Innovative ethics officers as drivers of effective ethics programs: An empirical study in the Netherlands

Abstract

In January 2017, Rolls Royce agreed to pay a £671 million fine to the British, American, and Brazilian authorities because of corruption, false accounting, and failure to prevent bribery (Skapinker, 2017). In the Summer of 2018, Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick resigned following his mishandling of a series of scandals about sexual harassment and macho culture (Kleinman, 2017). In 2019, the American Federal Trade Commission imposed a historic $5 billion dollar penalty on Facebook for violating its customers' privacy as part of the Cambridge Analytica scandal (Jaeger, 2019). Over the last 10 years, global CEO dismissals due to ethical lapses have risen from 3.9% to 5.3% (Per-Ola, DeAnne, & Rivera, 2017). Unethical behavior at work is not restricted to top management: According to the Ethics Resource Center (2012), 52% of the Fortune 500 employees had been ticked off for ethical misconduct. People are increasingly aware that such a reputation damages and compromises the long-term profit of a firm and stakeholders as customers will abandon them. Banks et al. (2016) described the elimination of unethical behavior in organizations as a "grand challenge" for researchers and practitioners alike. Often urged by external pressures, many organizations have installed an "ethics" program to stimulate ethical behavior

A Paradox of Ethics: Why People in Good Organizations do Bad Things

“…How the impact of the effects on unethical behavior can be reduced or even canceled is another possible research. Given that the perspective of the good barrel approach is new in the field of ethics management, innovation in ethics management (Haidt & Treviño, 2017 ; Hogenbirk & Van Dun, 2021 ) may be needed to develop specific interventions and instruments.…”

“…McKinley et al ( 2014 ) argue that organizations may become successful through their innovations, then slow down once they are successful and only accelerate innovation when their performance declines. Hogenbirk and Van Dun ( 2021 ) find that on average, the ethics programs and officers they have studied could be much more innovative. They recommend periodically changing and expanding ethics programs for these to remain effective, which requires ethics officers to be innovative.…”

“…For organizational ecology theory, this is the major explanation for the decline of successful organizations: new competitors, new customers, and new markets (Heine & Rindfleisch, 2013 ; Miller, 1992 ; Sull, 1999 ). From an ethics management perspective, new stakeholders, new issues, and new ethical risks may require changes in the ethics program of an organization (Hogenbirk & Van Dun, 2021 ; Kaptein & Wempe, 2002 ). Despite increasing pressure to change a continuingly successful ethics program, organizations may not to do so, until their ethics deteriorates.…”

Attitudes of Managers towards Ethical Programs in Slovakia

“…This idea is also supported by Merchant (2017), who in his article is of the opinion that the Code of Ethics is an integral part of the ethical program. The success of the EP depends on adapting to the context of the environment in which it is embedded (Hogenbirk et al, 2021). Kaptein (2010) considers the EP to be an important factor in the organizational level of a company, which plays an important role in influencing the behavior of managers and employees in the field of ethical behavior.…”

Implementing Strategic Management via Code of Ethics: A Quantitative Research on Private Sector in Greece

“…Management academics, managers and ethics officers strongly support the positive link between ethics management and firms' performance. Effective ethics programs, including code of ethics, hotline, preemployment integrity screening provide a guide for doing business in an ethical way, preventing ethical misconduct and enhancing firms' reputation (Hogenbirk & Van Dun, 2021). In the same vein, Srivastava and Kamalini (2022)…”