Determinants of the Effectiveness of Corporate Codes of Ethics: An Empirical Study

Recent figures reported by KPMG confirm the growing prevalence of corporate codes of ethics globally. Svensson et al. (Bus Ethics 18:389–407, 2009) in surveys of the largest corporations in Australia, Canada, and Sweden found a similar trend. The increased prevalence of corporate codes of ethics has...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Main Author: Singh, Jang B. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2011
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B effectiveness of codes
B determinants of code effectiveness
B corporate codes of ethics
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Summary:Recent figures reported by KPMG confirm the growing prevalence of corporate codes of ethics globally. Svensson et al. (Bus Ethics 18:389–407, 2009) in surveys of the largest corporations in Australia, Canada, and Sweden found a similar trend. The increased prevalence of corporate codes of ethics has been accompanied by heightened research interest in various aspects of these documents, e.g., the contents and focus of the codes. However, there is a paucity of research examining the effectiveness of these documents and the organizational infrastructure that accompany them. This study, based on a survey of Canada’s largest corporations, sought to empirically assess the determinants of the effectiveness of corporate codes of ethics by regressing managers’ perceptions of code effectiveness against various elements of ethics programs. It was found that, in a statistically significant model, eighteen independent variables explain 58.5% of the variance in the perceived effectiveness of corporate codes of ethics.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-010-0727-3