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This study aims to investigate whether firms involved in a major corruption scandal, with broad ramifications across several emerging and advanced markets, design the content of their corporate codes of conduct to either improve corporate ethical standards and practices or merely manipulate the impression of stakeholders.

This study adopts an impression management perspective. It uses content analysis techniques to examine the codes of conduct adopted by seven Brazilian engineering and construction multinationals accused of corruption. The analysis covered five major themes: (1) forms of corruption, (2) values or principles, (3) interested parties, (4) procedures and routines and (5) punitive action.

The study provides detailed evidence that the codes of conduct adopted by these firms are mere artifices that aimed at meeting legal requirements but do not target the relevant corporate audience involved in grand corruption. At best, such a code may impede petty and bureaucratic corruption.

This research contributes to improving the understanding of how Latin American multinationals adopted codes of conduct after a major scandal and how they failed—at least to some extent—to design codes complying with established corporate governance principles. It shows that management manipulated the impression of stakeholders by selectively adopting or omitting certain terms, examining or concealing various issues and addressing mainly petty crimes rather than grand corruption. It also identifies areas where Western ethical values conflict with established practices and cultural norms in Latin America.

This study aims to examine the association between anti-corruption corporate disclosure and earnings management practices by bringing evidence from a developed market.

The study uses data from non-financial FTSE 100 Shares in 2016 and 2017. This study develops a disclosure index to capture the anti-corruption disclosures and run pooled, fixed effects and generalized methods of moments regression models to explore the anti-corruption disclosure–earnings management association. This study also disentangles discretionary accruals into positive and negative, use adjusted discretionary accrual computation and take a more conservative view on discretionary accruals computation as an additional analysis.

The results show a negative and significant association between anti-corruption disclosure and earnings management practices. When disentangling discretionary accruals (overvalued/positive and undervalued/negative), the authors found that higher anti-corruption disclosures were negatively associated with positive discretionary accruals, but not associated with negative discretionary accruals. The additional analysis confirmed the previous results, showing that anti-corruption disclosures are perceived as a substantive practice, rather than a mere disclosure practice for legitimacy reasons.

This study contributes to debate on the symbolic versus the substantive uses of anti-corruption disclosures in the UK context.

Whistleblowers are individuals who detect and report misconduct in an organization. They help to mitigate organizational misbehavior and resulting damages effectively and relatively quickly. Whistleblower protection has not been systematically required in the European Union (EU), leaving many large organizations unregulated. This study aims to get in-depth insights into how unregulated organizations design, handle and view whistleblowing with the advent of a novel EU Whistleblowing Directive.

The authors conducted 17 semistructured interviews with a diverse group of organizations headquartered in Germany and inductively analyzed them following Grounded Theory. Linking the Grounded Theory to the legal endogeneity model, they developed seven perspectives that help to explain how organizations view whistleblowing.

In trying to make sense of the role of whistleblowing in the organization’s governance, organizations and their managers assume different perspectives. These perspectives guide their approach to whistleblower protection in the context of evolving regulation with little regulatory guidance. Perspectives vary in the degree of supporting whistleblowing regulation, from viewing whistleblowing as a natural, everyday governance tool to denying it and fearing denunciation. Most organizations exhibit several perspectives.

Little is known about day-to-day whistleblowing practices from the perspective of organizations. The authors fill this research gap by providing initial evidence on how organizations approach whistleblowing and the EU Whistleblowing Directive. Identifying organizations’ perspectives may help us understand how ineffective or noncompliant whistleblowing systems emerge and how organizations can improve.

This study offers an empirical framework for how hotel employees CSR perceptions affect their job satisfaction by incorporating the parallel mediating roles of organizational identification and psychological contract fulfillment. In addition, it examines the moderator effects of employees' CSR-induced attributions on the constructed mediated model, providing a powerful lens through which to evaluate when and how employees' CSR perceptions influence organizational identification and psychological contract fulfillment.

The study use PLS-SEM techniques to analyze a sample of 520 employees from 49 luxury hotels with 4–5 stars in Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam.

The results show that CSR positively influences job satisfaction through the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment and organizational identification. Besides, attachment styles also play moderator role in the relationship between CSR and psychological contract fulfillment/organizational identification.

The discoveries elucidated within this research endeavor proffer actionable discernments to be earnestly contemplated by professionals entrenched in the hotel industry, earnestly aspiring to ameliorate the contentment of their workforce and, concomitantly, augment the overarching efficacy of their organizational operations.

This study provides human resource departments with insights and suggestions for maximizing the efficacy of CSR implementation in the hotel industry.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between corporate corruption risk and environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and if this relationship is moderated by business ethics.

Data from a sample of 347 European firms selected from the ESG Index between 2010 and 2020 were used to test the model using panel data and multiple regressions. This paper considered the feasible generalized least squares estimation for linear panel data models. A multiple regression model is used to analyze the moderating effect of business ethics on the association between corporate corruption risk and ESG reporting. For robustness analyses, the authors included the alternative measure of the dependent variable, and they applied the simultaneous equation model for the endogeneity test.

The empirical results reveal a negative relationship between corporate corruption risk and ESG reporting. Furthermore, the findings suggest that business ethics positively moderate the relationship between corporate corruption risk and ESG reporting.

This paper presents an enormous contribution to the various economic agents involved in the company. The results could attract the attention of socially responsible investors and, above all, corporate citizens. Moreover, the managers of corrupt companies could take into account the results of this study by being more committed to an optimized transparency strategy on ESG reporting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of business ethics on the relationship between corporate corruption risk and ESG reporting in the European context. It is also the first study documenting that business ethics reinforce the relationship between firm corruption and nonfinancial information transparency. This study fills a research gap as it expands the existing literature, which generally focuses on the impact of corporate corruption on ESG reporting.

This paper aims to examine the extent of ethical values information disclosure on the top 100 Malaysian and Indonesian companies’ annual reports using coercive isomorphism under the institutional theory.

Using the content analysis, the presence or exclusion of ethical values information disclosed on 100 Malaysian and Indonesian companies’ annual reports using a newly developed Ethical Values Disclosure Index is carried out.

The results of the analysis found that Indonesian companies on average disclosed 31 items under study compared to 27 items disclosed by the companies in Malaysia. The results suggest that Indonesian companies are more vigilant in the code of ethics, companies policy on ethical issues, monitoring program and accountability, ethical performance, ethical infrastructure and organizational responsibility aspects, whereas their Malaysian counterparts are better in reporting governance and integrity committee or board of directors.

The findings may not be applicable to other countries in the same region, nevertheless, revealed the importance of adequate ethical values disclosure in determining the level of ethical behavior.

Companies in Indonesia are coercively pressed by various influential stakeholder groups to address ethical issues. The less disclosure regarding corporate ethical behavior may indicate that unethical practices continue to be a problem in the Malaysian corporate sector.

This paper adds to the literature by examining the elements of ethical values adapted mainly from the professional bodies that regulate the accounting profession and other organizations using the institutional theory, particularly in two countries.

Although event industry employees are predominantly female, there is a critical scarcity of women in leadership roles. Like other industries worldwide, women in the events industry experience several barriers to leadership roles. The unique characteristics of the events industry exacerbate these barriers and have led to more women leaving the company or even the industry. This study aims to investigate the impact of leadership barriers, including the perception of a glass ceiling and the importance of leadership skills in promotion decisions on career satisfaction, work-family conflict and turnover intention of employees in the events industry.

Data was collected from members of an international event association, and 427 responses were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings suggested the perception of a glass ceiling and the importance of leadership skills in promotion can impact career satisfaction, work-family conflict and turnover intention of employees in the events industry.

This study extends the scope of research on leadership barriers beyond assessing their causes by analyzing their outcomes in the event industry. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first in event research and the broader hospitality industry to consider the perceptions of male and female employees regarding leadership barriers by using a foundation of the social role theory.

The purpose of this study is to propose a world-class good governance ethics framework that leads to better corporate performance. ethics among managers, executives and members of the board of directors working in public-listed companies brings grave concern because of the increasing number of criminal acts reported by the Security Commission of Malaysia.

This study introduces a world-class good governance ethics framework for curbing criminal acts in public-listed companies in Malaysia. This study used a mixed method to gather data, and the methods used are appropriate for answering the research questions based on the World-Class Good Governance Ethics framework.

The finding of this study reveals high expectations for a corporate organization to improve individual and team performance while undertaking their corporate responsibilities, and a matter of choice, to adopt world-class good governance ethics in their policies and practices.

This study could be a reference for corporate management to regulate policies monitoring management's and employees' conduct at the workplace. This study's theoretical and practical significance would guide the stakeholders in corporate management to regulate governance policies based on the right ethical values and promote personalities with high integrity in management conduct.

This study promotes a world-class good governance ethics framework in curbing criminal acts for better corporate performance. This new framework is formulated based on the concept of a caliph and other essential elements envisaged by the Quranic verses.

This study aims to examine the determinants of ethical decision-making (EDM) of professional accountants in Sri Lanka, drawing on Rest’s (1986) four-component EDM model. The level of corporate collapses and fraud, coupled with the high level of corruption in Sri Lanka, has highlighted the importance and the timely nature of this research in the EDM processes of Sri Lankan accountants.

Data was collected from a sample of 315 accountants through a questionnaire survey that included four written ethical vignettes and was analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling techniques.

The findings revealed a significant relationship between ethical awareness and ethical judgement, providing support for Rest’s model. However, the study does not support Rest’s model on the direct relationship between ethical judgement and ethical intention. Intrinsic religiosity and moral intensity significantly influenced the ethical awareness of accountants. Several determinants including accountants’ age, education, intrinsic religiosity, organisational ethical culture, familiarity with the professional ethical code and moral intensity influenced ethical judgement. However, the findings did not report any significant relationships between the study’s variables and ethical intention.

The study adds to the existing literature by providing a bigger picture of how various determinants work together in one EDM model and demonstrating that the EDM of accountants is multifaceted. The new finding on an insignificant relationship between ethical judgement and ethical intention implies that the Rest’s EDM process may be mediated and moderated by other constraints blocking accountants’ intention to act due to various pressures in a corrupt society, Sri Lanka, where accountants operate.

The architectural profession faces an increasingly complex ethical landscape. In recent decades, the ethical foundations for architecture – formally defined in professional codes of conduct and reflected in regulatory frameworks – have expanded to incorporate imperatives derived from environmental and social responsibilities. The present research examines how these expanding ethical expectations are reflected in, and supported by, recent research about architectural ethics.

Analysis is based on a systematic review of recent research (2002–2023) focussing on ethical values and associated behaviours in the architectural profession. The review identifies 37 research articles (from a starting set of 2,483 articles), which are analysed empirically and then qualitatively to draw out views around three types of ethical behaviour. The paper then discusses how these findings align thematically with the evolving ethical needs of architectural practitioners (as defined in the professional codes of ethics and conduct of the RIBA in the UK, AIA in Australia and the AIA in the USA).

While business ethics remains the focus of past research, there has been a rise in research about ethics and social and environmental factors. The content of professional codes reflects this shift, setting the conditions for architects to aspire to increased expectations of environmental and social responsibility.

This article undertakes the first systematic review of recent research about architectural ethics and its alignment with the content of contemporary professional codes. Organised thematically, recent research about ethical values and associated behaviours can offer guidance for the evolving ethical needs of architects.