Journal of Business Ethics 14 (5):367 - 385 (1995)
Abstract |
Prior research on ethics codes has suggested, but rarely tested, the effects of code design alternatives on the impact of codes. This study considers whether the presence of explanatory rationales and descriptions of sanctions in ethics codes affects recipients'' responses to a code. Theories of organizational justice and persuasive communication support an expectation that rationales and sanctions will be positively related to code recipients'' recall of code content and perceptions of organizational justice. Content recall is an obvious precondition of code compliance; justice perceptions have multiple implications for the attitudes and actions of organizational members. Results show that explanatory rationales are associated with a statistically significant increase in perceptions of organizational procedural justice, but that rationales and sanctions generally show no relationship to distributive justice perceptions and accurate content recall. These results suggest that common prescriptions regarding ethics code design are of uncertain value apart from further research which unearths the relationships among the intended and perceived purposes of codes, the organizational settings in which they are applied, and a wide variety of code designs.
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DOI | 10.1007/BF00872099 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Social Desirability Response Bias in Ethics Research.Donna M. Randall & Maria F. Fernandes - 1991 - Journal of Business Ethics 10 (11):805 - 817.
Professional Codes: Why, How, and with What Impact? [REVIEW]Mark S. Frankel - 1989 - Journal of Business Ethics 8 (2-3):109 - 115.
Corporate Codes of Conduct: A Collective Conscience and Continuum. [REVIEW]Cecily A. Raiborn & Dinah Payne - 1990 - Journal of Business Ethics 9 (11):879 - 889.
View all 12 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
The Effectiveness of Business Codes: A Critical Examination of Existing Studies and the Development of an Integrated Research Model. [REVIEW]Muel Kaptein & Mark S. Schwartz - 2008 - Journal of Business Ethics 77 (2):111 - 127.
The Effectiveness of Business Codes: A Critical Examination of Existing Studies and the Development of an Integrated Research Model.Muel Kaptein & Mark S. Schwartz - 2008 - Journal of Business Ethics 77 (2):111-127.
Toward Effective Codes: Testing the Relationship with Unethical Behavior. [REVIEW]Muel Kaptein - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 99 (2):233 - 251.
Culture Follows Design: Code Design as an Antecedent of the Ethical Culture.Thomas Stöber, Peter Kotzian & Barbara E. Weißenberger - 2019 - Business Ethics: A European Review 28 (1):112-128.
Corporate Codes of Conduct: The Effects of Code Content and Quality on Ethical Performance. [REVIEW]Patrick M. Erwin - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 99 (4):535 - 548.
View all 18 citations / Add more citations
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