Corporate Ethics And Ethical Behaviour: The Significant Function Of Top Management Role Modelling

Abstract

Despite growing professional and academic interest in business ethics, moral lapses continue in the business sector, which suggests a need to rethink the efficiency of existing ethical strategies. That is, top management’s efforts to promote ethical behaviour among employees tend to focus on the implementation of explicit formal mechanisms, whereas in practice, more informal elements that communicate the true attitude toward ethics may be more useful and necessary. Thus top managers must work actively to make their personal ethics evident to influence the ethical behaviours of employees. Without a perception of ethics at the top, formal mechanisms likely fail to result in a more ethical workforce. This study therefore empirically analyses top managers’ role modelling behaviour along with the efficacy of their sanctioning dimension to promote ethical behaviour. Top management role modelling has a positively impact on employees’ ethics; sanctioning behaviour does not. These findings have critical practical implications, as well as promise for further research.