Code of Ethics: A Conceptual Model and Preliminary Results

Journal of Business Ethics, 2007

This paper takes its point of departure in an article by Stevens [Stevens, B.: 1994, Journal of Business Ethics 54, 163-171], in which she identified a lack of knowledge regarding how corporate codes of ethics are communicated and affect behavior in organizations. Taking heed of this suggested gap, we review studies on corporate codes of ethics with an empirical content, published since 1994. The conclusion of the review is that we still lack knowledge on how codes work, how they are communicated and how they are transformed inside organizations. Stevens' plea could even be extended, arguing that the knowledge gap might be of even more significance than in the mid-1990s. Some directions for how this situation can be approached in future studies are outlined in the paper.

Business Ethics: A European Review, 2008

While most large companies around the world now have a code of ethics, reported ethical malpractice among some of these does not appear to be abating. The reasons for this are explored, using academic studies, survey reports as well as insights gained from the Institute of Business Ethics' work with large corporations. These indicate that there is a gap between the existence of explicit ethical values and principles, often expressed in the form of a code, and the attitudes and behaviour of the organisation. The paper suggests that two basic reasons appear to be at the heart of the problem: ineffective ethics programmes and deficiencies in corporate culture. The paper concludes that successfully embedded corporate ethical values requires well-designed ethics policies, sustained ethical leadership and incorporation of ethics in organisational processes and strategy as part of an ethical culture at all levels of the organisation. It makes some practical suggestions on how this can be achieved.

2021

Although recognized as a key factor for its effectiveness, the adopted process for the development of a global corporate code of ethics, is one of the least documented aspects by Academia. The code is often created at central level and then sent for adoption and implementation to the different branches within the organisation, and the fact that they are not involved in the development process, frequently elicits resistance and compromises effectiveness. This was initially the case with the company of this study, where it was found that business units from different geographical locations had gradually made adaptations to the original code of the Group, which no longer remained the same across countries, neither in text nor in form, which led to the code review. Developed through an action-research methodology, this case study describes the review process which included 30 people from all the Group companies. All defined goals have been achieved. The different companies’ representati...

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management , 2021

This book chapter provides an overview of how the academic literature on corporate ethics codes and practices has developed across time and space. Our emphasis is on charting this development in a global context. Specifically, we review the academic literature over the last three decades and organize our core findings into three main sections: (1) Evolution in the content of corporate codes of ethics across time and space, (2) evolution in the practice of corporate codes of ethics across time and space and (3) global translation of codes of ethics. We note that while the practice of adopting corporate code of ethics has continued to develop globally, there is a lop-sided emphasis in academic literature focused on codes of ethics in developed nations. Given the persistent prevalence of corporate misconduct despite the adoption of such codes, we identify some important themes and key research questions for guiding future research in the field.

Journal of Business Ethics

This paper presents a review of 100 empirical papers studying corporate codes of ethics (CCEs) in business organizations from the time period mid-2005 until mid-2016, following approximately an 11-year time period after the previous review of the literature. The reviewed papers are broadly categorized as content-oriented, output-oriented, or transformation-oriented. The review sheds light on empirical focus, context, questions addressed, methods, findings and theory. The findings are discussed in terms of the three categories as well as the aggregate, stock of empirical CCE studies in comparison with previous reviews, answering the question “where are we now?” Content and output studies still stand for the majority of the studies, whereas the transformation studies are fewer. Within these areas, two new trends are found to have emerged: discursive analyses and a focus on labor conditions. The review finds that (a) the content of CCEs is still predominantly self-defensive, (b) that C...

Kul, B. (2023). An Analysis of Corporate Ethical Codes and Code of Conduct. İstanbul Commerce University Journal of Social Science, 22(46), 546–563. https://doi.org/10.46928/iticusbe.1237377, 2023

The sustainable success of the Turkish civil aviation sector, which is an example of quality, quantity, and flexibility, is directly related to the ability to create and position a strong culture of "ethical code and code of conduct". Objective: The main purpose of this research is to examine the presence, current status, and the content of ethical codes and codes of conduct in Türkiye. Method: The current data of this research were obtained from the official websites of airline companies licensed by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation in Türkiye. Additionally, the declarations, official statements, and public information of these companies were subjected to documents and content analysis. Findings: According to the research results, 33% of Turkish registered airlines have declared their ethical code and code of conduct. Additionally, 6 of the 8 companies that do not declare their ethical code and code of conduct have statements in different documents that may correspond to the code of ethics and code of conduct. Originality: Very few studies in the field of civil aviation in the national literature has focused on ethical culture. This study is expected to make a major contribution to the literature.

Ethical codes have been hailed as an explicit vehicle for achieving more sustainable and defensible organizational practice. Nonetheless, when legal compliance and corporate governance codes are conflated, codes can be used to define organizational interests ostentatiously by stipulating norms for employee ethics. Such codes have a largely cosmetic and insurance function, acting subtly and strategically to control organizational risk management and protection. In this paper, we conduct a genealogical discourse analysis of a representative code of ethics from an international corporation to understand how management frames expectations of compliance. Our contribution is to articulate the problems inherent in codes of ethics, and we make some recommendations to address these to benefit both an organization and its employees. In this way, we show how a code of ethics can provide a foundation for ethical sustainability, while addressing management intentions and employees' ethical satisfaction.

2010

Abstract: Key Issues: Reasons for insuring effectiveness of codes of ethics lie in benefits of corporate citizenship and profitability; Vital for codes of ethics to have widespread staff involvement and for staff to be assigned to manage the operation, updating and ...

Despite millions of dollars being deployed to few studies have been able to effectively address and measure the effectiveness of codes of ethics in reducing misbehavior. In this article, we propose to evaluate what information codes can highlight in terms of deeper ethical structures of organizations. We suggest that codes of ethics can be separated into two different contents: a legal approach, based on rational decision-making and mainly focused on the institutional legal framework, and a behavioral approach takes onboard insights from the behavioral ethics literature. To evaluate both the codes' structure and development empirically, we decided to use Fortune 500's public companies dataset. Our results show that, via cluster analysis, three main code categories emerged: legalistic codes, behavioral codes, and paper codes -which have low proportions of both legal and behavioral content, . Also, by evaluating the relationship between code effectiveness and content, we found that companies with higher behavioral content had a better compliance effectiveness system when measured as risk behavior. However, behavioral content fared worse when measured against the risk of class action litigations. We believe that our results may shed light on how to improve compliance policies better and how to build guidelines that effectively consider how key stakeholders effectively make ethical decisions. By structuring compliance guidelines that take into consideration the particularities of each organization, we will be one step closer to foster and create truly ethical organizations.

Journal of Business Ethics, 1994