Abstract
Victor and Cullen (1988) identified several dimensions of ethical climate that exist in organizations and organizational subunits. We tested the relationship between these dimensions of ethical climate and ethical behavior at different levels of analysis. Using Within and Between Analysis (WABA) (cf. Dansereau, Alutto and Yammarino, 1984), partial support was found for a relationship between dimensions of ethical climate and ethical behavior.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Betz, M., L. O'Connell and J. Shepard: 1989, ‘Gender differences in Proclivity for Unethical Behavior’, Academy of Management Journal 26, 362–368.
Colby, A., L. Kohlberg, J. Gibbs and M. Lieberman: 1983, ‘A Longitudinal Study of Moral Judgment’, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 48, 1–124.
Cullen, J. B., B. Victor and C. Stephens: 1989, ‘An Ethical Weather Report: Assessing the Organization's Ethical Climate’, Organizational Dynamics, pp. 50–62.
Dansereau, F., J. Alutto and F. Yammarino: 1984, Theory Testing in Organizational Behavior: The Varient Approach (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ).
Dansereau, F. and S. E. Markham: 1987, ‘Levels of Analysis in Personnel and Human Resources Management’, in K. Rowland and J. Ferris (eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resources (Sage, Newbury Park, CA).
Dieterly, D., and B. Schneider: 1974, ‘The Effect of Organizational Environment on Perceived Power and climate: A Laboratory Study’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 11, 316–337.
Fleishman, E. A.: 1953, ‘Leadership Climate, Human Relations Training, and Supervisory Behavior’, Personnel Psychology 6, 205–222.
Fredericksen, N., O. Jensen and A. E. Beaton: 1972, Prediction of Organizational Behavior (Pergamon, Elmsford, NY).
Fredricksen, J.: 1986, ‘An Exploratory Approach to Measuring Perceptions of Strategic Decision Process Constructs’, Strategic Management Journal 7, 473–483.
Gilligan, C.: 1982, In a Different Voice (Havard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
Glick, W.: 1985, ‘Conceptualizing and Measuring Organizational and Psychological Climate: Pitfalls in Multi-Level Research’, Academy of Management Review 11, 601–616.
Gouldner, A. W.: 1957, ‘Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles’, Administrative Science Quarterly 2, 281–306.
Hosseini, A. C. and R. L. Armacost: 1993, ‘Gathering Sensitive Data in Organizations’, American Behavioral Scientist 36, 443–471.
James, L. R. and A. P. Jones: 1974, ‘Organizational Climate: A Review of theory and Research’, Psychological Bulletin 81, 1096–1112.
James, L., W. Joyce and J. Slocum: 1987, ‘Comment: Organizations do not Cognize’, Academy of Management Review 13, 129–132.
Jones, T. and F. Gautschi, III: 1988, ‘Will the Ethics of Business Change? A Survey of Future Executives’, Journal of Business Ethics 7, 231–248.
Jones, A., and L. James: 1979, ‘Psychological Climate: Dimensions of and Relationships of Individual and Aggregated Work Environment Perception’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 23, 201–250.
Joyce, W. F. and J. Slocum: 1984, ‘Collective Climate: Agreement as a Basis for Defining Aggregate Climates in Organizations’, Academy of Management Journal 27(4), 721–742.
Kohlberg, L.: 1984, The Philosophy of Moral Development (Harper and Row, New York).
Kanuk, L. and C. Berenson: 1975, ‘Mail Surveys and Response Rates: A Literature Review’, Journal of Marketing Research 12, 440–453.
Markham, S. E.: 1988, ‘Pay-for-Performance Dilemma Revisited: Empirical Example of the Importance of Group Effects’, Journal of Applied Psychology 73, 172–180.
Markham, S. E. and G. H. McKee: 1991, ‘Declining Organizational Size and Increasing Unemployment Rates: Predicting Employee Absenteeism from Within-and Between-Plant Perspectives’, Academy of Management Journal 34(4), 952–965.
McKee, G. H.: 1988, Multi-level Investigation of Absence Climate: Individuals, Supervisory Groups, and Plants, Unpublished dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
Nunnally, J. C.: 1978, Psychometric Theory (McGraw-Hill, New York).
Powell, G. N. and D. A. Butterfield: 1978, ‘The Case for Subsystem Climates in Organizations’, Academy of Management Review, pp. 151–157.
Schneider, B.: 1987, ‘The People Make the Place’, Personnel Psychology 40, 437–454.
Schneider, B.: 1975, ‘Organizational Climate: An Essay’, Personnel Psychology 28, 447–479.
Shepard, J. M. and L. Hartenian: 1991, ‘Egoistic and Ethical Orientations of University Students Toward Work-related Decisions’, Journal of Business Ethics 10(4), 303–310.
Trevino, L. K.: 1986, ‘Ethical Decision Making in Organization: A Person-Situation Interactionists Model’, Academy of Management Review 11, 601–617.
Victor, B. and J. Cullen: 1987, ‘A Theory and Measure of Ethical Climate in Organizations’, Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy 9, 51–71.
Victor, B. and J. Cullen: 1988, ‘The Organizational Bases of Ethical Work Climates’, Administrative Science Quarterly 33, 101–125.
White, R. and R. Lippitt: 1968, ‘Leader Behavior and Member Reaction in Three “Social Climates”’, in D. Cartwright and A. Zander (eds.), Group Dynamics: Research and theory, third edition (Harper and Row, New York).
Wimbush, J. and J. Shepard: 1994, ‘Toward an Understanding of Ethical Climate: Its Relationship to Ethical Behavior and Supervisory Influence’, Journal of Business Ethics 13, 637–647.
Yammarino, F. and A. Dubinsky, A.: 1990, ‘Salesperson Performance and Managerially Controllable Factors: An Investigation of Individual and Workgroup Effects’, Journal of Management 16, 87–106.
Yammarino, F. and T. Naughton: 1988, ‘Time Spent Communicating: A Multiple Levels of Analysis Approach’, Human Relations 41, 655–676.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wimbush, J.C., Shepard, J.M. & Markham, S.E. An Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Ethical Climate and Ethical Behavior from Multiple Levels of Analysis. Journal of Business Ethics 16, 1705–1716 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017952221572
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017952221572