The Ethical Context in Organizations: Influences on Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 169.230.243.252 on Sun, Abstract: This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethicsrelated attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culturebased dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. n ecent research has focused on understanding the factors that influence ethi lxcal conduct in organizations. Most ethical decision making models propose that ethical conduct is influenced by a combination of individual characteristics such as values and cognitive moral development, and contextual factors such as reward systems, rules, and codes (e.g., Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich, 1989; Jones, 1991;Trevino, 1986). Although individual characteristics are clearly important, the role of contextual factors seems important from a practical perspective because managers have more control over the work environment than they do over individuals' values or moral development. Further, given the significant resources being invested in organizational ethics initiatives, research is needed to investigate the relationship between "ethical context" and employee attitudes and behaviors.In the descriptive business ethics literature, ethical context has been represented primarily by two multidimensional constructs, ethical climate (e.g., Victor andCullen, 1987, 1988) and ethical culture (Trevino, l990). These constructs C)1998. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 8, Issue 3. were developed more or less independently and were based on somewhat different assumptions and literatures. Although both constructs have been theoretically associated with individual ethical conduct, empirical support for these relationships is lacking. A number of other issues co...

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