IJMB Journal – Abstracts
International Journal of Management and Business
IJMB Volume VII, Issue 2
Measuring the Various Ethical Frameworks in Organizations
Caroline Coulombe
University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
E-mail: Caroline Coulombe
ABSTRACT
This paper builds itself on the assumption that we can understand better ethical representation of employees and managers in public and private organizations through the use of a formal ethical questionnaire representing ethical frameworks. Such a questionnaire, carrying more than three different ethical frameworks is very rare in the business ethics literature. We first did a thorough review of the top ten ethical frameworks found in the literature, then, we created the questionnaire to finally ask employees and managers in the education and healthcare industries, both private and public, about their ethical principles in action. Our results confirm the coexistence of a plurality of ethical frameworks in organizations. It also shows that managers tend to use frameworks based on a recombination of principles sometimes pertaining to more than one of the canonical moral theories discussed in the literature. We believe we should be approaching organizations with ethical principles instead of ethical frameworks. It seems also that we cannot apply one unique ethical model to all organizations, but that emerging factors depend on organizational context.
Keywords: Business Ethics; Ethical Plurality; Ethical Principles; Healthcare; Education.
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