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Opening the Black Box: Corporate Codes of Ethics in Their Organizational Context

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Abstract

A review of the literature on Corporate Codes of Ethics suggests that whilst there exists an informative body of literature concerning the prevalence of such codes, their design, implementation and promulgation, it is also evident that there is a relative lack of consideration of their impact upon members' everyday organizational behaviour. By drawing upon organizational sociology and psychology this paper constructs a contextualist and interpretive model which seeks to enable an analysis and evaluation of their effects upon individual, group and organizational behaviour.

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Cassell, C., Johnson, P. & Smith, K. Opening the Black Box: Corporate Codes of Ethics in Their Organizational Context. Journal of Business Ethics 16, 1077–1093 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017926106560

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