On May 16, 2012, RAND brought together a group of public company directors and executives, chief ethics and compliance officers, and stakeholders from the government, academic, and nonprofit sectors for a series of conversations about organizational culture, as well as to explore the business and policy ramifications of efforts to build better ethical cultures in corporations.

_Conscience and Corporate Culture_ advances the constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations. Written for educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives, the book serves as a platform on a subject profoundly difficult and timely. Written from the unique vantage point of an author who is a philosopher, professor of business administration, and a corporate consultant A vital resource for both educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives (...) Forwards the constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations Offers a philosophical and practical approach to considering business ethics. (shrink)

Can firms overcome credit constraints with a corporate culture of high integrity? We empirically address this question by studying their investment–cash flow sensitivities. We identify firms with a culture of integrity through textual analysis of public documents in a sample of Chinese listed firms and also through corporate culture statements. Our results show that firms with an integrity-focused culture have lower investment–cash flow sensitivity, even after we address endogeneity concerns. However, we also find that for the culture to (...) reduce the investment–cash flow sensitivity, external stakeholders must be able to verify this culture through a low information asymmetry environment. Overall, our findings show that a corporate culture of high integrity can mitigate a firm’s external transaction costs. (shrink)

The article is focused on the investigation of the impact the corporate culture makes on industrial enterprise development. It demonstrates that the formation of the corporate culture principles contributes to raising the level of staff involvement, its labor activity performance, maintaining and reproduction of human capital assets of an enterprise. Investments in the development of corporate culture are considered as an alternative to traditional methods of increasing the efficiency of an enterprise in an uncertain economic environment. (...) class='Hi'>Corporate culture development, which involves a commitment to raising the level of knowledge, innovativeness and organization, has a positive effect on the performance and efficiency of the entire company, and aids in the regulation of internal labor relations, preventing potential critical situations. The introduction and development of corporate culture, which includes a certain system of values and behaviors, in modern domestic industrial enterprises is becoming a necessity. The application of the principles and values of corporate culture leads to the long-term success of an industrial enterprise. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The contention that organizational culture influences ethical decision making is not disputable. However, the extent to which it influences ethical decision making in the workplace is a topic for scholarly debate and investigation. There are scholars who argue that, though corporate values are a powerful force in explaining the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations, these values are unperceived, unspoken, and taken for granted. However, there are others who argue that the formalization of corporate values facilitates job (...) and role clarity and is the key to influencing employee behavior. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of the influence of organizational codes of ethics. The findings suggest that, depending upon the particular situation, corporate culture and ethics may mitigate individual personal moral convictions about right and wrong. (shrink)

In 1982 Posner and Schmidt surveyed the values of 1400 managers. The survey revealed that honesty was one of the qualities that these managers admired most in themselves. An earlier study by Brennan and Molander indicated that managers believed that honesty in communication was their greatest ethical challenge. If honesty is a prevalent value among managers then why is honesty in communication their greatest ethical challenge? This paper presents an insight into the answer to this question and into the beliefs (...) and norms of behavior that foster either a candid corporate culture or a culture that lacks candor. (shrink)

Trust is both ethically important and essential for business but difficult to measure. This paper contributes toward clarifying the nature of trust in a way that is both conceptually helpful for ethical inquiries concerning business and pertinent to the measurement of trust as an element in organizations. Several papers hypothesize that increasing the role of trust in a corporation reduces the need for external monitoring and contracts. Assessing this important hypothesis requires a way to gauge whether a firm has a (...) trusting corporate culture. We develop an objective measure of trust in a firm’s corporate culture by counting the number of times 21 trust-related words appear in an important kind of document: the Management Discussion and Analysis section of the annual report. We report two significant findings: that, contrary to what one might think, firms with a trusting culture frequently use audit and control-type words and that trust is positively linked with subsequent share price volatility. We propose explanations of these findings with the hope of facilitating the objective measurement of trust and enhancement of a trusting atmosphere in corporate culture. (shrink)

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) trains 40,000 recruits in ethical conduct each year. The Marines operate under highly stressful conditions and are perceived as moral exemplars. This study investigates their recruit training practices at Parris Island, SC and suggests applications consistent with ethical and psychological research that offer potential for building ethical corporate cultures and improving ethical behavior. The lessons were: 1) select values that fit the business, 2) use organizational-derived “hero stories”, 3) socialize members with conviction and (...) repetition, 4) utilize line leaders to conduct the training to provide specific guidelines for behavior, 5) closely monitor and reward ethical behavior, 6) add emotional control to the cognitive training, and 7) train with realistic business simulations. The seven lessons from the USMC can help business leaders earn a reputation for trustworthy leadership, a vital corporate asset. (shrink)

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) trains 40,000 recruits in ethical conduct each year. The Marines operate under highly stressful conditions and are perceived as moral exemplars. This study investigates their recruit training practices at Parris Island, SC and suggests applications consistent with ethical and psychological research that offer potential for building ethical corporate cultures and improving ethical behavior. The lessons were: 1) select values that fit the business, 2) use organizational-derived “hero stories”, 3) socialize members with conviction and (...) repetition, 4) utilize line leaders to conduct the training to provide specific guidelines for behavior, 5) closely monitor and reward ethical behavior, 6) add emotional control to the cognitive training, and 7) train with realistic business simulations. The seven lessons from the USMC can help business leaders earn a reputation for trustworthy leadership, a vital corporate asset. (shrink)

The article examines the peculiarities of corporate culture formation and development in the modern stage of societal development, which is characterized by high levels of dynamism and conflict. It has been said that culture is something created by Man just as Man is the creation of culture, because culture influences behavior in a person from the beginning of their socialization through the assimilation of norms, values, models of behavior, etc. A person implements all of these in various types of (...) relationships which, in turn, develop structures, organizations, and all individuals, in particular. Corporate culture becomes the basis for the development of organizations at various levels through the application of management theory, especially when considering the current state of international, intercultural relations caused by globalization and migration processes. Corporate culture plays a particularly important role in ensuring the progressive development of science and education, and in preserving the intellectual potential of the state in conditions of social contradiction and military conflict. The development of corporate culture is based on such principles as tolerance, equality and partnership, which are embodied in the relations of any organization, corporation, etc. It has been shown that culture always involves some kind of change, and through such change, corporate culture can act as the criterion that will ensure a group’s integrity under the pressure of external challenges and act as the measure of the internal stability of any team that has determined its goals, tasks and the purpose of its development and the effective implementation of its values and beliefs. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the relationships between human resource supply chain management (HRSCM), corporate culture (CC) and the code of business ethics (CBE) in the MENA region. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the author adopted a quantitative approach through an online Google Form survey for the data-gathering process. All questionnaires were distributed to the manufacturing and service firms that are listed in the Chambers of the Industries of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt in the MENA region using (...) a simple random sampling method. About 567 usable and valid responses were retrieved out of 2,077 for analysis, representing a 27.3% response rate. The sample unit for analysis included all middle- and senior-level managers and employees within manufacturing and service firms. The conceptual model was tested using a hypothesis-testing deductive approach. The findings are based on covariance-based analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) using PLS-SEM software. The author performed convergent validity and discriminant validity tests, and bootstrapping was also applied. Findings The empirical results display a significant and positive association between HRSCM and the CBE. The CC and the CBE tend to be positively and significantly related. Therefore, HRSCM can play a key role in boosting and applying the CBE in firms. For achieving the firm purposes, more attention to the HR personnel should be paid to implement the CBE. The high importance of the CBE becomes necessary for both the department and the firm. Practical implications Such results can provide insightful information for HR personnel, managers and leaders to encourage them to develop and maintain an effective corporate code of conduct within their organizations. Originality/value This paper tries to explore the linkages between HRSCM, CC and CBE in the Middle East region due to the lack of research available that analyzes the relationship between them. Not only that, but it also offers great implications for Middle Eastern businesses. (shrink)

The essays collected in this book discuss the contemporary pratice of corporate responsibility by applying the Christian principles of the unity of knowledge and pursuit of truth to the traditional principles of justice, human dignity and the common good, to rediscover a corporate culture that will help transform our economic system and the characteristics required to build an enduring trust in economic relationships. In this volume a select group of management theorists, theologians, legal scholars, economists and ethicists jointly (...) strive to give back to the market economy its ethical and political dimensions. They assess the quality of present day corporate social responsibility, discuss the social and environmental costs of production and argue for an agenda that can be used in modern corporations in their effort to align profitability and growth with business ethics. (shrink)

One explanation that may be given for why nonprofit organizations pay lower wages than do other organizations is that nonprofits are more pleasant places to work. Indeed, some authors have proposed that nonprofit organizations should make an effort to promote a working environment that reflects the beliefs of the organization. This paper uses several proxies for whether an organization is a pleasant place in which to work, and tests for whether nonprofits are more likely to offer such pleasant working conditions. (...) Analysis shows that nonprofits are not more likely to offer these conditions in many instances. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the possible relationship between organizational cultures and ethics. It begins by pointing out that viewing companies as cultures legitimates the creation of values and shared meanings as part of business practice. But it also points out that there is a risk involved: management by values can be a new form of manipulation and control. The author suggests that this danger can be averted and proposes that creation of corporate cultures be examined in the light of (...) Aristotelian thought. However, he stress that this return to Aristotelian tradition cannot ignore corporate social responsibility or the need to imbue corporate cultures with a post-conventional perspective. (shrink)

Australia’s monopoly grain exporter, AWB, was the largest provider of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime under the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.The full extent of AWB’s complicity and the failure of its corporate culture became apparent as a result of two inquiries, commissioned by the United Nations and the Australian Government, both of which operated with almost complete transparency. The paper examines the nature of transparency – as virtue, duty, technique and outcome – and uses the Oil-for-Food inquiries as a (...) case study to show how transparency has exposed unethical behavior and brought about organizational change. Some potentially damaging effects of transparency and the implications for business and society are also discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although it is unremarkable to hear a corporate culture described as ethical or unethical, it remains quite unclear what such a claim means or how it may be justified. I begin by addressing these two questions by offering an account of corporate culture as the intrinsic values that are shared by organisation members and that underpin organisational goals. I then employ this analysis to offer a new account of how moral responsibility is generated and distributed in business organisations. (...) Since certain corporate values, or culture, will predictably promote wrongdoing by members, all those who participated in that culture will acquire a degree of moral responsibility for the wrongdoing that results. They are, we may say, complicit in the wrongdoing because they helped facilitate it. This is because, by sharing values in the way that creates corporate culture, organisation members give each other reasons for acting in line with those values. (shrink)

Behaving ethically depends on the ability to recognize that ethical issues exist, to see from an ethical point of view. This ability to see and respond ethically may be related more to attributes of corporate culture than to attributes of individual employees. Efforts to increase ethical standards and decrease pressure to behave unethically should therefore concentrate on the organization and its culture. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how total quality (TQ) techniques can facilitate the development of (...) a cooperative corporate culture that promotes and encourages ethical behavior throughout an organization. (shrink)

This article presents a qualitative research about the way in which business leaders of a retail company gradually clarify the ethical responsibilities of their company – in an ongoing discussion of particular cases. It is based on 12 years of experience as an external member of the ethics committee. The aim of the article is not so much as to evaluate the different single decisions that were made and implemented to make the company meet high ethical standards, but rather to (...) focus on three issues and on how they relate to each other: (1) the shift from a communitarian Christian set of values to a broader secular framework of basic principles; (2) the way in which business people in a retailing company cope with issues that seem ethically troublesome, when reflected upon from a ethical point of view; and (3) how the process of ethical dialogue has led to a typology of the different levels of responsibility that retailers are willing to attribute to themselves according to the kind of problem at stake. The three issues together illustrate how a company that took the business ethics question head-on systematically moved into a particular ongoing collective learning process. (shrink)

Whatever ethnic, religious, or other cultural boundaries may have evolved through history, a global corporate culture is increasingly subsuming these traditional divisions. Multinational corporations, internationally linked securities markets, and omnipresent communication networks characterize this global corporate culture. The dynamics of corporate culture centres on the intricate web of contractual relations between stakeholders. This study addresses the question of how these stakeholder contracts can be most efficiently enforced. Three alternative contractual enforcement mechanisms are identified: the legal system, a (...) generally accepted moral code, and stakeholders' desire to build and maintain reputations. Each alternative is critically evaluated and conclusions are drawn as to the relative feasibility and desirability of each enforcement mechanism. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper investigates the broad ideological conflict between world views on corporate culture. Two views are identified: one encompassing standard liberal economic philosophy; the other taking broader notions of corporate culture from ethics theory. The conflict that surrounded the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle is used as an illustration of the current conflict between these views. The writings of Alasdair MacIntyre are employed as a means of elucidating and reconciling these two world views.

Although a reasonable understanding of corporate social responsibility exists, one dimension remains largely ignored. That is, the cultural impacts of corporations, or the bearing, at various levels of their business models, activities, and outcomes on the value systems and enduring beliefs of affected people. We introduce the notion of corporate cultural responsibility. The way corporations address CCR concerns can be reflected according to three stances: cultural destructiveness, cultural carelessness, and cultural prowess. Taken sequentially, they reflect a growing comprehension (...) and increasingly active consideration of CCR concerns by corporations. In turn, we explicitly address issues related to the complex question of determining the cultural responsibilities of corporate actors; specify key CCR-related conceptualizations; and lay a foundation for discussions, debates, and research efforts centered on CCR concerns and rationales. (shrink)

This book answers the question of how soft factors such as corporate cultures and individual and corporate values can be transparently steered. With its C4 management tool and reflecting the seven driving forces of corporate culture, the Values Cockpit is a powerful solution designed to steer all dimensions and processes of a company, pursuing a lean approach. The book links strategic approaches on how to steer a company towards excellence with insights into the driving forces of human (...) thoughts and actions. It subsequently introduces the Values Cockpit, which allows individual corporate cultures to be developed and controlled on the basis of a rational approach. "This intriguing book breaks new ground in suggesting that values can be managed quite as systematically as any other centrally important asset" Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur Professor, Harvard University "... a deeply articulate, profoundly relevant explication of the role played by the culture of commerce... rich with actionable tools, insights and clear examples..." Richard J Hill IV, Founder, Gabriel Consulting Group, LLC "One seldom sees practical advice on HOW strong values can be automatically practiced on a daily basis by all concerned. That is what makes this remarkable book so refreshing... his book is taking the seminal findings of Jim Collins on building great companies a step further..." Julian Clarke, Chartered Accountant and Management Consultant, European Business Ethics Network Ireland "... a brilliant yet succinct guide to teach the significance of values-development in sustainable business management..." Professor Dr. Haifeng Huang, Assistant Dean, Peking University HSBC Business School, Shenzhen, China "He admirably rejects the fatalist interpretation of the immoral might of markets and replaces it with a counter-narrative of why and how companies can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem." Professor Dr. Claus Dierksmeier, Director of the Global Ethic Institute, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen "The values cockpit gives readers a coherent and comprehensive toolkit to help them prepare their companies for lasting success." Dr. Kurt Schmalz, C.E.O and Managing Partner J. Schmalz GmbH, Glatten, Germany. (shrink)

This article argues that corporate management in the United States has expanded its scope beyond office walls and encompasses many aspects of workers' daily lives. One new element of corporate training is the micromanagement of sleep; self-help books, newspaper reports, magazine articles, and consulting firms currently advise workers and supervisors on optimizing productivity by cultivating certain sleep habits. Although consultants and self-help books make specific recommendations about sleep, most medical research is inconclusive about sleep's benefits for human performance. (...) Using the ideas of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as a philosophical backdrop, this article examines the complex and often contradictory links between self-help, medicine, and corporate governance. (shrink)

Corporate sustainability can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This (...) concept embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions. TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability, the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework, a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives. (shrink)

An empirical study using two ethics-related and three sales force outcome variables was conducted in Taiwan and compared to an existing U.S. sample. Across the two national cultures, individual perceptions of corporate ethics appears to be a more direct determinant of organizational commitment than individual moral values. Differences between the two national cultures were found in ethics perception as it relates to moral values, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Explanations for the differences are discussed.

Though still viewed as the missing link between recruitment and retention, organisational induction programmes have recently acquired a new function: they can mould the new employee by inducing a positive "first impression" about the organisation and presenting a "caring" company image. Up to now, however, the majority of the induction literature has failed to refer to the political and ethical aspects of this process and analyse the embedded ideological structures and cultural practices through which induction trainers and newcomers construct, reconstruct (...) and deconstruct induction discourses and 'management language'. This paper argues that induction should be treated as a part of an organisational cosmos that is constantly created and re-created, defined and re-defined based on the discursive interactions of its increasingly "sophisticated‟ subjects. (shrink)

As an important factor related to the interests of enterprises, the attitude and behavior of employees are related to the company’s survival and the realization of business objectives. However, in recent years, with the rapid development of emerging industries and industry changes, the turnover rate of employees in the whole enterprise has been greatly improved. Frequent turnover of personnel will have a great impact on the stability of the company, the competitiveness of the enterprise, and the operating cost. Employee loyalty (...) and corporate culture satisfaction assessment is the core of sustainable corporate development, but most of the traditional analysis studies are based on the performance approach, using employee overtime, employee achievement, and company effectiveness as data sources, the former performance data is only a side view of the company’s situation, the latter as the data source of this study is a one-sided and involute form, and the data is not stable. Therefore, this paper proposes an analysis of employee loyalty and corporate culture satisfaction assessment based on sentiment analysis, using association rules and sentiment lexicons from anonymous employee evaluations to analyze the actual data. (shrink)

In the context of the widening trade gap between Japan and the U.S.A. and the increasing numbers of missions visiting Japan aimed at a better understanding of the Japanese market and Japanese business, topics such as Just in Time and TQC have received the most prominence, along with discussions of Japanese-style management and labor relations. The weakness of most discussions has been their inability to set these into the context of the highly complex Japanese value-system that runs through both business (...) and society. Once understood, it becomes apparent that there is a system of values and value-related strategies at work that have a re-inforcing effect in the directions of cooperation and efficiency. The paper will identify a number of these and indicate their areas of influence. Four are discussed: (1) the formation of corporate philosophy (2) management philosophy (3) corporate work ethic (4) supplier/customer relations. (shrink)

South Africa is characterised by rapidly escalating crime, including white-collar crime, and unethical behaviour in public and private organisations. This necessitates innovative ways to deal with the situation. The objective of this conceptual and theoretical research is to investigate ways in which human resource management can be utilised to instil and develop an ethical corporate culture in South African organisations. A theoretical model of ethical behaviour is discussed as a basis for this study. It is indicated that human resource (...) management can have an effect on organisational factors and is therefore an important tool in developing an ethical corporate culture. (shrink)

Plato’s programme for establishing his ideal state involved propagating two foundation myths for it, described by Socrates as a “noble lie”, which were designed to persuade its citizens to embrace the classes of society to which they had been assigned, and their roles within them, contentedly and in harmony with their fellow citizens. Because most citizens were judged incapable of understanding the truth about the most important matters, the rulers of the ideal state were authorised to tell them whatever stories, (...) true or false, would induce them to behave well. Advocates of the management of corporate culture similarly emphasise the potency of story-telling and myth-making in inducing employees to adopt the beliefs, values and assumptions that corporate leaders consider desirable for both corporate performance and employee wellbeing. There are similarities between Plato’s programme for his ideal state and the programmes recommended by advocates of the management of corporate culture. There are also similarities between them in the ethical questions that they raise. Do corporate leaders have the moral authority to shape people’s beliefs, values and assumptions in the ways that these programmes entail? Are the outcomes to which those programmes lead really beneficial for all those who are affected by them? Even assuming that those outcomes are beneficial, how likely are the strategies proposed for realising them to be successful? Literature that explores these ethical issues is sparse, and this paper argues that it is doubtful whether any of these questions can be answered decidedly in the affirmative. (shrink)