Fluent Essays

1. Discuss the statement: “…spirituality has substantial explanatory power in predicting the ethics of individual employees’ in the workplace” (p.416).2. What does this mean in the context of an ethical workplace? lowery_etal_2014_research_spirituality_ethics_workplace.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014: 408-423 A Research Note on the Relationships among Spirituality, Contextual Variables, and Perceptions of Ethics in the Workplace Christopher M. Lowery Department of Management Georgia College and State University Robert J. Duesing Associate Professor o f Management Georgia College and State University N. A. Beadles II Interim. Chair, Department of Management Georgia College and State University Questionable ethics among people in business organizations has been an issue for a number of years. The scandals of 10-15 years ago involving Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, Tyco International, and WorldCom seemed to bring business ethics to the forefront of public attention and increased public demand for more ethical behavior in business. However, events of recent years continue to indicate that some managers and business leaders struggle with ethical dilemmas. The shocking financial schemes of Bemie Madoff have been followed by further instances of financial fraud and other examples of unethical behavior. These failures are disheartening considering the increased focus that has been placed on ethics. While the popular press is replete with articles bemoaning the absence of ethics in the business world, much research has investigated the factors that influence ethics in business and organizational settings. Contextual, or situational, factors have been the focus of much of this research; however, individual or personal variables have also been examined. Among these situational factors, codes of ethics have been among the more heavily researched, and the effects of training in ethics have been assessed. Researchers have also conducted cross-cultural comparisons (Rottig and Heischmidt, 2007; Beekun JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014 (408) S piritu a lity C ontext and W orkplace E th ics 409 and Westerman, 2012) and have investigated ethics in various cultures (Issa and Pick, 2010; Luckerath-Rovers and De Bos, 2011). Other situational variables that have been assessed include peer influence (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996; Beekun and Westerman, 2012), situation orientation (Carlson et al, 2002), ethical culhire or climate (Ambrose et al, 2008; Tsai and Shih, 2005), distributive justice (Umphress dal., 2009), managerial influence (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996), and organizational characteristics (Key, 2002). In addition to contextual variables, other variables related to the individual have also been studied. These individual variables include demographic characteristics, especially age and gender, as well as other personal characteristics. Researchers have assessed the effects of religiosity (Lowery and Beadles, 2009; Vitell et al, 2005, 2006), locus of control (Hume and Smidi, 2006; Cherry, 2006; Smith et al, 2004), machiavellianism (Wakefield, 2008; Hartog and Belschak, 2012), spirituality (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003a; Beekun and Westerman, 2012), alienation (Kennedy and Lawton, 1996), and cognitive moral development (Church etal, 2005). The purpose of the present study is to increase knowledge of variables that influence ethical decision-making. Additionally, this study adds to the understanding of ethics in the workplace. Much of the research on ethics has focused on personal conceptualizations of ethics, employing such measures as ego strength and locus of control (Trevino, 1986), positioning on a relativism-idealism dimension (Forsyth, 1992), moral principle, moral philosophy, and moral judgment (Forsyth, 1992; Quinn, 1997), or consumer ethics (Hiller, 2010; Vitell, 2003; Muncy and Vitell, 1992). Comparatively, however, there is a paucity of research that focuses specifically on ethics in the workplace. Thus, in this study, the effects of one of the lesser studied individual variables that might affect ethical decision-making, spirituality, is assessed as well as several demographic variables, and two contextual variables, ethics training and codes of ethics, on ethics in the workplace. Also, these effects are assessed employing a sample of working individuals. While the use of student samples can provide insight and improve our understanding of many workplace issues, many if not most students will lack the experience of full time employment in an organization. This represents a possible limitation of studies that attempt to answer questions concerning behaviors in the workplace. This is especially true regarding ethics, as studies have indicated differences in the ethical decision-making processes of students and working professionals (Ritter, 2006; O’Leary and Pangemanan, 2007; Molnar et al, 2008; Tang and Chen, 2008). LITERATURE REVIEW Contextual Variables Situational or contextual variables have been the focus of research concerning ethical decision-making for a number of years. Ford and Richardson’s review of the empirical literature in 1994 categorized the research on such situational variables as referent groups (peer and managerial influence), rewards and sanctions, types of ethical conflict, organizational characteristics, competitiveness, and industry type. Their review also listed nine studies that had examined codes of conduct, and they concluded that the existence of a corporate code of conduct would positively impact individuals’ ethical beliefs and decisions. Since their review, a number of additional studies have addressed this issue. JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014 410 L ow ery , D u e s in g , and B eadles Many of the studies that have examined the effectiveness of corporate codes have found some effect, but the evidence is not overwhelming. A recent review found 79 empirical studies that assessed the effects of corporate codes of conduct and concluded that the results of these studies were mixed (Kaptein and Schwartz, 2008). Of these 79 studies, 35\% concluded that the codes were effective, 16\% found weak evidence, 33\% found no significant relationship, 14\% found mixed results, and one study found that corporate codes could produce negative effects. Other studies not included in this review have returned mixed effects. McKinney and Moore (2008) found that the presence of a written code of ethics significantly decreased the likelihood that business professionals would find international bribery acceptable, while Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath’s (2009) results suggested that a code would only be effective if it had been internalized by the individuals subject to the code. Additional studies found no significant effects on perceived managerial discretion in the area of ethical intentions (Key, 2002) or as a moderator of the relationship between distributive justice and ethical decision-making (Umphress et al, 2009). Ford and Richardson’s (1994) review focused only on corporate codes, but codes of conduct exist for business professions or occupations, and more recent research has addressed these types of codes. Several different occupations have formal codes of ethics promulgated by their professional associations, and formal codes have been discussed or suggested for at least a few other occupations. Perhaps the most well-known business profession to have a formal code of ethics is accounting. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct is a voluntary code that addresses the ethical behavior of members of the accounting profession. The existence of this code is well known, even among non-accountants, but empirical research examining the effect of this code on ethical behavior is limited (Brown et al., 2007), and the effectiveness of the code has been debated. The code has been found to have a positive impact on the moral reasoning levels of students who had been exposed to it during a college course (Green and Weber, 1997), but its ability to influence practicing accountants, and thus to serve the public interest, has been questioned (Lindblom and Ruland, 1997; Neill et al, 2005). In addition to the AICPA’s voluntary code, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has issued a code of ethics for professional accountants and requires that national accounting organizations either adopt the IFAC code, or a code of conduct that is at least as stringent, as a condition of membership. Out of a sample of 158 national accounting organizations, 80 had adopted the IFAC code as of 2009 (Clements et al, 2009). Similarly, the International Standard on Quality Control requires that firms communicate and reinforce ethical principles as part of the firm’s quality control processes (ISQC1, 2007; Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath, 2009). While accountants have multiple sources of codes of ethics for their profession, they are not the only professionals with an occupational-level code. The Association for Computing Machinery adopted a code of ethics in 1992; prior research has found that information technology professionals generally agree with the code, and that agreement with the code is positively related to ethical intentions (Peslak, 2007). Additionally, the Direct Selling Association (DSA) requires its members to abide by the DSA’s code of ethics; research suggests that the usefulness of this code is related to familiarity with the code and to ethical climate, and that code usefulness and familiarity decline as business turbulence increases (Chonko et al., 2003; Wotraba et al, 2001). JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014 S piritu a lity C ontext and W orkplace E th ic s 411 In addition to establishing codes of ethics, another way in which organizations attempt to influence ethical decision-making among their employees is through training and instruction. Research on the effect of training is, however, like that of ethical codes, mixed. A meta-analytic review of research on business ethics instruction concluded that training conducted in a professional seminar or workshop setting produced larger effects than academic instruction (Waples et al., 2009). The effects of teaching ethics in college classes in an academic setting has also been questioned; a review of 31 studies conducted over a 25-year period raised several issues concerning the effectiveness of these classes (Lowery and Beadles, 2008), Thus, while the research results appear to suggest that ethics instruction should be conducted in a professional setting in order to maximize its effectiveness, the meta-analysis included only three studies that assessed training in a professional setting. While some other studies have found a positive effect, for training (Valentine and Fleischman, 2004; Delaney and Sockell, 1992; Liao and Teng, 2010; Kavathatzopoulos, 1994; Izzo et al., 2006), the results of other studies have called into question the efficacy of these programs (Izzo, 2000; Adam and RachmanMoore, 2004); one study even reported negative effects for training (Honeycutt et al., 1995). The research results regarding the effectiveness of ethics training thus are mixed, so additional evidence is needed. The same holds true for the effects of codes of ethics. Therefore, this study tests the effects of these contextual variables - organizational codes of ethics, professional/occupational codes of ethics, and ethics training - on perceptions of ethics in the workplace, and specifies the following hypotheses: HI a: The presence of an organizational code of ethics will have a positive effect on perceptions of workplace ethics. HI b: The presence of a professional or occupational code of ethics will have a positive effect on perceptions of workplace ethics. Hlc: Ethics training will have a positive effect on perceptions of workplace ethics. Spirituality While researchers have been interested in the effects of situational or contextual variables on ethical behavior, attention has also been given to individual-level variables, and different theoretical models have been proposed that attempt to explain the behavior of individuals when faced with ethical choices, including person-situation interaction and issue-contingent models (Jones, 1991; Trevino, 1986). Ethics in organizations is determined by the individuals in the organization, so while contextual variables can have an impact, it is the individual employee’s personal ethical framework that likely has the largest influence on individual ethical behavior. While many personal-level characteristics have been hypothesized to influence ethics, one that offers some promise in aiding with understanding of the determinants of ethics in the workplace is spirituality. The number of articles on workplace spirituality, in the popular press and practitioner outlets as well as in academic journals, in recent years is huge, and the number related to spirituality is staggering. Many definitions and operationalizations of spirituality have been proposed. As an example, Markow and Klenke (2005) report more than 70 definitions of spirituality at work. Perhaps the most widely accepted definition was developed by Ashmos and Duchon (2000) when they JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014 412 L ow ery , D u e s in g , and B eadles defined workplace spirituality as “recognition of an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community.” They proposed three essential components of workplace spirituality: the inner life, meaning of work, and community. While much has been written about spirituality and its effect in the workplace, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the topic, particularly spirituality in the workplace. Some of die empirical research on ethics has treated spirituality as interchangeable with religiosity. Vitell and Paolillo (2003) used the terms “religiosity/spirituality” and “religious/spiritual” when developing their hypotheses concerning religiosity and ethical beliefs, and Vitell et al. (2005) suggest that the reason that extrinsic religiousness has no impact on ethical beliefs is that extrinsic religiousness does not involve spirituality, which implies that intrinsic religiousness does involve spirituality, but this view is not uniformly held. As King and Crowther noted in 2004 that while a difference of opinion was evident in the literature, the field has moved toward considering them as separate constructs. This trend has continued as evidenced by the large amount of research assessing spirituality as a construct independent from religiousness. Swatzky et al. (2005) summarized the trend in referring to spirituality as being reflective of people who consider themselves spiritual, but not religious. This paper follows this trend and considers spirituality as a construct independent of religiousness. As noted, an ever-growing body of literature on spirituality has been developing in recent years. In that literature, much attention has been devoted to developing models and theories of spirituality in the workplace and identifying various approaches and conceptualizations of workplace spirituality (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000; Mohamed et al., 2004; Heaton et al., 2004; Moore and Casper, 2006; Gotsis and Kortezi, 2008; Pawar, 2008a, 2008b, 2009a; Karakas, 2010). Several reviews of workplace spirituality have appeared, touting the effects of spirituality on performance and productivity (GarciaZamor, 2003; Jurkiewicz and Giacalone, 2004; Karakas, 2010). Yet relatively little empirical research has been conducted to assess the effect of spirituality in the workplace. Studies have investigated the effects of spirituality on work-related outcome variables such as job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, organizational identification, intent to quit, organization-based self-esteem, organizational frustration, work rewards satisfaction, and work unit performance (Milliman et al., 2003; Duchon and Plowman, 2005; Kolodinsky et al., 2008; Rego and Cunha, 2008; Pawar, 2009b), but considering the amount that has been written about workplace spirituality, these efforts have been relatively few. Included in this limited research on the relationship between spirituality and workrelated outcomes are a small number of studies that have assessed the effects of spirituality on business ethics. One study by Giacalone and Jurkiewicz (2003a) found that spirituality has an impact on whether individuals perceive questionable business practices as unethical or ethical. They asked respondents to rate die extent to which they found each of 25 activities to be ethical; a factor analysis reduced these 25 items to six factors, and spirituality was found to be related to three of these six factors. Problematically many of the items included in the analysis assessed macro-level activities that would not be under the control of most employees, such as disposal of solid waste, exploitation of natural resources, pollution of air and water, etc. Given that spirituality is conceptualized as a personal, individual-level variable, a weak connection would be JOURNAL OF MANAGERIAL ISSUES Vol. XXVI Number 4 Winter 2014 S pir itu a lity C ontext and W orkplace E th ic s 413 expected between spirituality and macro-level variables; consequently, it might be of more interest to assess the effects of spirituality on questionable activities that fall under the control of individual employees. A second study that assessed the effects of spirituality on ethics was a cross-cultural comparison by Beekun and Westerman (2012), and the results were quite interesting; they found that the more spiritual Norwegians were, the more ethical their decision-making was. Conversely, the opposite was true for Americans: the more spiritual they were, the less ethical their decision-making. Their results though interesting, are not generalizable because they were based upon a convenience sample of students, and included only 33 American students. Spirituality seems a promising variable to study in relation to ethics, particularly as a determinant of ethical decision-making, even given Beekun and Westerman’s (2012) puzzling results. In fact, it has been suggested that these concepts are so intertwined that one will always influence the other and they should be studied together (Escobar, 2011). Therefore, a primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of spirituality on individual ethics in the workplace. This study examines whether spirituality explains a significant amount of variation in workplace ethics after accounting for the variation explained by contextual factors. Another issue with the current spirituality literature is the frequency with which empirical studies have been drawn from convenience samples of students (Zullig el al., 2006; Kolodinsky et al., 2010; Yiengprugsawan et al., 2010). To be able to assess the factors that influence spirituality on individual ethics in the workplace, it seems a central effort must be the sampling of data from a work environment rather than an educational environment. The same can be said for much of the research assessing business ethics; many studies have employed samples of students, and the generalizability of the results of these studies to the work environment could be questioned. Accordingly, this sample was drawn from a population of working individuals. Thus, the current paper makes contributions in two ways: the primary contribution is to add to the body of knowledge regarding the determinants of ethics in the workplace, and, secondarily, extend the empirical research on the effects of workplace spirituality. H2: Spirituality will be positively associated with perceptions of workplace ethics. METHOD Sample A survey was employed to assess perceptions of spirituality and of the ethicality of particular behaviors. The survey was administered by students who were enrolled in a graduate business program. The majority of these students worked full time jobs, ... Purchase answer to see full attachment