تاثیر اقلیم اخلاقی در نگرش ها و رفتارهای شغلی کارکنان بازاریابی

In this study, two data sets were used to test the validity of the Babin, Boles, and Robin (Babin BJ, Boles JS, Robin DP. Representing the perceived ethical work climate among marketing employees. J Acad Mark Sci 2000;28(3):345–358.) measure of ethical work climate and its relationship with role stress, pay satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, and turnover. The results indicated that ethical work climate is a multidimensional construct and that its dimensions influence marketing employees' job attitudes and job behaviors. Facets of job satisfaction and organizational commitment mediated the relationship between ethical work climate and turnover intentions and turnover.

n order to encourage ethical behavior, organizations have adopted codes of ethics (Chonko et al., 2002 and O'Fallon and Butterfield, 2005). However, the research that has investigated the effectiveness of business codes has produced mixed results with only 35% of studies reporting that codes are effective in deterring unethical behavior (Kaptein and Schwartz, 2007). Part of the reason for the ineffectiveness of codes of ethics is the lack of management's willingness to enforce the code. For business codes to be effective in deterring unethical behavior, management must be willing to enforce the code and punish employees who violate it (Chonko and Hunt, 1985 and Trevino, 1992). Because codes of ethics may not be effective in encouraging ethical behavior by employees, research has concentrated how an organization's ethical work climate influences ethical behavior. The ethical work climate has been proposed as an important element of an employee's psychological work climate (Babin et al., 2000). During the last ten years, researchers have expanded their investigation of an ethical work climate beyond its effect on employees' ethical behavior. This research has investigated how ethical work climate affects employees' job attitudes and behaviors. Ethical work climate has been found to influence employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Parker et al., 2003), role stress (Babin et al., 2000, Jaramillo et al., 2006 and Mulki et al., 2006), and turnover intentions (Mulki et al., 2006). While this research has expanded our understanding of the importance of an ethical work climate in organizations, a concern exists in how researchers have measured the construct. Most of the past research has measured ethical work climate as a unidimensional construct (e.g., Schwepker et al., 1997). However, Babin et al. (2000) showed that ethical work climate is a multidimensional construct that can be used to better comprehend marketing employees' job attitudes and behavior. They developed and validated a 16-item scale consisting of four dimensions (trust/responsibility, peer behavior, ethical norms, and selling practices) using a sample of service providers and salespeople. Their research concluded that ethical work climate was related to these employees' role ambiguity, role conflict, overall job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Unfortunately, to the best or our knowledge, no attempt has been made to further validate or use the Babin et al. (2000) ethical work climate scale with other groups of marketing employees. Are the results reported by Babin et al. (2000) specific to salespeople and service providers? Or can the scale be used to predict job attitudes and behaviors of other marketing employees? This study has several purposes. First, this study will attempt to validate the Babin et al. (2000) ethical work climate scale using two different groups of marketing employees (marketing managers and retail buyers) than was used by Babin and his colleagues. This study will test the proposed relationships with the first group of marketing employees and then validate the results using the second sample. Second, this study will expand the work of Babin et al. (2000) by including facets of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, turnover and performance in a structural equation model. Sparse research exists examining how an organization's ethical work climate influences actual turnover and performance. Is the relationship between ethical work climate and turnover direct or indirect through other variables? Does an ethical work climate influence marketing employees' performance? Although Babin and his colleagues reported that ethical work climate is a predictor of overall job satisfaction, what is its influence on specific facets of job satisfaction, especially satisfaction with pay? This study will attempt to answer these questions. The hypothesized relationships appear in Fig. 1. The rationale for these relationships is presented below.

This study had two major purposes. First, this study attempted to validate the Ethical Work Climate scale developed by Babin et al. (2000) using two samples of marketing employees. They encouraged additional research using marketing employees other than sales personnel. Second, the study expanded the understanding of ethical work climate and its impact on marketing employees' job attitudes and behaviors. The results have several important implications. The results provide support for the validity of the Babin et al. (2000) ethical work climate scale. In both studies, the factor loadings were high in the hypothesized direction. In addition, the results indicated discriminant validity among the three factors. All scale items loaded uniquely on each hypothesized factor. The results provide strong support for using the scale in a variety of industries. Although validating a measure always is important before testing its relationship to other variables, simply validating a scale does not indicate its usefulness in predicting employees' attitudes and behaviors. However, the results indicate the importance of the Babin et al. (2000) ethical work climate scale in understanding marketing managers and retail buyers' organizational attitudes and behaviors. This study both confirmed and extended the results reported by Babin et al. (2000). While Babin and colleagues regressed each of the four ethical climate variables against certain job attitudes and outcomes, this study extended their work by using a structural equation model to comprehend the relationship among the variables. In addition to analyzing the relationship between ethical work climate and organizational commitment, role stress, and job satisfaction as was done by Babin et al. (2000), this study included turnover intentions, actual turnover, and performance. It also used two facets of job satisfaction (supervisor satisfaction and pay raise satisfaction) in an attempt to determine the impact of ethical work climate on dimensions of job satisfaction rather than examining only overall job satisfaction. Last, each of the three components was analyzed separately to determine their uniqueness in predicting the variables included in the model. The results from the two studies indicated some similarities and differences. A similar result was found in both studies regarding the role of responsibility/trust in influencing marketing employees' organizational commitment. In both studies responsibility/trust was a significant predictor of marketing employees' commitment to their organization. This finding is consistent with the result reported in the Babin et al. (2000) study. A sparse amount of research exists investigating the relationship between ethical work climate and performance and between ethical work climate and turnover. The few studies that have included these variables have shown that ethical work climate is related indirectly to turnover intentions/turnover and performance through other variables (Jaramillo et al., 2005, Schwepker, 2001 and Weeks et al., 2004). The results in this study confirm the results from prior research with respect to retention. None of the ethical work climate variables were direct, significant predictors of either turnover intentions or turnover. The result regarding the relationship between performance and ethical work climate both confirms and conflicts with prior research results. Both retail buyers and marketing managers reported that one ethical work climate dimension, peer behavior, had a significant, direct relationship with performance. Therefore, the results from this study are somewhat inconclusive regarding the influence of ethical work climate on marketing employees' performance and clearly indicate that more research is needed to better understand this relationship. Several differences in results were found between Study 1 and Study 2. One of the most interesting findings in Study 2 was that ethical norms did not predict significantly any of the variables in the model as opposed to the results found in Study 1 where ethical norms influenced both pay raise satisfaction and role stress. Perhaps aspects of a retail buyer's job are related uniquely to these job attitudes as opposed to the position of a marketing manager. Future research needs to confirm these results and attempt to understand the reasons for differences in results between these two groups of marketing employees. In Study 1, both responsibility/trust and ethical norms were significant predictors of role stress. However, in Study 2 only responsibility/trust predicted marketing managers' role stress. Another difference from Study 1 and Study 2 is the relationship between ethical work climate and pay raise satisfaction. Prior research has not undertaken to understand the relationship and perhaps importance between ethical work climate and pay satisfaction. The results in this study indicate the importance of including this facet of job satisfaction in studies analyzing ethical work climate. In Study 1, both responsibility/trust and ethical norms were predictors of pay raise satisfaction. However, in Study 2 neither variable was an important predictor of marketing managers' satisfaction with their pay raise. But, ethical work ethical climate was important in predicting pay raise satisfaction for marketing managers. In contrast to Study 1, the behavior of peers was the element of ethical work climate that was important in determining satisfaction with a pay raise. The important conclusion that can be drawn from these results is that one or more dimensions of ethical work climate are an important element in understanding marketing employees' pay raise satisfaction. Since pay satisfaction is a significant variable affecting organizational commitment and performance, understanding how an ethical work climate influences marketing employees' pay satisfaction is important. It also shows the importance of analyzing multiple dimensions of ethical work climate rather a single dimension where the relationship may not be apparent. Another difference in the results between Study 1 and Study 2 is the relationship between supervisor satisfaction and ethical work climate. In Study 1, responsibility/trust was a significant predictor of supervisor satisfaction. But, the relationship was insignificant in Study 2. However, peer behavior was a significant predictor of supervisor satisfaction in Study 2. Thus, as was shown with pay raise satisfaction, one but not all dimensions of ethical work climate was important in determining marketing employees' satisfaction with their supervisor. Overall, the results reported here provide important information to the role that an ethical work climate plays in marketing employees' job attitudes. While the results from the two studies differ, they indicate that some aspects of an ethical work environment do impact directly marketing employees' job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role stress, and performance and indirectly affect turnover. Given the high cost of turnover in organizations and the financial direct or indirect impact of unethical behavior, understanding its relationship to turnover is important. These results provide organizations with a better understanding of its role in influencing job attitudes and subsequent behavior. Another important implication of the results is the importance of using a multidimensional approach to measuring ethical work climate. With the exception of Babin et al. (2000), other research has used a unidimensional scale to measure ethical work climate. However, the results reported here indicate that ethical work climate is a multidimensional construct with facets of the construct influencing job attitudes and behaviors differently. The use of a multidimensional construct rather than a unidimensional measure appears to provide a more meaningful understanding of ethical work climate's influence in organizations. Last, some previous research has used scenarios to measure marketing employees' perceptions of ethical behavior. A problem with this approach is that scenarios ask respondents to assess ethical behavior for a specific situation and therefore the validity of these responses may be questionable regarding their overall attitude toward ethics. The value of the scale used here is that it measures specific aspects of ethical climate and most likely provides a more valid assessment of marketing employees' perception of ethical climate. It allows managers to focus on specific issues that influence ethical or unethical behavior.