The Organizational Bases of Ethical Work Climates

This research was funded through the Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Ethics, College of Law, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, by a grant from the Peter Kiewit Sons, Inc. Foundation and the Peter Kiewit Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable guidance and insights provided by Marshall Meyer and four anonymous ASQ reviewers. We would also like to thank Tomoaki Sakano and Daniel Ganster for their helpful comments during the formative stages of this manuscript. Using a modification of a recently developed measure of ethical climates, this paper presents evidence from a survey of 872 employees of four firms that ethical work climates are both multidimensional and multidetermined. The study demonstrates that organizations have distinct types of ethical climates and that there is variance in the ethical climate within organizations by position, tenure, and workgroup membership. Five empirically derived dimensions of ethical climate are described: law and code, caring, instrumentalism, independence, and rules. Analyses of variance reveal significant differences in ethical climates both across and within firms. A theory of ethical climates is developed from organization and economic theory to describe the determinants of ethical climates in organizations. In particular, the sociocultural environment, organizational form, and organization-specific history are identified as determinants of the ethical climates in organizations. The implications of ethical climate for organizational theory are also discussed.'