Motivating Employees to Act Ethically: An Expectancy Theory Approach

Employees face an array of moral issues in their everyday decision making. Environmental concerns, employee and community welfare, and the interests of other companies (competitors, customers, and suppliers) are only a few examples. Yet, businesses do not always address the issue of how employees sh...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Fudge, Robert S. (Author) ; Schlacter, John L. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 1999
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 1999, Volume: 18, Issue: 3, Pages: 295-304
Further subjects:B Decision Making
B Ethical Behavior
B Environmental Concern
B Moral Reasoning
B Economic Growth
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Summary:Employees face an array of moral issues in their everyday decision making. Environmental concerns, employee and community welfare, and the interests of other companies (competitors, customers, and suppliers) are only a few examples. Yet, businesses do not always address the issue of how employees should assess the moral import of their actions and incorporate these considerations into their decisions. As a result, moral considerations are often ignored, leading to unethical practices which may hurt the long-term interests of the company. In this paper, we present a model to help eliminate this problem. Our model uses expectancy theory, a process theory of motivation, to show that teaching employees to engage in moral reasoning, and creating a corporate culture in which ethical behavior is both encouraged and rewarded, can increase the likelihood that a company's employees will act ethically.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1005801022353