اثرات ارزش اخلاقی کسب و کار کارمندان در تناسب فرد - سازمان و هدف گردش مالی در صنعت خدمات غذایی

Given the growing importance of ethical values and social responsibilities in the workplace, the purpose of this study was to investigate interrelationships among employees’ business ethical value, person–organization fit and turnover intent in the foodservice industry. A total of 788 employees in Korea participated. The results showed a positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of business ethics and their person–organization fit. Participants expressing a high person–organization fit were less likely to leave their positions. These findings have important implications for creating and facilitating an ethical business environment in the foodservice industry. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Due to the growing concern about ethical issues in the workplace, many organizations have institutionalized ethics in the form of regulations and codes. For example, international organizations, such as OECD, UN and WTO, have enhanced their ethical environments and requirements for economic activities. Furthermore, in order to encourage companies to do good deeds the Ethics Round, international movement reinforcing business ethics has emerged. In the increasingly conscience-focused marketplaces of the 21st century, Ethics Round aims to regulate the introduction of products and services into the global market by unethical companies. Along the same line, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ tend to list only companies that have an established formal code of ethics for their organizations (Paine et al., 2005). It seems that the phrase “good ethics is good business” has become a common belief (Pettijohn et al., 2008). Since Goodspaster (1983) applied the concept of personal ethics in social life to specific business management circumstances, the importance of ethical business values has been well documented. Previous studies found that companies with a high level of ethical values and social responsibility tend to be more profitable than others (Hammond and Slocum, 1996 and Waddock and Smith, 2000). Hyman and Curran (2000) emphasized employees’ participation in creating an ethical business environment in order to enhance both employee and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it has been widely recognized that an employee's perception of ethical values enhances the development of person–organization fit (Laufer and Robertson, 1997 and Valentine et al., 2002), and eventually lowers turnover intent (Shafer, 2002, Peterson, 2003 and Jaramillo et al., 2006). The costs of carrying out social responsibilities have been understood as being offset by the profits created from improved working morale and productivity of employees (Pettijohn et al., 2008). In particular, the issue of ethics in the foodservice industry has become increasingly important, as eating out has become an integral part of our daily lives. Due to the inherent industry characteristics of inseparability and intangibility, hospitality industry management must attend to ethical issues more carefully than other industries (Stevens and Fleckenstein, 1999). Since employees in the foodservice industry directly affect customers’ health and hygiene through the foods they make and serve, companies must carry out their social responsibilities and duties faithfully (McCabe et al., 2006). Whether or not the foodservice industry emphasizes ethical practices, restaurant employees’ behavior is important due to the possibility of threatening customers’ health through unethical decision-making in terms of food stability (Walczak and Reuter, 2004). Schwepker and Hartline (2005) emphasized that unethical behavior generally occurred in order to correct or hide a mistakes or, in the case of employees in contact with customers, to promote corporate performance. Although the ethical climate of an organization significantly influences a service provider's attitudes (Babin et al., 2000 and Weeks et al., 2004) and behavior (Schneider and Bowen, 1985), little research has been conducted on the role of business ethical values or climates in the people-dependent foodservice industry. Business managers have long been recognized the significance of ethical values and social responsibilities in relation to maximizing profits. However, they have tended to consider business ethics an external restriction, along the lines of legal regulations or social norms, rather than voluntarily emphasizing ethical management. Therefore, the matter of business ethics has long been a concern for a number of executives who are sensitive to social pressures or ethical sensibilities. However, if an empirical report demonstrated the associations between business ethics and management performance, we expect that the findings would motivate companies with a clear sense of social responsibility to willingly engage in ethical management practices rather than viewing them as a forced response to external pressures. This would enhance business interests in ethical competitiveness. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the associations among business ethical value, person–organization fit and turnover intent that have not been fully explored in the foodservice literature (see Fig. 1). The present study also contributes to theoretical knowledge about ethical management. This knowledge can potentially help enhance business performance by improving business ethics in the foodservice industry.

Recognizing the increasing importance of ethical value for business success, this study examined how foodservice employees perceive business ethical value in relation to person–organization fit and turnover intent. This study found that business ethical value in the foodservice industry had a significant, positive effect on person–organization fit. These findings support previous work (Porter and Lawler, 1966, Kohlberg, 1984, Hunt et al., 1989, Sims and Kroeck, 1994 and Laufer and Robertson, 1997), which demonstrated that the recognition of ethical values motivated individual members to achieve fitness between his or her self and the organization, thereby boosting their affections for the organization. As previous research confirmed (Sims and Keon, 1997, Vidaver, 1998, Jose and Thibodeaux, 1999 and Valentine et al., 2002), an ethical work environment, which creates an employee's perception of high business ethical value, ensures better person–organization fit. As for the link between person–organization fit and turnover intent, the influence of person–organization fit on turnover intent was significant. This finding supported earlier work (Becker and Billings, 1993, Bretz and Judge, 1994, Harris and Mossholder, 1996, Lee et al., 1996, Verquer et al., 2003, Kristof-Brown et al., 2005, Wheeler et al., 2005 and Wheeler et al., 2007), which suggested that any inconsistency between individual and organization values leads to high turnover rates. Conversely, an employee's person–organization fit reduces his or her turnover intent. Regarding the non-significant relationship between business ethical value and turnover intent, the results should be interpreted with caution. Although these findings did not correspond with previous work (Peterson, 2003, Jaramillo et al., 2006 and Pettijohn et al., 2008), which identified the direct effects of business ethical value on turnover intent, this study found an indirect influence via perceiving person–organization fit. More specifically, the perception of business ethical value did not significantly lower the employees’ turnover intention. That is, just ensuring the recognition of ethical values may not be enough to reduce employees’ turnover intent. However, business ethical value could lower the employee's turnover intent, if an individual recognized the fitness between his or her beliefs and the organization. These findings indicated that when an individual's organization is unethical, his or her views strongly influence the perception of inconsistency between his or her values and the organizations. In turn, how closely the personality of an individual fits the circumstances of the company influenced the employee's intent to leave his or her present position. This argument supported previous work done by Schwepker (2001), which demonstrated that an in-house ethical environment has positive effects on employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but is not directly associated with turnover intent. 5.1. Managerial implications This study makes clear to managers that one way to build person–organization fit and reduce turnover and is to improve the employee's ethical perceptions of their business. This information helps foodservice managers to understand that an enhanced level of perceived ethics could translate into higher performance, and ultimately, greater profits for the firm. One important finding of this study was that person–organization fit appears to play a mediating role between perceived business ethical value and turnover intent. Since the role of person–organization fit should be obvious, foodservice managers could reduce the probability of an employee leaving the organization by ensuring their perception of business ethical value, which would elicit his or her person–organization fit. In practice, foodservice managers need to develop screen programs in order to select the applicants whose values best fit those of the organization. Moreover, the development and use of more relevant measures for person–organization fit could improve selection procedures and ultimately enhance matches between the individual and organization in terms of work climate. Another implication drawn from this research is the need for recognizing the importance of business ethics and engaging in more ethical behaviors. It is advisable that management should give more proactive support to introducing and promoting ethical business management. In addition, ethical management systems should be established in a more formulated manner from an institutional perspective, including preparing and proclaiming an in-house code of ethics, providing ethical (re)orientation for employees and staff, establishing extra divisions specializing in matters related to ethical management, assessing practices of ethical management, and so forth. For successful ethical business management, it is necessary for top management to take ethical views and express a strong will to practice them. At the same time, management must establish distinct codes of ethics and conduct that all organizational members should follow. Moreover, it is necessary for foodservice managers to recognize matters on business ethics as an impending task in business administration while preparing systematic instruments to facilitate ethical management from long-term perspectives. Creating and establishing a cultural climate in which an organization and its members are united by this ethical code is also required. Hence, in order to facilitate ethical management in the foodservice industry, it is also required to exert in-house ethical will in parallel with the business motto of the company. Further, it can be inferred that the achievement of ethical business management and real quality ethics results in creating a better image of the foodservice industry, as well as ongoing demands based on customers’ trust in products and services, ultimately ending up with higher business profits. Since the repercussions of a firm's unethical image are substantial (Pettijohn et al., 2008), foodservice managers should understand that ethical management practiced in the form of codes or policies, as well as ethical values immanent in the organization, leads to improving employees’ trust in the organization and their working motivations. Ethical management practices should also achieve better working fitness and lower turnover intent and ultimately positive effects on overall organizational achievements. In addition, business ethical values can contribute to guiding companies toward their justifiable roles or activities in the society. Accordingly, companies could garner trust from the market as well as their employees and shareholders. The current study may be one of only a few attempts to empirically assess the interrelationship among business ethical value, person–organization fit, and turnover intent. Thus, it might be useful to identify and prioritize the attributes of business ethics specified in the foodservice industry, which could lead to higher person–organization fit, lower turnover intent, and higher profitability. 5.2. Limitations and future research Despite its implications, several limitations of the study need to be addressed. First, the sample consists of employees at hotels in the food and beverage division, family restaurants and contract-managed foodservices as a part of foodservice industry. Therefore, the generalizability of the results may be limited to the employees in those particular categories. In addition, the employees were selected based on their manager's willingness to participate in this study. Therefore, managers’ encouragement to participate may have affected some responses. From a methodological stance, future studies should refine the measurement items used in this study and revalidate the findings. This study emphasized the importance of employees’ perceptions of business ethical value. However, the results did not support the proposed direct effect of business ethical value and turnover intent. Therefore, future research should assess crucial factors that act as mediating variables between business ethical value and turnover intent. Future research might also investigate personal variables, such as customer-orientation level of employees, level of commitment, sensitivity to ethical values, perceived importance of ethics, gender, and culture, which could possibly moderate the relationships among constructs. For example, how does an employee's level of customer-orientation influence the way the employee perceives business ethical value and evaluates person–organization fit? Are employees from western cultures more likely to tolerate unethical business practices than employees from oriental cultures? Future research on these variables may help broaden our knowledge of business ethical value and its association with person–organization fit and turnover intent. This research empirically tested the applicability of ethical management mechanisms in the foodservice industry. The findings provided valuable insights as they relate to the significant association between employees’ perceptions of business ethical value and person–organization fit and employees’ perceptions of person–organization fit and turnover intent. Future studies might benefit from identifying the extent to which business ethical value predicts person–organization fit, and if that fit predicts turnover intent. Considering the dynamics of the foodservice industry, future studies should also extend this research framework to consumers, suppliers and shareholders alike to promote business's ethical behaviors as a pivotal means for encouraging employees’ perceptions of ethics and reducing unwanted turnover.