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The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting ethical work behaviour among Malaysian public sector auditors. Based on Hunt and Vitell model, there are four research objectives for this study: to investigate the influence of ethical climate on public sector auditors ethical work behaviour; to examine the effect of professional commitment on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors; to investigate the effect of corporate ethical values (CEV) on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors; and to examine the effect of ethical ideology on ethical work behaviour of public sector auditors.

The respondents of the study were public sector auditors of National Audit Department in Malaysia. Using a survey questionnaire comprising instruments about the ethical climate, CEV, professional commitment, ethical ideology and organisational misbehaviour, a total of 382 were received and usable. In achieving the research objectives, multiple regressions were performed.

The results reveal that ethical work behaviour among public sector auditors in Malaysia is influenced by law and independence ethical climate, professional commitment, CEV and both idealism and relativism ethical ideology.

The present study provides new additional empirical evidence on determinants of ethical work behaviour of auditors in public sector from a developing economy (i.e. Malaysia) which is currently limited.

Tax professionals in public accounting firms must meet professional standards in working with their clients, but may also face pressure from both their clients and firms when making ethical decisions. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of client factors on tax professionals’ ethical decision-making. Furthermore, we also investigate how client service climate and different ethical climate types affect these ethical decisions. Based on an experimental design with 149 practicing tax professionals, results indicate that tax professionals are not swayed by client importance or social interaction with the client when making ethical decisions. However, tax professionals are more likely to engage in ethical behavior when their own accounting firm monitors and tracks the quality of client service, whereas unethical behavior is more common when public accounting firms emphasize using personal ethical beliefs in decision-making. The results of the study suggest the importance of strong policies and procedures to promote ethical decision-making in firms.

The aim of this study is to examine the relations among organizational ethical climate, goal interdependence (cooperative vs competitive goals), and organizational and professional commitment among auditors in Asia.

The authors conducted a field survey of 293 auditors employed in two offices of an international accounting firm: one in Hong Kong and one in Singapore.

Structural equation analyses indicate that instrumental ethical climates that focus on the pursuit of self‐interest and firm profitability promote more competitive and less cooperative goals among auditors. Benevolent/cosmopolitan (public interest) climates appear to enhance cooperative goals among employees. Cooperative goals in turn were associated with increased affective and normative organizational and professional commitments. Competitive environments significantly reduced affective and normative organizational commitment as well as affective professional commitment. Compared with their Hong Kong counterparts, Singaporean auditors perceived the ethical climate in their firm to be more positive or supportive of ethical values, and also felt the work environment in the firm was more cooperative and less competitive. In addition, the Singaporean auditors exhibited somewhat higher levels of emotional attachment to both their firm and the public accounting profession.

No prior accounting study has examined the influence of cooperative/competitive goals on work outcomes in a public accounting setting, or the role of ethical climates as potential antecedents of such goals. The results of the current study indicate that the development of cooperative and competitive goals is significantly related to the perceived ethical climate in public accounting firms, and that such goals may have significant effects on employee commitment not only to their organization but also to their profession. The significant differences between auditors in Hong Kong and Singapore have not previously been documented, and raise questions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organizational justice on the ethical climate in organizations in Serbia.

In the study, 3,413 employees participated whose task was to assess the dimensions of organizational justice (procedural, distributive and interactional) as well as the dimensions of ethical climate (egoism, benevolence and principle).

The obtained results show that the dimensions of organizational justice are significant predictors of dimensions of ethical climate. The dimension of distributive justice significantly predicts the dimensions of egoism and principle, while the dimensions of procedural and interactional justice significantly predict the dimensions of benevolence and principle. Concerning the structure of the relationship between dimensions of organizational justice and ethical climate, the results also showed that there is intra-national diversity depending on the region of the Republic of Serbia where the organization operates. Ethical climate based on maximization of personal interest is more connected to economically more developed regions with a larger population, while ethical climate based on duties related to norms, laws, rules and policies characterizes less developed regions with a smaller population.

In the context of contemporary Serbian business surrounding, the obtained results are discussed regarding the possibilities for improvement of ethical climate, which should be accompanied and supported by the positive impact of organizational justice.

Indian banking sector is facing a number of challenges, and increasing number of corporate frauds and employee turnover are among the top list. Literature reveals that gaining insights about ethical climate may provide a possible solution and relief from the challenges being faced. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the prevalent various ethical climate types in the Indian banking industry. Furthermore, it presents interesting results by investigating the effect of five theorized ethical climate types on organizational commitment along with its three components in the banking sector.

This empirical research encompasses a descriptive research design. Sample uses 266 respondents from four prime banks of the Indian banking industry.

Statistical analyses unveiled that all five conceptualized ethical climate types are prevalent in the Indian banking industry. However, the perception of employees for caring climate was the highest among all others. In contrast to the results reported by Western studies, this research reveals a strong negative impact of instrumental climate on affective commitment. Furthermore, it has been seen that instrumental climate is a significant predictor for the three components of commitment (affective, continuance and normative). However, it fails to predict the overall organizational commitment construct. Likewise, opposed to findings of Western countries, law and code, rules and independent climate types have shown significant relationship and impact on organizational commitment for Indian banking sector employees. It has been found that different commitment components are predicted by a diverse mix of climate types in India.

Findings highlight varying strength of relationship and predictive ability of different ethical climate types with commitment. This helps in elucidating that managers and top executives should focus on building an ethical work environment to warrant high-level commitment among employees. Congruence between employee, manager and organizations’ perception of ethics is a pre-requisite for maintaining a long-term relationship among the parties. This study will enable understanding the role of ethical climate in reducing corporate frauds and employee turnover.

This research addresses a significant gap in literature by exploring the relationship between ethical climate and organizational commitment. The study uses data from the Indian banking industry which contributes to expanding knowledge of the relationship in the Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among the welfare constituents of benevolent leadership, ethical climate, and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) by examining the direct as well as the indirect impacts of benevolent leadership constructs on OCB mediated through the ethical work climate (EWC).

The data analysis for managerial responses obtained from eight not-for-profit organizations established that ethical sensitivity, spiritual wisdom, positive engagement, and community responsiveness as the welfare elements of benevolent leadership significantly influenced OCB both as proximal and distal outcome through the mediating effect of EWC found in the organizations.

This study substantiated the point that the welfare orientation exhibited by top and senior management as the core of benevolent leadership behaviour in not-for-profit organizations influenced the EWC and OCB among the organizational members that in turn would enable them to meaningfully engage themselves with the socially relevant projects and community development activities.

The application of benevolent leadership scale in not-for-profit organizations established its predictive validity in relation to ethical climate and OCB.

This study investigates the role of personal resource (i.e. psychological empowerment) in reducing the negative impact of emotional exhaustion of frontline employees on their engagement. It also examines the moderating effects of ethical climate and transformational leadership in mitigating the negative influence of emotional exhaustion on engagement among frontline service employees (FLEs).

Data were collected from 671 frontline employees from financial services sector. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical regression analysis (HRA) were used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results show that the impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement is greatly affected by psychological empowerment. Transformational leadership moderates the negative effects of emotional exhaustion on psychological empowerment, while ethical climate weakens the negative impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement.

Service firms need to provide enough autonomy to emotionally exhausted frontline employees so that they feel valued. The emotionally exhausted employees can be engaged if they are empowered to discharge their job most effectively and a climate is ensured which can keep them motivated toward accomplishing their targets. A fair and just treatment shall boost their morale to perform better and to strengthen their staying intentions.

The novelty of our study lies in examining and fostering engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs. It shows that job resources at the individual level (i.e. psychological empowerment), team level (i.e. transformational leadership) and organizational level (i.e. ethical climate) can help in encouraging work engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs.

To deepen our understanding about the development of turnover intention, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model that explains how ethical climate influences turnover intention based on the ethical climate theory and social identity theory.

The hypotheses of this study were statistically tested using a survey of working professionals from Taiwan’s high-tech industry. Of the 400 questionnaires distributed to the working professionals from five large high-tech firms in a well-known science park in Northern Taiwan, 352 usable questionnaires were returned for a questionnaire response rate of 88 percent.

The test results of this study first show that all three dimensions of ethical climate (i.e. instrumental, benevolent, and principled) are indirectly related to turnover intention via the mediation of firm attractiveness. Moreover, instrumental and benevolent climate directly relate to turnover intention, whereas benevolent climate negatively moderates the relationship between principled climate and firm attractiveness.

This study finds that benevolent climate plays a dual role as an antecedent and a moderator in the formation of turnover intention, complementing prior studies that merely concentrate on the single role of benevolent climate as either an antecedent or a moderator. The effect of principled climate on organizational identification complements the theoretical discussion by Victor and Cullen (1987) about deontology in which an ethical workplace climate (such as legitimacy) drives employees to invest in identity attachments to the organization and influences their future career decision (e.g. turnover).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between overall ethical work climate (EWC) and overall organizational commitment (OC) and test the effects of types of EWC on three components of OC in Taiwanese military context.

A literature review on EWC and OC provides the basis for the research model and hypotheses. A self-completion questionnaire survey, involving 508 respondents (92.36 per cent response rate) from military officers in Taiwan included both full-time training officers of the National Defense University and officers of Department of Defense. The authors use statistical analysis, including hierarchical regression and structural equation model to test hypotheses about the relationships above.

The results indicated that overall EWC and some climate types significantly positively or negatively influenced overall OC, affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment.

The findings can provide helpful perspectives on management and organizations of benefit to scholars and policy-makers to make ethical policy in military organizations. In addition, suggesting for military leaders to foster some types of ethical climates to prevent low OC.

Theoretically, the paper serves as a pioneer research for testing the concept of influence of EWC on OC and shows the effects of types of EWC on three components of OC in military context. Practically, the results and recommendations in the paper will be useful to those involved in the field of management in Taiwan military organizations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of ethical climate and organizational justice perceptions on the quality of manager‐employee relationships via leader‐member exchange (LMX). It also aims to explore differences between distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice perceptions as related to LMX. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relative strength of connections between ethical climate, these three types of justice perceptions, and LMX.

The research was conducted via survey administration of questionnaires. The sample consisted of 105 working adults in an Israeli telecommunications company.

It was found that there was a significant positive relationship between perceived interactional justice and levels of LMX. No significant relationships were present between LMX and the other types of justice perceptions. Furthermore, it was discovered that there was a significant positive relationship between ethical climate and LMX. As an important, unexpected finding the study discovered a significant negative relationship between ethical climate and procedural justice.

This is one of the few studies to examine the effects of justice perceptions together with ethical climate perceptions on LMX. As such, these findings offer guidance in the development and implementation of further studies to examine the linkages between these constructs. In particular, it suggests that these findings provide a framework for examining the potential moderating role of ethical climate in the relationship between interactional justice perceptions and LMX.