Communicating ethical values is a serious issue for a number of organizations. While ethical codes are useful, they cannot exist alone. Organizations must make certain codes reflect the ideals of individuals in the organization and the ethical expectations must be clearly communicated. This study examined the sources (people) and channels (ways messages were received) that affected how employees learned about ethics. Results showed that training and orientation programs were affirmed as sources of learning along with teaching others. Codes and handbooks (...) were also identified as ways employees learned about ethics in their organization. Ethical issues were discussed more frequently with fellow employees than with supervisors suggesting that managers could be more proactive about discussing ethics with employees. (shrink)

The concept of organizational justice is important to understanding and predicting organizational behavior. A significant development in the research literature has been the separation of distributive and procedural justice. While much of the research has focused on negative outcomes, this research attempted to verify the presence of both forms of justice in the context of positive outcomes. Subjects completed an instrument designed to measure their perceptions of distributive and procedural justice. The subjects also reported their satisfaction and sense of fairness (...) with their salary increases, their belief that the procedures to award the increases had been followed, and their level of information and agreement regarding the salary program. These measures, along with size of salary increase and gender were examined to determine their impact on the subjects' perceived level of justice. The data support the existence of the two distinct forms of justice, but suggest that procedural justice may, in turn, branch out into two aspects. One category involves being informed, and a second appears to deal with acceptance of procedures. A series of relationships are then considered. Significant gender effects were non-existent. (shrink)

A survey of middle level managers in India (n=150) showed that when respondents perceived that successful managers in their organization behaved unethically their levels of job satisfaction were reduced. Reduction in satisfaction with the facet of supervision was the most pronounced (than with pay or promotion or co-worker or work). Results are interpreted within the framework of cognitive dissonance theory. Implications for ethics training programs (behavioral and cognitive) as well as international management are discussed.

This study examines the impact of ethical climate types (professionalism, caring, rules, instrumental, efficiency, and independence) on various facets of job satisfaction (pay, promotions, co-workers, supervisors, and work itself) in a large non-profit organization. Professionalism was the most reported and efficiency was the least reported ethical climate type in the organization. Among various facets of job satisfaction, respondents were most satisfied with their work and least satisfied with their pay. None of the climate types significantly influenced satisfaction with pay. A (...) professional climate significantly influenced satisfaction with promotions, supervisors, and work. It also significantly influenced overall job satisfaction. Those respondents who believed that their organization had caring climate were more satisfied with their supervisors. An instrumental climate had a significant negative influence on overall job satisfaction and satisfaction with promotions, co-workers, and supervisors. Rules, efficiency, and independence climate types did not significantly affect any facets of job satisfaction. (shrink)

This paper examines the perceived ethical values of Malaysian managers. It is based on the opinions of 15 hypothetical ethical/unethical business situations from the 81 managers who agreed to participate in the survey. The findings of this study showed that these Malaysian managers have high ethical values. However 53% of the respondents believed that the ethical standards of today are lower than that of 15 years ago. Apparently, this is related to the existence of many unethical business practices prevalent in (...) the modern business world. The behavior of one's immediate superior is the most important factor in influencing managers to commit unethical practices. The results also indicate only a slight variation among the managers in terms of perceived ethical values by virtue of job position, job specialization, type of business activity or the size of the business organization. (shrink)