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This article presents a cross-cultural study of the antecedents of the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility in the decision-making process of managers from Spain, Turkey, Great Britain and the U.S. This study demonstrates that, regardless of one's country, the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility to the success of the firm (PRESOR) is indeed influenced by the individual decision-maker's own ethical perspective and the corporate culture of his/her organization. Furthermore, organizational commitment and enforcement of coded of ethics were both significant determinants of at least one dimension of PRESOR. Given the diversity in the cultures included in the study, it is noteworthy that personal and organizational factors have such an impact on perceptions regarding the importance of ethics and social responsibility. These results tend to highlight the important role that the organizational culture plays in ethical decision-making regardless of the more macro-culture that one is operating within. The significant influence of organizational commitment, existence of corporate values and the enforcement of a code of ethics as a longer term, top priority tend to further support this viewpoint.

A multinational study of marketing professionals was conducted in the US,England,Spain and Turkey.Respondents from these countries were compared on various ethics-related constructs such as idealism,relativism,moral intensity and corporate ethical values.Analyses of variance indicated that moral intensity had a signi ?cant impact on both ethical judgments and behavioral intentions.However,corporate ethical values,an idealistic ethical perspective and a relativistic ethical perspective only partially impacted ethical judgments and intentions.Country differences showed that the US was highest in terms of corporate ethical values while being the lowest in terms of relativism and signi?cantly lower than Spain and Turkey in terms of idealism.Turkey was the highest in terms of both idealism and relativism yet lowest in terms of corporate ethical values.Country differences in terms of moral intensity tended to be situation-speci?c.One managerial implication,for ?rms in all four countries,is that a clear set of corporate policies concerning ethics can positively in?uence the behavioral intentions of employees.It is important that employees do not misinterpret the desires of top management where ethical issues are involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional-technical employee perceptions of the R and D subsystem climate were believed to be influenced by personal, joint personal-situational, and situational characteristics. One hundred and five professional-technical employees, above the technical level, from seven organizations cooperated in a study to ascertain the factors which contribute to the formation of subsystem climate perceptions. The findings failed to support the expected relationship between personal characteristics and subsystem climate, but did indicate that joint personal-situational factors accounted for significant amounts of variance in climate perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]