We assessed students’ and employees’ perception of ethical climate at a university school of medicine compared to that of social sciences and humanities, as well as temporal changes in the employees’ perception of ethical climate. We also explored potential predictors of ethical climate, including moral foundations. This cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted at the University of Split School of Medicine and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, in Croatia, from April to September 2019. We used 36-item Ethical Climate Questionnaire (...) and 22-item Moral Foundation Questionnaire to survey employees, senior and doctoral students. We collected responses using ballot boxes as well as online survey. We collected 449 complete responses. The dominant ethical climates at two schools were “Company rules and procedures” and “Laws and professional codes”. We compared our results with a study conducted in 2012 and found that the perception of ethical climate had not changed dramatically in last 8 years. Ethical climate, or shared social and work-related behaviours, does not seem to change in these institutions even when students and staff are included with faculty in surveys. We provide further discussion of why this seems to be the case. (shrink)

Organizational climate and culture may influence different work-related outcomes, including responsible conduct of research and research misconduct in academic or research organizations. In this scoping review we collected evidence on outcomes of interventions to change organizational climate or culture in academic or research settings. Out of 32,093 documents retrieved by the search, we analysed 207 documents in full text, out of which 7 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the final analysis. The included studies measured organizational climate, organizational (...) culture, or both at biomedical faculties or non-academic university departments. Four studies had post-test, and three before-and-after study designs. The majority of interventions were face-to-face activities, and two were based on organizational change. Six studies reported positive changes in organizational climate/culture after the intervention. These positive changes were measured as improvements in score on different questionnaire survey or were described through authors’ or external evaluator’s narrative reports. However, the methodological quality of the studies was low, both for qualitative and quantitative study designs. Replicable studies, using rigorous methods and clearly defined outcomes are urgently needed if organizations want to achieve a real change in organizational climate or culture for responsible research. The protocol for this scoping review was registered at https://osf.io/7zjqb. (shrink)