This paper reviews studies of corporate ethical codes published since 2000 and concludes that codes be can effective instruments for shaping ethical behavior and guiding employee decision-making. Culture and effective communication are key components to a code’s success. If codes are embedded in the culture and embraced by the leaders, they are likely to be successful. Communicating the code’s precepts in an effective way is crucial to its success. Discussion between employees and management is a key component of successful ethical (...) codes. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers have observed the process of mainstreaming Fair Trade and the emergence of alternative sustainability standards in the coffee industry. The underlying market dynamics that have contributed to these developments are, however, under-researched. Insight into these dynamics is important to understand how markets can develop to favor sustainability. This study examines the major developments in the market for certified coffee in the Netherlands. It finds that, in the creation of a market for sustainable coffee, decisions that significantly (...) influence market creation are made in the lead companies (retailers and coffee roasters). These decisions are made possible by the availability of multiple systems of sustainability standards and by the existence of a small segment of loyal Fair Trade customers that ensured that sustainability remained an issue on the coffee market in the years before the market creation took-off. Fair Trade did not become the new rule in this process, but it became the benchmark against which companies could compare themselves and the basis upon which they built in adopting or developing new standards that would be more feasible in their business models. (shrink)

The development of behavioral ethics has brought forth a detailed understanding of the processes of moral perception, decision-making and behavior within and beyond organizations and communities. However, prescriptive recommendations of behavioral research regarding how to support an ethical environment often underestimate the specifics of organizational characteristics that may encourage the occurrence and persistence of dishonesty, especially regarding deception as a desired action in some instances by some employees and managers. Furthermore, behavioral research does not adequately recognize the notion that dishonesty (...) can be sometimes viewed as an acceptable cost for some expected traits or skills of an employee such as intelligence or creativity. Under some conditions, deception can be even considered a moral, prosocial activity. Finally, formal ethics systems and situational measures to promote honesty may be inefficient or directly harmful. This article highlights questions of how to assess such factors in research on (un)ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

Business codes are a widely used management instrument. Research into the effectiveness of business codes has, however, produced conflicting results. The main reasons for the divergent findings are: varying definitions of key terms; deficiencies in the empirical data and methodologies used; and a lack of theory. In this paper, we propose an integrated research model and suggest directions for future research.

As a result of recent corporate scandals, several rules have focused on the role played by Boards of Directors on the planning and monitoring of corporate codes of ethics. In theory, outside directors are in a better position than insiders to protect and further the interests of all stakeholders because of their experience and their sense of moral and legal obligations. Female directors also tend to be more sensitive to ethics according to several past studies which explain this affirmation by (...) early gender socialization, the fact that women are thought to place a greater emphasis on harmonious relations and the fact that men and women use different ethical frameworks in their judgments. The goal of this paper is to determine the influence of these characteristics of the Board in terms of promoting and hindering the creation of a code of ethics. Our findings show that a greater number of female directors does not necessarily lead to more ethical companies. Moreover, within Europe as a continent, board ownership leads to an entrenchment of upper-level management, generating a divergence between the ethical interests of owners and managers. In light of this situation, the presence of independent directors is necessary to reduce such conflicts. (shrink)

While cross-sectoral partnerships are frequently presented as a way to achieve sustainable development, some corporations that first tried using the strategy are now changing direction. Growing tired of what are, in their eyes, inefficient and unproductive cross-sectoral partnerships, firms are starting to form post-cross-sectoral partnerships (‚post-partnerships’) open exclusively to corporations. This paper examines one such post-partnership project, the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), to analyse the possibility of post-partnerships establishing stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’. We do this by creating a (...) theoretical framework based on actor-network theory (ANT) and institutional theory. Using this framework, we show that post-partnerships suffer from the paradox of striving to marginalise those stakeholders whose support they need␣for establishing stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’. We conclude by discussing whether or not post-partnership strategies, despite this paradox, can be expected to establish stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’. (shrink)

Despite increased academic and practitioner interest in codes of conduct, there has been little research into the actual compliance of suppliers in developing countries with the codes of conduct of multinational corporations. This paper addresses this lack by analysing Chinese suppliers' level of compliance with Swedish toy retailers' codes of conduct. Based on unannounced and unofficial interviews with employees of Chinese suppliers, the study shows that all of the nine studied suppliers breached some of the standards in the toy retailers' (...) codes, with over two-thirds of the suppliers not complying with the majority of the studied standards. While there are different explanations of this lack of compliance, the main explanation seems to be that Chinese suppliers successfully deceive toy retailers' monitoring organisations by decoupling the formal monitored part of their organisation from the actual operational part of their organisation. The paper concludes with a discussion of how to increase compliance with MNCs' codes of conduct. (shrink)

Gallup Polls have reported on the perceived ethics of various professions in the US since 1976. Clergymen and pharmacists were consistently identified as two of the most ethical professionals in the 1980''s and 1990''s. Business executives have not fared well in these polls and have not been rated among the top ten most ethical professions in any of the years the poll was taken. Ethical codes have not done much to belay the perception that the US business executive is not (...) very ethical. Whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will impact the ethical behavior of business executives remains to be seen. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, Victor and Cullen's (Adm Sci Q 33:101-125, 1988) typology of ethical climates has been employed by many academics in research on issues of ethical climates. However, little is known about how managerial practices such as communication and empowerment influence ethical climates, especially from a functional perspective. The current study used a survey of employees from Taiwan's top 100 patent-owning companies to examine how communication and empowerment affect organizational ethical climates. The results confirm the relationship between (...) these two managerial practices and organizational ethical climates. We discuss our results and their implications for both future academic research and practice. (shrink)

Following the offshoring of production to developing countries by transnational corporations, unions and non-governmental organisations have criticised working conditions at TNCs' offshore factories. This has led to the emergence of two different approaches to operationalising TNC responsibilities for workers' rights in developing countries: codes of conduct and global agreements. Despite the importance of this development, few studies have systematically compared the effects of these two different ways of dealing with workers' rights. This article addresses this gap by analysing how codes (...) of conduct and global agreements both independently and interactively affect workers' rights. We do this based on a qualitative study of the Sri Lankan operations of a Swedish TNC in Sri Lanka, and on interviews with union and NGO representatives actively involved in codes of conduct and global agreements. Our results indicate that global agreements independently address all the aspects included in codes of conduct, while also addressing additional, more process-oriented aspects of workers' rights. Hence, on their own, global agreements seem to comprise the superior approach to promoting workers' rights. Furthermore, our results indicate that promoting codes of conduct has negative interactive effects on global agreements. Based on these results, we argue that the current focus on codes of conduct is counterproductive for the promotion of workers' rights. (shrink)