Validity of the Corporate Ethical Virtue Model (Cev) in a South African Context: A Case Study

Abstract

South Africa is not only plagued by corruption, but also by a lack of ethics in corporate South Africa (Soko, 2017; Van Zyl, 2017). Ethics is reflected in the culture of an organisation, and corporate ethical culture should be measured. However, in the South African context, there is no reliable and validated measure of ethical culture. The purpose of this study was to empirically measure the validity and reliability of the corporate ethical virtue (CEV) model in a case study in South Africa through a quantitative research design. The CEV model (Kaptein, 2008(Kaptein, , 2009) was identified, and subjected to reliability and validity tests within a South African insurance company. The instrument's reliability was confirmed through Cronbach alpha coefficients. The article concludes that the CEV model has some application value within the context it was tested. Due to its limitations, this study makes a modest contribution, but can serve as a first step towards the use and development of measurement instruments for ethical culture in South African organisations.

Ethical Culture in Organizations: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

“…The CEVS has been tested and validated in subsequent studies across different cultural contexts and nations, namely, Finland (e.g., Huhtala, Feldt, Hyvönen, & Mauno, 2013; Huhtala, Feldt, Lämsä, Mauno, & Kinnunen, 2011; Huhtala et al, 2016; Riivari, Lämsä, Kujala, & Heiskanen, 2012), Lithuania (e.g., Novelskaitė, 2014; Novelskaitė & Pučėtaitė, 2014), and South Africa (van Wyk & Badenhorst-Weiss, 2019), and in diverse languages, including Spanish (Toro-Arias, Ruiz-Palomino, & Rodríguez-Córdoba, 2021).…”

Perspectives on business ethics in South African small and medium enterprises

“…The South African business environment is characterised by unethical behaviour, and corruption remains a top challenge to businesses, including the SME sector (Van Wyk & Badenhorst-Weiss, 2019). As a result, there is a need to create ethical business environments, and to encourage ethical business leadership and practices (Booysen, 2016;Lamprecht, 2016;Quintal, 2012).…”