اثرات اقلیم اخلاقی در شناسایی سازمانی، اعتماد نظارتی، و گردش در میان فروشندگان

This study examined how an ethical work climate influences salespersons' organizational identification, supervisory trust, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and turnover. Using a sample of 393 salespeople, the results found that facets of an ethical work climate are related directly to supervisory trust and organizational identification. One aspect of an ethical work climate, ethical norms, was related directly to turnover. These results indicate that an ethical work climate can directly affect salespersons' job attitudes and outcomes. The results indicate the importance of measuring ethical work climate from a multi-dimensional perspective.

During the last ten years, business scandals (or lapses in corporate ethical behavior) have created an increased awareness of the importance of an ethical work climate. Creating an ethical work climate is important for all organizations and types of employees. However, it is especially important for salespeople. Salespeople often work without direct supervision and are directly incented to produce top-line results. Thus, they may feel more pressure to behave unethically. In addition, an organization's long-term success with customers is often based on clients' ethical perceptions of the firm (Babin et al., 2004 and Schwepker and Hartline, 2005). Since salespeople are representatives of the firm, their commitment to engage in ethical behavior is important for the success of the organization. Unfortunately, evidence exists that some salespeople are willing to make unrealistic promises to potential clients or lie in order to make a sale (Marchetti, 1997). Scholars emphasize the importance of studying an organization's ethical work climate because of its importance in affecting employees' attitudes and behavior, and organizational outcomes (Lopez et al., 2009 and Trevino et al., 1998). With respect to a selling environment, research reports that the presence of an ethical work climate can enhance salespersons' job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Mulki et al., 2006 and Schwepker, 2001), reduce role stress (Babin et al., 2000, Jaramillo et al., 2006 and Schwepker et al., 1997), and indirectly influence turnover intentions and job performance (Jaramillo et al., 2006). While this research provides important insights into understanding the effects of an ethical work climate on the job attitudes and behaviors of salespeople, two other variables (organizational identification and supervisory trust) potentially are important factors in creating an ethical work climate. Supervisory trust and organizational identification have seldom been included in studies analyzing the effects of an ethical work climate even though both variables have shown to be highly correlated with employees' job attitudes and behaviors (see Dirks and Ferrin, 2002 and Riketta, 2005 for meta-analyses results of the two constructs respectively). Organizational identification has emerged as an influential variable that is shown to influence employees' job attitudes and behaviors (e.g. Kreiner and Ashforth, 2004 and van Dick, 2004). However, to the best of my knowledge no research examines how an ethical work climate impacts employees' identification with the organization. Logically, salespeople who work for a company that stresses high ethical values should have a high level of identity with the organization. Since organizational identification is linked to higher motivation, performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors, creating an ethical work climate may have significant, positive outcomes for the sales organization. Trust also has been an important area of study for many years. It is linked to a variety of job antecedents and outcomes (see Colquitt et al., 2007 and Dirks and Ferrin, 2002 for recent meta-analyses). However, sparse research exists showing the relationship between an organization's ethical work climate and employees' perception of trust. Most prior research has investigated trust between the subordinate and the manager (Brashear et al., 2003, Gabarro, 1978 and Wood et al., 2008) or between the buyer and seller (Hill et al., 2009 and Morgan and Hunt, 1994). But, some evidence does exist indicating that employees will have a greater level of trust when organizational leaders are viewed as possessing high integrity and honesty (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002, Posner and Schmidt, 1992 and Treviño et al., 2003). The purpose of this paper is to expand on prior research by investigating how an ethical work climate influences salespersons' identification with their organization and their degree of trust in leadership in a model of turnover among a group of salespeople. Understanding the antecedents of turnover is important because of its costs to organizations (Griffeth and Hom, 2001). These direct costs can be substantial given the high rate of turnover among salespeople (Richardson, 1999). Thus, understanding reasons for sales force turnover is important to organizations if they are to reduce costs associated with attrition. In this study the major focus is to examine how an ethical work climate influences organizational identification and supervisory trust, which indirectly impacts turnover among salespeople. The hypothesized model appears in Fig. 1. Support for the model appears in the literature review below.

The results indicate the important role that having an ethical work climate can play in shaping salespersons' attitudes and behavior. This study shows that having an ethical work climate does influence the degree to which salespersons identify with their organizations. An important aspect of social identity is that group members emulate the behavior of other members of the group (Pratt, 1998). When other group members behave ethically, they will emulate that behavior. In this study three of the four ethical climate constructs (responsibility/trust, ethical norms, and sales practices) are linked directly to organizational identification. Thus, when management encourages ethical behavior by holding all employees accountable for their actions and treats employees fairly (responsibility/trust), punishes unethical behavior (ethical norms), and encourages ethical sales practices, subordinates (the sales force) will internalize those values. Thus, an ethical work climate has an important influence on salespersons' degree to which they identify with the organization, which indirectly affects their organizational commitment, turnover intentions and turnover. These results support prior sales force research (Mulki et al., 2008 and Mulki et al., 2006) that indicates having an ethical work climate is related to the level of supervisory trust the sales force has in their sales manager. Two of the ethical work climate constructs, ethical norms and peer behavior, were related positively to supervisory trust. In sales organizations where employees act to protect their own self-interest, see other people in the company acting unethically or immorally (peer behavior construct), they will have lower trust in their sales manager. The perception that ethical norms exist in the organization also influences directly the level of trust in the sales manager. The result shows that salespeople have higher trust in their sales manager when this person is perceived as willing to punish salespeople for behaving unethically for both personal gain and company gain and when other salespeople are perceived as behaving morally and ethically. Another purpose of this study is to examine how an ethical work climate indirectly or directly impacts turnover. The presence of an ethical work climate has an indirect relationship to turnover through supervisory trust and organizational identification. One or more aspects of ethical work climate are related to these two constructs. However, while other studies that have analyzed ethical work climate have used turnover intentions as a surrogate for turnover, this study used actual turnover data. One of the significant findings of this study was that one aspect of ethical work climate (ethical norms) had a direct relationship with turnover. Lower levels of turnover occur when salespeople perceive that ethical norms are present. Thus, the presence of an ethical work climate can have a direct influence on salespersons' willingness to work for a particular organization. Given the high costs of turnover, this result has important significance for sales organizations. In contrast to previous research on ethical work climate within a selling environment, this study employs the multi-dimensional scale developed by Babin et al. (2000) to assess ethical work climate and its relationship with various salespersons' job attitudes and behavior. The results indicate the need to use multiple constructs to measure ethical work climate. The four measures had different relationships with the other constructs in the study. Perhaps more importantly, one measure, ethical norms, has a direct influence on turnover. These relationships may not be apparent with the use of a uni-dimensional measure of ethical work climate. Overall, this study expands our understanding of ethical work climate and its relationship to salespersons' job attitudes and behaviors. From a practical viewpoint, this study shows that having an ethical work environment can lead to positive outcomes for the organization. The presence of an ethical work environment leads to increased identification with the organization and trust in the sales manager, which in turn indirectly influences salespersons' organizational commitment and turnover intentions and also may influence directly a salesperson's willingness to work for the organization.