Building an Ethical Organizational Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 168-174
Author(s):  
William A. Nelson ◽  
Emily Taylor ◽  
Thom Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture

Techniques for Preparing Business Students to Contribute to Ethical Organizational Cultures

2015 ◽  
pp. 221-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Irvin Sauser Jr. ◽  
Ronald R. Sims
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Organizational Cultures ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture ◽  
Effective Learning

This chapter distinguishes among four corporate cultures with respect to ethics—cultures of defiance, compliance, neglect, and character—and outlines a plan for constructing an ethical organizational culture. Some proven ideas are then shared for showing business students how to contribute to such a culture. These include (a) describing how to establish an effective learning context for teaching about business ethics, (b) offering a number of practical suggestions for student assignments and experiences that can empower students to understand, appreciate, and contribute to ethical organizational cultures, and (c) explaining how to enhance experiential learning by conducting an effective debriefing session. The chapter concludes with three examples from the authors' experience illustrating how these ideas can be incorporated into programs designed to teach business students how to contribute to organizational cultures grounded in moral character.

Codes of Ethics, Ethical Behavior, and Organizational Culture from the Managerial Approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Marta Villegas ◽  
Michael H. McGivern
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Dimensional Approach ◽  
Senior Managers ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture ◽  
Managerial Perceptions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This qualitative case study explored managerial perceptions regarding codes of ethics, ethical behavior, and the relationship of these concepts to organizational culture in a Colombian bank ZOX (pseudonym), in a South-American environment. The data-collection phase contained a purposive sample of ten ZOX senior managers, by including four one-on-one interviews, a focus-group interview, and company documents. The findings include the facts that codes of ethics are mandatory and they demand that the individual has his/her own values; ethical behavior follows general principles and values as ethical guides of duty regardless of the consequences; and the organizational culture is influenced by the leaders' ethical behavior. The findings also serve to trace and describe empirically and theoretically the components of a multi-dimensional approach of an ethical organizational culture. A suggestion for further research might be the testing of this multi-dimensional approach in other settings and going deeper into the relationship among its components.

Is Formal Ethics Training Merely Cosmetic? A Study of Ethics Training and Ethical Organizational Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle E. Warren ◽  
Joseph P. Gaspar ◽  
William S. Laufer
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Organizational Values ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Ethics Programs ◽  
Normative Structure ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Before And After

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed.

Knowledge workers' existential affirmation and innovativeness: a Kierkegaardian redescription of Drucker

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Minsuk Shin ◽  
Jiwon Lee ◽  
June-ho Chung
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Knowledge Workers ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Ethical Culture ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture ◽  
Modeling Analysis

PurposeAlthough existing studies demonstrate positive relationships between ethical cultures and innovativeness, their explanations of why an ethical culture leads to innovativeness are limited. This study explores the relationship between ethical organizational culture and knowledge workers' innovativenessDesign/methodology/approachBased on Kierkegaardian existential philosophy, this study proposes a research model that employs knowledge workers' existential affirmation as the link between ethical culture and innovativeness. The main hypothesis proposed in this study is that ethical organizational culture offers knowledge workers the opportunity to find their existential affirmation, which leads them to become more innovative. A structural equation modeling analysis is based on data collected from a survey of 348 knowledge workers from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in different hi-tech industries.FindingsThe findings suggest that among the four subdimensions of an ethical organizational culture, ethics training and awareness raising had the strongest relationships with knowledge workers' existential affirmation, which, in turn, had a significant relationship with their innovativeness.Originality/valueBased on this philosophical reflection, this study develops a research model that examines knowledge workers' existential affirmation as the factor that links ethical organizational culture and knowledge workers' innovativeness. The authors test ethical organizational culture as an environment that allows knowledge workers to validate their existential affirmation. Further, they test the link between knowledge workers' existential affirmation and their innovativeness.

Building an Ethical Organizational Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Nelson ◽  
Emily Taylor ◽  
Thom Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Ethical Organizational Culture
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