Communicating the ethos of codes of ethics within the organization : a comparison of the largest private sector organizations in Sweden and Turkey

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the ways that the largest private sector organizations in Sweden and Turkey communicate the intent of their codes of ethics to their employees.

Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were obtained via a self-administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of the top 500 private sector organizations based on revenue in each country.

Findings – The research identified some interesting findings that showed that the small group of companies in Turkey that have a code may appear to be more “advanced” in ethics artifacts usage than Sweden. Such a conclusion is counter-intuitive as one would have expected a developed nation like Sweden to be more advanced in these measures than a developing nation such as Turkey. Culture may play a large role in the implementation of ethics artifacts in corporations and could be a major reason for this difference.

Research limitations/implications – As this is such a new area of investigation in Turkey, the responses amount to only 32 companies that have a code. The small sample is indicative of the formative evolution toward having codes of ethics within companies operating within Turkey.

Practical implications – This study enables those organizations that comprise corporate Turkey to view the current state of codes of ethics in Turkish companies and to compare these with the responses of a developed country of the European Union. Originality and value – A review of the literature indicates that this is the first time that such an international study specifically focused upon codes of ethics and the artifacts to inculcate the ethos of the code into every day corporate affairs has included Turkey as one of the participating countries.

Codes of ethics artefacts in Australia, Canada and Sweden : a longitudinal study

It would appear that corporations operating in Sweden have embraced the ethos of codes of ethics differently to their Canadian and/or Australian counterparts and that in each culture the way that companies fashion their approach to business ethics appears to be in line with their national, cultural values.

An anthology of codes of ethics

Purpose – Corporate codes of conduct originated around 1900 in the USA gaining further momentum in the 1950s in relation to anti-trust legislation. Subsequently, the adoption of codes of ethics has spread throughout the world and they now feature extensively in many organisations. The literature relating to codes of ethics, therefore, spans many decades and is undoubtedly comprehensive. The purpose of the paper is to provide an appropriate anthology of codes of ethics.
Design/methodology/approach – A descriptive, historical, anthological approach has been taken.
Findings – This paper examines the motivations for the adoption of codes of ethics, which naturally also includes international codes, their frequency of use and content. Codes are also not without critique and it is appropriate to highlight the criticisms of codes, to provide an assessment of their potential effectiveness, the issues surrounding implementation and enforcement and the relationship to organisational culture and leadership.
Research limitations/implications – As noted, the literature on codes of conduct is extensive and while effort has been made to capture the key themes the review is not necessarily exhaustive.
Originality/value – The literature is characterised by the means of institutionalising ethics in organisations and the paper concludes with a summative reflection on the key dimensions that appear to be paramount for improving the efficacy of codes of conduct.

Ethics and self-knowledge in corruption related decision making

The nature of corruption in international business is briefly considered and several types of bribes are distinguished. Two managerial decision-models are then proposed, in order to assist international managers faced with corruption-related situations. The first model is based upon an ethical analysis and it conditionally endorses some types of facilitating-payment. The second is based upon a psychological analysis and it involves identification and classification of the generic consequences of bribe payments. The two models are intended to form part of a wider and multifaceted approach to reducing corruption.

A construct of the 'ethos of codes of ethics' (ECE) : the case of private and public Sweden

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to develop and describe a construct of the “ethos of the codes of ethics” (i.e. an ECE construct) in the private and public sectors of Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes a cross-sector approach to codes of ethics amongst the top private sector companies and the top public sector organisations. The paper then examines the measures put in place by the dual sample in order to describe the ethos of their codes of ethics.

Findings – The multivariate techniques used in the statistical analysis indicated that the ECE-construct consists of five dimensions: ethical bodies, ethical tools, ethical support procedures, internal ethics usage, and external ethics usage.

Research limitations/implications – It should be noted that the ECE construct has been derived from large companies and organisations in private and public Sweden, which may indicate less applicability to smaller operations. Another limitation may be the validity and reliability across other cultural samples. The dual sample contains a variety of different types of operations, but it may not be transferable to other countries.

Practical implications – The outcome is based on data from private companies and public organisations that indicated they had corporate codes of ethics. Therefore, a suggestion for further research is to examine the ECE construct in other countries/cultures that differ from the ones in this research effort performed in the private and public sectors of Sweden.

Originality/value – The ECE construct introduced makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it is based upon a dual sample. It makes a contribution to theory as it outlines a construct for the benefit of other researchers working in both the private and the public sectors. The authors also believe that it may be of managerial interest as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the implementation of the codes of ethics in both private companies and public organisations.

Inculcating the ethos of public-sector codes of ethics in Sweden : a longitudinal approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the measures put in place by the largest public sector organizations in Sweden in order to communicate the ethos of their codes of ethics to their employees.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based upon a longitudinal survey approach.

Findings – In the public sector organizations of Sweden the use of regulations and staff support is rather modest in respect to the inculcation of codes of ethics artefacts into the organisations. This longitudinal approach indicates an overall increase across the examined areas in the usage of measures to support the ethos of public sector codes of ethics.

Research limitations/implications – The artefacts to support the ethos inherent in public sector codes of ethics are rarely explored in the literature. This paper helps to fill this gap with the present longitudinal approach.

Practical implications – One could speculate that society at large and its public sector organizations may have been influenced not only by the scandalous happenings of recent years in Swedish business, but also by the impact of an Anglo-Saxon style of “corporatisation”, whereby public authorities take on the form of a corporation or business brought on by globalisation.

Originality/value – The present paper may be used as a point of reference for further research efforts.

Codes of ethics in large private sector Australian businesses

This thesis deals with codes of ethics in the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in Australia. We seek to answer two questions. First, can businesses adopt codes of ethics in a meaningful way, or are business ethics a contradiction in terms for profit seeking organisations in competitive markets? Second, to what extent do Australia’s top 500 private sector firms show commitment to codes of ethics? A number of ancillary questions are explored to form a picture of the current Australian situation and to compare it to the rest of the world, especially the US and Canada. Chapter 1 discusses these questions and the origins of the author’s interest in business ethics. This chapter develops a focus upon codes of ethics and their role in assisting to establish and maintain an ethical culture. The chapter looks at previous research on codes of ethics and demonstrates a lack of understanding in Australia on the subject and the need for research into it. Also included in Chapter 1 is the plan for the thesis. Chapters 2 to 4 review the literature upon which the thesis is based. In Chapter 2, the meaning of the terms ethics and business ethics are considered. Deontological and teleological approaches are distinguished and a (largely) teleological model of business ethics is developed. This chapter also asks whether business ethics are possible. The contention that ethics may be good for a business’s profit is explored in-depth and the conclusion is reached that ethics should be pursued for its inherent worth regardless of the economic benefit that can be attributed to it. A number of models of ethical decision making are discussed in Chapter 3 starting with Kohlberg and Kramer (1969). This discussion leads to the conclusion that organisations must create an ethical culture for staff if they require them to embrace ethical practices. If this is a correct conclusion, then the role of senior managers becomes critical in the process. Chapter 4 looks further at the role of senior managers, organisational culture and ethical/unethical behaviour in organisations. The conclusion is that senior managers do play an integral part in shaping the culture of an organisation. Their actions, either overtly or covertly, impact upon their staff and highlight behaviour that the organisation is or is not willing to tolerate. Sims (1991) proposed ten ways to foster an ethical culture and these ideas are set out and further explored through the work of other writers on management ethics. Finally, the link between ethics and strategic planning is examined. In Chapter 5 the methods used for empirical data gathering are described and justified. A number of factors that can lead us to consider a company’s ‘commitment’ to ethics are outlined. A survey of Australian companies was the primary means of data collection. Each question in the survey instrument is listed and explained. Also the survey response rate is reported, as are major demographic characteristics of respondents. Chapter 6 provides the research findings from the survey of the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in Australia. The research examines: i) the current Australian usage and implementation of codes of ethics; ii) the measures put in place in organisations in order to support a code; From this analysis conclusions are drawn about the ‘commitment’ of companies operating in Australia to codes of ethics. Australian companies are becoming aware of the potential of code usage. Companies operating in Australia that have codes appear to be good at implementing codes and examining staff performance in relation to codes. However, they lack the procedures that incorporate education and training and the implementation of the support mechanisms necessary to enhance employee understanding of the code. In Chapter 7, Australian codes are compared to American and Canadian codes for similarity and disparity. The assessment found that in all three countries codes are primarily concerned with company continuance. Australian codes do tend to be more socially oriented than in the other two countries and also less legalistic. Chapter 8 looks at 4 companies from the first survey that were asked for more in-depth information in a quest to determine current best practice in Australia. These organisations were chosen because they appeared, from the first survey instrument, to have put in place mechanisms to assist employees to better understand the code. The implication is that companies must make a conscious, positive effort to ensure that employees are considered in the process of ethical development. They should have input into the process, rather than just being directed to follow another management initiative. The final chapter summarises the research findings and looks at answers to the two major questions and the seven subordinate empirical questions posed at the start of the thesis. The conclusion reached is that companies operating in Australia appear to be moving towards establishing codes of ethics. Those who already have codes display a real commitment to them. The movement appears to be gathering momentum as more organisations see the value of incorporating ethical business practices into the every day workings of their individual companies. Generally, most Australian companies lag behind the rest of the world, but the pace-setting companies are defining their own best practice and achieving positive outcomes for themselves, their employees and other stakeholders.

Measurement and structural properties of organizational codes of ethics in private and public Sweden

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the measurement and structural properties in a model of organizational codes of ethics (OCE) in Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach – The measurement and structural properties of four OCE constructs (i.e. surveillance/training, internal communication, external communication, and guidance) were described and tested in a dual sample based upon private and public sectors of Sweden.

Findings – Results show that the measurement and structural models of OCE in part have a satisfactory fit, validity, and reliability.

Research limitations/implications – The paper makes a contribution to theory as it outlines a set of OCE constructs and it presents an empirical test of and OCE model in respect to measurement and structural properties. A number of research limitations are provided.

Practical implications – It provides a model to be considered in the implementation and monitoring of OCE. The present research provides opportunities for further research in refining, extending, and testing the proposed OCE model in other cultural and organizational settings.

Originality/value – The OCE model extends previous studies that have been predominately descriptive, by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

Communicating the ethos of corporate codes of ethics in the UK and the USA

Business ethics has been a consideration for corporations in the USA since at least the early 1960s, whilst in the UK this interest in business ethics appears to be just over 20 years old. In a survey of the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in the UK and the USA, it would appear that corporations operating in the UK have embraced the ethos of codes of ethics differently to their USA counterparts and that this difference may well be in line with their different adoption rates over the last 50 years of the need for business ethics in organizations. The USA seems to lead the UK in most areas, except when it comes to ethical audits and incorporating the ethics code into the strategic planning process. Could this omission in respect to strategic planning be the Achilles Heel of US business?

About global leadership and global ethics, and a possible moral compass : an introduction to the special issue

This paper reviews a number of huge challenges to ethical leadership in the twenty-first century and concludes that the need for global ethical leadership is not merely a desirable option, but rather – and quite literally – a matter of survival. The crises of the recent past reveal huge, and in some cases criminal, failures of both ethics and leadership in finance, business and government. We posit that mainstream economic theory’s construct of ‘homo economicus’ and its faith in the ‘invisible hand’ of the market constitute deeply flawed foundations upon which alone policy may be built and, farthermore, that these problematic foundations exert substantial shaping power over the institutional and discursive landscapes in which international business is transacted. Analogously, we argue that dominant approaches to business ethics and corporate social responsibility are, if not incorrect, at least in need of revisiting in terms of questioning their basic assumptions. Instead of the smugness of Western (especially Anglo-American) attitudes towards other ways of thinking, valuing and organising, it appears clear that openness, cooperation and co-creation between the developed and developing worlds is a basic prerequisite for dealing with the global challenges facing not just leaders, but humanity as a whole. This objective of stimulating discussion between dominant and marginal voices has guided our selection of papers for this Special Issue. We have thus included not only representatives of research from within the parameters of mainstream business ethics, IB or leadership scholarship, but also innovative contributions from fields such as military history, information technology, regulation, spirituality and sociology.

A model of organizational ethics education

Purpose – This paper aims to propose a model of ethics education for corporate organizations framed as an holistic approach to the problem of how to teach ethics.

Design/methodology/approach – As a conceptual/viewpoint piece, this paper recognizes that for ethics education to be successful, individuals and corporations must have an appreciation of their role in the society at large. In addition, there needs to be preparedness on the part of the corporation to engage in an ethical manner with the marketplace with which it interacts.

Findings – Ethics education should not exist in a vacuum, that is just within the organization, but it should reflect the values of the organization as they impact upon and are impacted upon by society in general.

Research/limitations/implications – This model is predicated on a belief that organizations must craft their ethics education program with as much care and enthusiasm as they craft their strategic plan. The employees are the organization's representatives and they need to be made as clear as one can make them as to the ethical philosophy of the company and what is expected of them. Adults have a capacity for greater reasoning and reflection on their life experiences than children and thus the concept of “andragogy” provides a more satisfactory method to fashion education programs for adults than some more traditional methods that focus on training and not education.

Practical implications – When considering the ethics education of its employees, corporations need to place that education in context as it relates to the organization and the wider society as a whole. It is suggested that an ethics education program needs to provide a framework for understanding the concepts of ethics and moral development. Using this framework as the basis for the education offered, the education program is then expanded into an examination of a range of ethical issues presented in a variety of ways.

Originality/value – This paper proposes an integrated way to approach ethics education that ensures that the antecedents of the program are considered in the context of the ethics of individuals, the society and in turn the organization, hence the holistic approach.

Book review : Ethics and organizational practice : questioning the moral foundations of management

The arena of ethics and business is a colossus: thousands of books, multiple dedicated journals, de rigueur organizational ethics policies and CSR initiatives - most of which we can be fairly confident would receive poor reviews by the editors and authors of Ethics and organizational practice: Questioning the moral foundations of management. This edited collection is a self-identified ‘critical’ take on business ethics, one that according to the editors’ introduction wishes to ‘expose business ethics to its crises’ and ‘critically investigate(s) what ethics means’. The ‘critical’ which Muhr, Sørensen and Vallentin invoke is one that would be familiar to authors and readers of Critical Management Studies – that is, to use Fournier and Grey’s (2000) oft-referenced depiction, the study of management and organization that is non-performative with regards to managerialist concerns of efficiency and profitability, that seeks to denaturalize taken-for-granted legitimations, and the normalization of current organizational practices and ideologies, and one which demonstrates significant reflexivity with regard to the philosophies and methodologies it deploys. To the above, we may also add pluralism, and indeed some playfulness, with a wide diversity of conceptual, theoretical, historical and popular sources mined for their potential to help us reconsider the organizational present.

Code of ethics quality : an international comparison of corporate staff support and regulation in Australia, Canada and the United States

The objective of this paper is to examine the ‘Code of Ethics Quality’ (CEQ) in the largest companies of Australia, Canada and the United States. For this purpose, a proposed CEQ construct has been applied. It appears from the empirical findings that while Australia, Canada and the United States are extremely similar in their economic and social development, there may well be distinct cultural mores and issues that are forming their business ethics practices. A research implication derived from the performed research is that the construct provides a selection of observable and measurable elements in the context of CEQ. The construct of CEQ consists of nine measures divided into two dimensions (i.e. staff support and regulation). They should not be seen as a complete list. On the contrary, it is encouraged that others propose and elaborate revisions and extensions. A practical implication of this paper is a structure of what and how to examine the CEQ in a managerial setting. It may assist companies in their efforts to establish, maintain and improve their ethical culture, norms and beliefs within the organization and supporting them in their ethical business practices with different stakeholders in the marketplace and society. The dimensions and measures of the construct may be used as a frame of reference for further research. They may be useful and applicable across contexts and over time using similar samples when it comes to large companies, as small- or medium-sized ones may not have considered all areas nor have the elements in place. This is a research limitation, but it provides an opportunity for further research.

Teaching ethics in organisational behaviour : a Humean viewpoint

Problem Statement: Concepts of ethics have rarely been easy to teach in the organizational behaviour curriculum. The philosophical bases of ethics are often abstract and prone to multiple interpretations and dilemmas. The changing global environment of organisations adds complexity to the interacting values that people bring into the workplace. To redress the situation, this articlerepresents the stance of David Hume on human morality and proposes an original nexus of his concepts for application in the teaching and learning of ethics in the field of organizational behaviour.

Method: Based on the literature, we develop a conceptual model from a thread drawn between Hume’s influence on the Scottish Enlightenment and accordingly the current complex business environment which was fostered in part by the economic models espoused by his Enlightenment associates. The concepts are presented as a matrix and relevant examples are explained in this context.

Results: Pointing out the challenge of the global rifts in organisational morality, we relate the fable of the traveller from Hume’s writings and make the point that the Humean nexus, now distilled from the elaborate reasoning of Hume, provides educators and managers alike with a helpful centre of gravity around which to develop analyses of decisions and actions in order to gain moral perspective that transcends time and place.

Conclusions: Business ethics lessons have sometimes been abstract and emotive in organisational Behavior education but the empirical concepts of Hume in this new form have the potential to be useful and agreeable for many.