Title: Encouraging Ethics in Organizations: A Review of Some Key Research Findings
Abstract: Ethical and unethical workplace behaviors (and their relations, legal and illegal behavior) are complex phenomena, reflecting a mix of individual characteristics, contextual influences, and specific ethical questions or problems. Any effort to grasp and manage the influences on ethical behavior will thus need to recognize that a narrow focus on one or another particular initiative or situational influence might lead to ethical improvements that are marginal at best, or even sometimes, by themselves, counterproductive. For example, empirical research has been clear that, at least by itself, an organizational code of conduct has limited, if any, influence on ethical behavior. But in the context of an organization whose overall climate is highly ethical, something like a code (or other formal policy interventions) will be more likely to provide value and effectiveness. Legal policy toward organizational behavior seems, at a general level, to recognize this complexity. Thus, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines speak generally of promoting “an organizational culture that encourages ethical conduct and a commitment to compliance with the law.” But in recommending specific practices, the Guidelines (similarly to the Department of Justice’s memorandum on prosecution of organizations, and to the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation) focus heavily on “command-and-control” or “compliance” activities, emphasizing employee direction through formal policies and training, detection of wrongdoing through monitoring and reporting systems, and discipline and incentive policies to encourage proper behavior—what I will refer to broadly
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: review
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Cited By Count: 19
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