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The Aftermath of Organizational Corruption: Employee Attributions and Emotional Reactions
- Source :
- Journal of Business Ethics. 80:823-844
- Publication Year :
- 2007
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2007.
-
Abstract
- 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.
- Subjects :
- Economics and Econometrics
Corruption
business.industry
media_common.quotation_subject
Moral reasoning
Public relations
General Business, Management and Accounting
Organizational ethics
Ethical leadership
Optimism
Cynicism
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Sociology
Business and International Management
Cronyism
Business ethics
business
Law
Social psychology
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15730697 and 01674544
- Volume :
- 80
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Business Ethics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........e514b93c9c55fecdd99a18b984f3ee8e