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To study the values espoused by top MNEs operating in Colombia, through their vision and mission statements, in order to interpret their ethical orientation and to examine their concern toward diverse stakeholders.

Content analysis – an analytical framework was crafted from the literature review, while allowing room for emergent phenomena. Thus a combination of deduction and induction was enacted.

Most values are either teleologically oriented or grounded in deontological values, with a significant amount of values that could be related to a virtue ethics. Regarding stakeholders, narrow definitions tend to prevail.

The comparability of the vision and mission statements could be affected because sometimes they are offered at the national level and others at corporate level.

By offering a critical regard at the values that are publicly espoused by some of the most influential companies in Colombia, we enhance the comprehension of the prevailing ethical environment and the compatibility with the principles of the Global Compact.

We have studied key actors in a growing emerging market, which could advance Global Compact principles. Besides we have crafted a pedagogic and systemic prism through which values can be taught and thought. Thus, the methodological and theoretical framework facilitates subsequent empirical research, both in comparative and longitudinal ways.

This paper explores and examines the mission statements of the most ethical companies across the globe in terms of their main purposes, values, goals, and objective, and what they say about their vision and goals.

This study is based on the data published by the Ethisphere Institute, the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. Having compiled the mission statements into a text file, the authors conducted text mining using a commercially available text mining tool SAS Enterprise Miner to survey if the most ethical companies have valued the same vision and mission such as social responsibility and ethics.

A review of their mission statements indicated that some of the most ethical companies surveyed in this study such as 3M and Voya strive to be “socially responsible and ethical,” support their “societies” and respect and protect the “nature,” “planet” and “environment.” The world's most ethical companies that stress these weighted terms in their mission statements may do so to show their commitment by being socially responsible and ethical, and delivering sustainable business solutions to their customers.

This study provides a systematic and comprehensive exploration of mission statements of the most ethical companies in an attempt to identify patterns of differences and similarities within these statements.

Using survey results compiled from an extensive study into the ethical decision making of school principals this article analyses the nature and consistency of principals' ethical decision‐making processes. Based on the findings, the article argues that even though principals on the whole have well‐meaning intentions, by and large, they do not display consistent conceptual knowledge of major ethical theories; they exhibit certain contradictions in their ethical reasoning and they suffer regular conflicts with their own personal and professional values. The article concludes by offering some suggestions for future professional development strategies that may serve to better educate principals on the concepts and processes required for consistent, confident and well‐reasoned ethical decision making.

Globalization and economic integration have focused attention on the topic of ethics in international management. At a time when the European Union is attempting to harmonize standards in many areas, the issue of ethics within the EU deserves special attention. Given the diversity of the historical and cultural backgrounds of EU citizens, one might expect to find different ethical orientations in different EU countries. In an effort to gain an understanding about ethics in an EU country where little previous research has been conducted, this article is directed toward the attitudes of future Greek professionals. A sample of the current college‐student population in Greece was surveyed regarding professional and business ethics to understand how we might expect individuals from Greece to behave once they have to make the difficult decisions that are necessary in business circumstances.

This study aims to find out the ethical beliefs of hospitality and tourism students in Hong Kong by using a questionnaire with 21 ethical statements. From the 402 valid questionnaires received, four major dimensions were identified by factor analysis. The highest level of tolerance, or in other words, the lowest ethical standard, was found towards “violations of school rules”, followed by “plagiarism and copying assignments”. “Unfair advantage” was ranked third whilst “selfishness” has the lowest level of tolerance (highest ethical standard). Independent t‐test and ANOVA analysis reveal that types of school attended, gender and level of program have various degrees of influence, while religious background and age show no indication of significant impact. In view of the limited resources and teaching hours available, it is recommended that priority should be given to the teaching of “business ethics” as it impacts on students’ moral development and future career in the industry.

Moral intensity is the degree of feeling we have about the consequences of moral choices, similar, for example, to those perceived for crimes, from petty larceny to murder. Moral intensity is thought to increase moral sensitivity and judgment. Because the accounting professions require members to respond to accounting fraud with more sensitivity and intensity, we examine this response in 220 professional accountants (mostly Certified Public Accountants) under a controlled experiment using two different cases. We examine the first three parts of the Rest (1986) model including ethical evaluation, judgment, and intention to act. We measure moral intensity in the accountant’s perception of overall harm and societal pressure. As in prior research, we find that the degree of moral intensity may be contextual. We find that the ethical evaluations may become affected by perceived overall harm, and whistleblowing intentions by perceived societal pressure. However, in both cases, the professional’s judgments are most affected by moral intensity. Consistent with prior research, whistleblowing intentions may involve many other mitigating variables, such as audit reporting or non-audit reporting limited by codes of conduct. These findings relate to the increasing attention paid by the SEC to finding accounting fraud.

This manuscript makes three important contributions to the existing literature. First, there are few studies in this area and Jones (1991) identifies that moral intensity is issue contingent; therefore, replication studies using different scenarios are needed. Second, Bailey, Scott, and Thoma (2010) have suggested that accounting ethics research has focused too narrowly on Component II of Rest’s Four-Component Model. None of the previous studies looked at all three steps in Rest’s Model; therefore, our manuscript provides an important contribution over the other previous studies. Third, our sample uses professionals and not students as surrogates for professionals.

Practising internal and external auditors regularly find that crucial concepts governing how they operate are the twin terms of independence and objectivity. Part of the problem is that the two terms are often equated. The impact can be conflict with the auditee, misunderstanding with other stakeholders, impairment of efficiency and effectiveness, and role conflict within the internal audit department. The Institute of Internal Auditors is reviewing some of the cherished notions of internal audit in the light of pressures and developments in the business environment. It has already produced a new definition of internal auditing, which, as before, includes the terms independence and objectivity. Consistently, it decided to re‐evaluate these two terms, and established an international research team. This was the briefing submission from the UK, which was highly influential in determining the final product, not yet in the public domain. It considers professional statements and standards, research and developments in both internal and external auditing.

Presents an empirical study of the ethical standards of marketing management practices evaluated by practising managers. Considers two important dimensions of this: cross‐cultural and inter‐management level perspectives. Concludes that it is advisable to first, try to avoid least desirable marketing practices, and second, upgrade the moral standard in the business community.

The economic science is again in a crisis and a new solution prolegomena to any future study in economics, finance and other social sciences has just been published by the International Institute of Social Economics in care of the MCB University Press in England. The roots of the major financial and economic problems of our time lie in an open conflict between theory and practice. In the 1930s and before the conflict was between classical theory and given realities. In the 1990s the conflict appears between the now prevailing modern, Keynesian theory and the actual realities. In addition during the twentieth century a great argument developed between the two schools of thought, argument which is not yet settled. In one sentence, the prolegomena tried and was successful to solve the conflict between theory and practice and the big doctrinal dispute of the twentieth century. It was a struggle of research and observation over half a century between 1947 and 1997.

This paper describes ways to improve the effectiveness of a code of ethics where the goal is to affect the alternative chosen by a decision maker. These avenues for improvement are divided into those related to the content of the code and those related to enforcement provisions associated with a code. Improvements related to the content of the code are designed to change decision makers’ perceptions as to whether an action is ethical in such a way that they change the action chosen. Improvements related to enforcement provisions are designed to change how decision makers value the outcomes associated with selecting specific actions.