed in separate sections of h e article. Top managers can uphold marketing ethics by creating programs to mobilize the organization toward realizing its ethical goals. Top managers can support ethical marketing behavior by setting realistic marketing goals and rewarding ethical marketers. Finally, corporate marketing     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Effect of Peer and Managerial Ethical Behaviors and the Ethical Predispositions of Prospective Advertising Employees

An advertising firm's ethical culture (as defined by the firm's managerial and peer ethical behaviors) may affect the employees' comfort levels and ethical behaviors. In this research, scenarios were used to describe advertising firms with various ethical cultures. Respondents' perceived comfort levels in working for the firms described in the scenarios and the respondents' behavioral intentions when faced with various advertising situations were assessed. Results of the study indicate that peer ethical behavior exerts a strong influence on the comfort or discomfort level and the ethical behavioral intentions of potential advertising employees. Further, the strong influence exerted by peers seems to transcend the ethical behavior of the manager and carry over to the attitude toward the entire corporate advertising environment. This study provides insights for firms and researchers interested in assessing the impact of an advertising firm's ethical culture on potential employees.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Ethical Attitudes of Business Managers: India Korea and the United States

Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede's cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede's Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed.     

Ethical Behavior in Higher Educational Institutions: The Role of the Code of Conduct

The report of the Treadway Commission suggests that all public companies should establish effective written codes of conduct in promoting honorable behavior by corporations. The need for written "codes of conduct" for businesses is evident in the current literature. However, there is not sufficient evidence regarding the implication of codes of conduct in a college. Academic dishonesty has become an important issue in institutions of higher education. Codes of conduct can also provide a basis for ethical behavior in colleges and universities. Survey respondents were generally supportive of the concept of codes of ethical conduct in colleges and universities. The results of this study indicate that college codes of conduct tend to follow a "low road" approach. The results also suggest the following needed improvements in college and university codes of conduct: (1) greater emphasis on preventing financial, scientific, and academic fraud; (2) more inclusion of the faculty in the process; and (3) establishment of a proper process for implementation of the code.     

Long‐Term Oriented Marketing Relationships and Ethical Conduct in Outsourcing Sector

The study evaluates the positive effect of long‐term oriented marketing relationship on ethical conduct from the perspective of the service provider (i.e., the agent‐firm), by integrating the relevant literature from relationship marketing, ethics, and long‐term orientation domains. The paper proposes that service providers that build relationship quality with their clients will display increased ethical conduct toward them. Specifically, the study examines the positive influence of the dimensions of relationship quality (that are relevant to the offshoring services context) that the service provider firm's employees undertake and their impact on ethical conduct. Overall, the results indicate that the commitment‐only full mediation model of relationship marketing variables on ethical conduct is a better representation than both direct‐effects model and other competing mediating models examined in this study. Fundamentally, it means that customer service officers should incorporate long‐term orientation and commitment in their principal–agent relationships that will provide the impetus for undertaking ethical behavior. The article concludes with a discussion and implications of the findings.     

The Role of Professional Codes in Regarding Ethical Conduct

This paper investigates the regulation of ethical behavior of professionals. Ethical perceptions of South African professionals operating in the business community (specifically accountants, lawyers and engineers) concerning their need for and awareness of professional codes, and the frequency and acceptability of peer contravention of such codes were sought. The existence of conflict between corporate codes and professional codes was also investigated. Results, based on 217 replies, indicated that the professionals believe that codes are necessary and are relatively aware of the contents of such codes. Despite these ethical tendencies, respondents (particularly lawyers) believe that their peers contravene their professional codes relatively often. No significant differences in ethical tendencies between professionals consulting to and those working in business were found. Many respondents were regulated by more than one code of ethics, but few experienced conflict between such codes. In the events of conflict occurring professionals chose to adhere to their professional code above others.     

Supervisor Role Modeling,Ethics-Related Organizational Policies,and Employee Ethical Intention: The Moderating Impact of Moral Ideology

The moral ideology of banking and insurance employees in Spain was examined along with supervisor role modeling and ethics-related policies and procedures for their association with ethical behavioral intent. In addition to main effects, we found evidence supporting that the person–situation interactionist perspective in supervisor role modeling had a stronger positive relationship with ethical intention among employees with relativist moral ideology. Also as hypothesized, formal ethical polices and procedures were positively related to ethical intention among those with universal beliefs, but the relationship was much weaker among relativists. Thus, firms wishing to optimally promote ethical attitudes and behavior must tailor their organization-based initiatives to the individual characteristics of their employees.     

Supply Chain Specific? Understanding the Patchy Success of Ethical Sourcing Initiatives

As a number of high profile companies have found to their cost, corporate reputations can be significantly affected by firms' management of sustainability issue, including those that are outside their direct control, such as the environmental and social impacts of their supply networks. This paper begins by examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility, reputation, and supply network conditions. It then looks at the effectiveness of one tool for managing supply network sustainability issues, ethical sourcing codes of conduct, by examining how the characteristics of three supply networks branded clothes, DIY wood products and branded confectionary affects the implementation ethical sourcing codes of conduct. It ends by setting out conclusions on why implementation of such codes has been so much more successful in some sectors than others and recommendations on effective approaches to managing sustainability issues in supply networks.     

Ethics Codes and Sales Professionals' Perceptions of Their Organizations' Ethical Values

Most large companies and many smaller ones have adopted ethics codes, but the evidence is mixed as to whether they have a positive impact on the behavior of employees. We suggest that one way that ethics codes could contribute to ethical behavior is by influencing the perceptions that employees have about the ethical values of organizations. We examine whether a group of sales professionals in organizations with ethics codes perceive that their organizational context is more supportive of ethical behavior than sales professionals in companies without codes. After accounting for the effect of several covariates, our results indicated that sales professionals employed in organizations with codes of ethics perceived their work environments to have more positive ethical values than did other sales professionals.     

Nine to Five: Skepticism of Women’s Employment and Ethical Reasoning

Previous work suggests that gender attitudes are associated with different individual and organizational factors. At the same time, ethics research suggests that many of these same variables can influence ethical reasoning in companies. In this study, we sought to combine these streams of research to investigate whether individual skepticism of women’s employment is related to ethical reasoning in a gender-based ethical situation. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that skepticism of women’s employment was negatively related to the recognition that the gender-based dilemma involved an ethical problem, and that skepticism was also negatively related to judgments that the situation was unethical. These findings imply that companies should advance policies that increase tolerance for women’s employment, such as diversity training codes of conduct, and ethics training.     

An Investigation of Egyptian Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Ethical Issues in Advertising

This article investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising held by a sample of 306 participants. The subjects completed a 20-item instrument originally designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward controversial issues in advertising. The study validates the scale in an Arab non-Western context. The results revealed that Egyptian consumers have negative attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. There are significant differences between males’ and females’ perceptions of ethics in advertising. Finally, the study detects a significant difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt regarding their attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. These results lend strong support to the adaptation hypothesis and suggest that ads produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are different culturally.     

The Relationship Between Ethical Ideology and Ethical Behavior Intentions: An Exploratory Look at Physicians' Responses to Managed Care Dilemmas

Within the past few years, managed care health insurance programs have become commonplace. With managed care programs, however, physicians are facing increasing ethical pressures. This paper examines the relationship between physicians' behavior intentions with respect to four managed care ethical scenarios and their responses to Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ). This is one of the first papers to compare this scale to behavioral intentions in the workplace. We provide a literature review of the ethical dilemmas that doctors face under a managed care system and conduct a national random sample of general practitioners and surgeons regarding the four managed care ethical dilemmas. The results show that the doctors surveyed are significantly more idealistic than relativistic. In relating the EPQ to the ethical scenarios, however, there was no support for the proposition that ethical ideology was related to the ethical behavioral intentions. This suggests more research is needed to establish the links between ethical positions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Finally, there were little differences in EPQ scores by practice or demographic variables, the only significant result being that general surgeons are significantly more idealistic than family practitioners.