Effects on culture on business ethics

This paper examines two different but related concepts that are part of modern organization. Organizations operate with societies and are by virtue of their existence expected to be morally right, correct and defined. The paper examines organizational culture and four outlooks on culture and performance to demonstrate their interaction. It then looks at the organizational behaviour. Definition of terms Organizational culture Giberson et al (2009) define organizational culture as a collective phenomenon emerging from organizations' members' beliefs and social interactions, containing shared values, mutual understandings, patterns of beliefs and behaviours that tie individuals in an organization together over time. The beliefs and assumptions that are considered valid or effective are passed down through the organization and taught to new members as the way they should perceive, feel and act in the organization. It guides how things are done in an organization and indicates what should be important to the employees. It helps explain what happens in organizations since the behaviours within the company should be consistent (O'Donnell and Boyle, 2008). Organizational Behaviour Organizational behaviour is the study about how people feel, think and act in an organization and consequently how they are affected by the activities within the organization (Thomson, 2005). It is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organization. It is the study and application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It applies broadly to the behaviour of people in all types of organizations, such as business, government, schools and services organizations. OB covers three determinants of behaviour in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure.

Organizational research in the last two decades has paid greater attention to the topic of culture as a potential key or critical lever for better understanding of organizations. Culture has drawn attention to the long-neglected, subjective, or "soft" side, of organizational life. In functionalist thinking, culture is considered a component of an integrated social system which promotes the effectiveness of the organization and the well-being of all its stakeholders. Organizational culture refers to the assumptions, beliefs, goals, knowledge and values that are shared by organizational members. Culture represents the high-information "ideal factors" in a system or organization that exert significant and partly independent influence on human events. When an individual is faced with an ethical dilemma, his or her value system will color the perception of the ethical ramifications of the situation. This study, then, seeks to explore and have a basic understanding of the relationship between such value systems and employees' perceptions of organizational ethics. Analysis of a survey of 136 MBA students who are managers in Philippine companies regarding their firms' culture and their organizational members' perceptions of ethics reveals that there is a slightly significant relationship between particular cultural characteristics and employee perceptions of organizational ethics. This finding provides modest support for the theory that organizational values are associated with organizational members' perception of ethical business dilemmas. It likewise confirms the suggestion in the literature that organizations take on various cultural characteristics along the different stages of their life cycle, and that individual values and ethical perceptions do interact with the organizations' value systems.

International Journal of Value-Based Management, 2002

Within the general frame of proposals for an adequate management of business ethics, this paper is based on the vision of corporate culture as a pattern to achieve such purpose. If we consider ethics as a specific value of corporate culture, we may resort to the mechanism of cultural change and implementation in order to manage ethics. Despite the difficulties it entails in terms of time and money investment, this procedure is one of the safest ways to reach ethical values which are known, shared and then practiced by all the members of a corporation, whatever the category. From this central standpoint, and basing ourselves on our own proposal for the management of culture, we shall describe which specific steps must be taken in order to achieve a set of ethical values which are both realistic and furthermore shared by all collaborators of an organization.

What constitutes ethical behaviour lies in a " grey zone " where clearcut right versus wrong and good versus bad dichotomies may not always exist. This paper is an empirical study on organizational culture and ethical behaviour from a strategic standpoint. Its objectives were to determine if there is a significant relationship between organizational culture and ethical behaviour and if there is a significant relationship between organizational culture and employees' values. The participants of the study were employees of selected public and private organizations in Lagos, Nigeria. The selection was through simple random sampling technique. The sample size was 92 respondents. Two (2) hypotheses were formulated and tested using regression analysis. Hypothesis one revealed that there is significant relationship between organizational culture and ethical behavior; the coefficient of determination (R 2) is 0.370. It shows that 37% of the variation or change in ethical behaviour is caused by variation in organizational culture. Hypothesis two also shows that the coefficient of determination (R 2) is 0.423. It means that 42.3% of the variation or change in employees' values is caused by variation in organizational culture, which connotes that organizational culture has significant relationship with employees' values. The study recommends that management should constantly review its organizational culture to be sure that it remains strong on the vision of the founders of the organisation, because organizational culture can be eroded as more people come into the organization with their various individual behaviours and values.

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American Journal of Business and Management, 2012

It attempts at putting in place some sense of 'sound moral values' within a company's employee population as regards how they could conduct business responsibly. The recent corporate scandals globally (which have been taken to unprecedented levels) have made managers and researchers to turn their attentions to questions of ethics management. This paper therefore examines how national culture influences 'sound moral values' in business enterprises. As the main objective of business enterprises is to maximise profit, this should be done within some acceptable 'sound moral values' or what can be referred to as business/corporate ethics. The study being qualitative relies on the interview research technique while employing primary and secondary sources of data collection. The study concludes that national culture determines corporate/business culture while corporate/business culture is fashioned after national culture. The implication of this is that multinational companies cannot expect that the same business ethics operating in their home countries can be 'exported' to the host countries. This is mainly because of differences in the culture of the host countries and the home countries. Secondly, a template of business ethics is therefore problematic if not impossible.

Business ethics and organizational culture concepts were observed to be important in business management and organization over recent years and this has been a concept largely discussed in the literature. The present study examines the relationship between employee’s perceptions of business ethics and organizational culture by investigating the organization in Northern Cyprus. The methodology used in this research was of a quantitative nature. The empirically tested attitudes towards business ethics questionnaire (ATBEQ) was administrated to collect data in a survey of 127 respondents with a participation rate of 98%. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, T-test, Pearson Correlation analysis been applied. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the two groups treated as our two levels of the independent variable has been implemented. The research findings prove the hypothesis stating that there is significant relationship between organizational culture and variables in the attitudes of employees toward business ethics and organizational culture.

Globethics, 2021

The culture of any organization can provide information about its customers, employees, leadership, kinds of goods and services being offered, and the message that is being projected. Individuals who have been with a company for several years become familiar with the procedures, and mostly ignore the significant role that corporate culture plays in shaping a business. The culture can determine the level of commitment from customers, to the quality of workers they will attract and retai

As the globalization developed rapidly, every individual plays much more important role in modern society. It is seems there are many people realizing that live in forming communities is better than live in an isolation island. In the highly level society, people more likely get their needs efficiently and easier to enhance their life quality. The problem for every forming community or other social group’s members is when people make decisions, especially when they focus on their own needs and face temptations, if they prefer make decision in a selfish way.

The purpose of this study is to examine the ethical decision making differences between cultures in an international context. For this purpose a quantitative study was conducted in Turkey, England and İran on university level accounting students. The cultural dimensions of Hofstede is established as the cultural framework of the study. In this context it is hypothesised that there is a relationship between cultural dimensions of individuals and an their ethical decision making tendency. It is also hypothesised that between nationalities there is a difference in ethical decision making tendency. By revealing the relationship between culture and ethical decision making in accounting field with a cross-cultural research in 3 countries, the study has original work qualities in Turkey. Study was conducted that on 3 countries. The data was gathered with face to face surveys in Turkey and Iran. Data from English students was gathered via e-mail. In the data collecting phase a survey was conducted on 154 English students, 202 Turkish students, 185 Iranian students and 57 students from various nations. In accordance with the purpose the gathered data is tested by factor analysis, correlation analysis and anova analysis via SPSS program. The findings reveal that there is a partial relationship between cultural dimensions and ethical decision making tendency. Findings also reveal that ethical decision making tendency partially differs from nation to nation.

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2019

Ethical decision making is the most crucial action in an organisation as option chosen should not only consistent with values and principles, but also maintain the good reputation of the organisation. It is vital that decision makers go through a proper process of decision making which assist them to come to a coveted result. Based on the several unethical world scandals which involved abuse of power, manipulation of money in a government, false claims and corruption among the local authorities; these are found to be caused by improper or unethical decision making. Ironically, this unethical problem involves senior officials of the local authorities in Malaysia. Past research has suggested that the best solution to mitigate the risk of unethical behaviour which leads to unethical decision for the local authorities is to improvise the foundation which is enhancing the awareness and educational programs to promote ethical behaviour among the managers. This is hoped to increase their commitments to ethics and make it a culture and norm in their daily decision making.

This paper addresses a significant gap in the conceptualization of business ethics within different cultural influences. Though theoretical models of business ethics have recognized th.e importance of culture in ethical decision making , few have examined how this influences ethical decision-making. Therefore, this paper develops propositions concerning the influence of various cultural dimensions on ethical decision-making using Hofstede's typology.

2016

This dissertation explores some of the difficulties that arise when using the cognitive development model to explain ethical behaviour in the world of work. An alternative theoretical position is explored, one that was originally developed in anthropology by Richard Shweder and Jonathan Haidt. This position asserts that ethical behaviour is not universal, it is instead highly contextual and may be influenced by both organisational and ethnic/national culture. The influence of culture on ethical behaviour is explored using narrative research techniques. The research is based on thirty in depth interviews with senior executives who frequently faced ethical dilemmas at work. Interviewees represented a number of diverse cultural backgrounds (including British, Dutch, US, Indian, Saudi, Colombian and Brazilian) and a number of strong organisation cultures. The conclusions emphasize the importance of personal networks as a resource for resolving ethical dilemmas and the importance of diff...

Procedia Economics and Finance, 2012

Business ethics has been subject to so many studies in the contemporary literature. Being a type of human activity, business om the economic efficiency perspective. The goal of our qualitative study is to reveal the relationship between the ethical values and the organizational culture. It is based on a survey of 148 subjects, managers and employees who work in companies in the regional business environment of Romania, in the Mures County. We have reached a main conclusion: the implementation of ethical values is connected, through the organizational culture, to the size of the enterprise. Big companies are more likely to elaborate written ethical codes within a strategic vision and their employees acknowledge this aspect, compared with small enterprises and their workers.