The Moral Business Tone of Organizations and its Impact on the Ethical Decision Making of Employees

Abstract

This study involves a first attempt to examine ethical climate types and corporate ethical values and their impacts on ethical decision-making of employees in the oil and gas industry in Australia. A survey methodology is used and results indicate that employees’ perceptions about their organizations’ extant moral tone and punishment systems significantly influence ethical judgments. However, there is no evidence that oil and gas company managers demonstrate unethical behaviour rather it appears that such behaviour is strongly admonished by management. Ethical climate types per se do not appear to be significantly.different from expectations for mature industry firms and are not associated with decision-making.