Ethical Culture and Management

Abstract

An unfortunate marker of the current times is the scale of unethical behavior and corporate corruption committed by business leaders. A powerful antecedent of unethical behavior is organizational culture. This chapter discusses what constitutes and drives an ethical culture. It defines the concept of ethical culture and reviews different approaches that have been used to measure ethical culture in organizations. The Corporate Ethical Virtues model is reviewed in more detail as one example of a reliable and valid way to operationalize ethical organizational cultures. Finally, specific management strategies to maintain and minimize potential threats to an ethical culture are also provided.