The Aftermath of Organizational Corruption: Employee Attributions and Emotional Reactions

Employee attributions and emotional reactions to unethical behavior of top leaders in an organization recently involved in a highly publicized ethics scandal were examined. Participants (n = 76) from a large southern California government agency completed an ethical climate assessment. Secondary dat...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
VerfasserInnen: Pelletier, Kathie L. (VerfasserIn) ; Bligh, Michelle C. (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2008
In: Journal of business ethics
Jahr: 2008, Band: 80, Heft: 4, Seiten: 823-844
weitere Schlagwörter:B employee reactions
B Corruption
B Unethical Behavior
B ethics scandal
B Ethical decision making
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Zusammenfassung:Employee attributions and emotional reactions to unethical behavior of top leaders in an organization recently involved in a highly publicized ethics scandal were examined. Participants (n = 76) from a large southern California government agency completed an ethical climate assessment. Secondary data analysis was performed on the written commentary to an open-ended question seeking employees’ perceptions of the ethical climate. Employees attributed the organization’s poor ethical leadership to a number of causes, including: lack of moral reasoning, breaches of trust, hypocrisy, and poor ethical behavior role modeling. Emotional reactions to corruption included cynicism, optimism, pessimism, paranoia and fear, and were targeted at top leaders, organizational practices (i.e., the old boy network, nepotism, and cronyism) and ethics interventions. Implications for leadership training and other organizational ethics interventions are discussed.
ISSN:1573-0697
Enthält:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-007-9471-8