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This paper contributes to the study of ethics programmes by the building of a theoretical model for implementing an ethics programme and examining the application of this model to an actual implementation case study. Ethics programmes aim at stimulating ethical behaviour in the organisation and assisting employees to act in a morally responsible way. It is proposed that for an organisational ethics programme to be effective, five dominant conditions are necessary: awareness of formal organisational goals and corresponding informal norms; suitable procedures for decision making; correct distribution of resources; presence of necessary skills; and personal intentions for ethical behaviour. Following detailed discussion of each condition, and with reference to an actual case example, the conditions will be further developed and supplemented with suggested organisational activities that could be used to support these conditions.

The primary goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of meso ethics from a corporate governance perspective, and the strategic process of integration between corporate and individual ethics for the creation of an ethical culture. A secondary aim is to identify the organizational behavior variables that are affected by the ethical congruence between employee ethics and the prevailing corporate ethical climate.

By first situating organizational ethics within the broader phenomenon of business ethics, the authors then more aptly examine corporate ethics at the upper and lower permeable meso boundaries where a shared ethic is negotiated. This conceptual paper tries to capture through a phenomenological approach how strategic governance level (macro) and individual ethics (micro) interact in a complex and dynamic way at the organizational level (meso).

Normative literature suggests that organizations require more than ethical safeguards to ensure ethical conduct. For example, ethics training programs are demanded and perceived as effective by employees. Recent empirical studies on “ethical fit” have converged and support the assertion that it is in an organization's best interest to continually look for ethical congruence between their workforce and the ethical climate that they intentionally foster. Furthermore, these studies show that perceived ethical congruence positively affects an individual's affective commitment to an organization, and reduces turnover intent.

There is a general lack of consensus, cohesion and empiricism in the current literature. Few studies deal with meso ethics, which have wide‐ranging implications for current and future research.

Demand for business ethics is on the rise as is its corporate response commonly defined as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Standard responsive measures taken by executives are shown to generally be unsubstantiated or insufficient for ethical conduct to truly take root in an organization.

The scope of the paper, with its phenomenological approach, identifies the complexities of corporate ethics for academics and managers alike, where traditionally fragmented organizational levels are herein understood to be permeable and dynamic. The meso perspective of this study provides a new foundation for the study of corporate ethics. Its phenomenological approach provides a conceptual common ground and facilitates convergence in the field. Moreover, the conceptual framework of this paper can enable practitioners to formulate the appropriate strategic intent and governance strategy for their organization.

Following the surge of documents laying out organizations' ethical principles for their use of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a growing demand for translating ethical principles to practice through AI governance (AIG). AIG has emerged as a rapidly growing, yet fragmented, research area. This paper synthesizes the organizational AIG literature by outlining research themes and knowledge gaps as well as putting forward future agendas.

The authors undertake a systematic literature review on AIG, addressing the current state of its conceptualization and suggesting future directions for AIG scholarship and practice. The review protocol was developed following recommended guidelines for systematic reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).

The results of the authors’ review confirmed the assumption that AIG is an emerging research topic with few explicit definitions. Moreover, the authors’ review identified four themes in the AIG literature: technology, stakeholders and context, regulation and processes. The central knowledge gaps revealed were the limited understanding of AIG implementation, lack of attention to the AIG context, uncertain effectiveness of ethical principles and regulation, and insufficient operationalization of AIG processes. To address these gaps, the authors present four future AIG agendas: technical, stakeholder and contextual, regulatory, and process. Going forward, the authors propose focused empirical research on organizational AIG processes, the establishment of an AI oversight unit and collaborative governance as a research approach.

To address the identified knowledge gaps, the authors present the following working definition of AIG: AI governance is a system of rules, practices and processes employed to ensure an organization's use of AI technologies aligns with its strategies, objectives, and values, complete with legal requirements, ethical principles and the requirements set by stakeholders. Going forward, the authors propose focused empirical research on organizational AIG processes, the establishment of an AI oversight unit and collaborative governance as a research approach.

For practitioners, the authors highlight training and awareness, stakeholder management and the crucial role of organizational culture, including senior management commitment.

For society, the authors review elucidates the multitude of stakeholders involved in AI governance activities and complexities related to balancing the needs of different stakeholders.

By delineating the AIG concept and the associated research themes, knowledge gaps and future agendas, the authors review builds a foundation for organizational AIG research, calling for broad contextual investigations and a deep understanding of AIG mechanisms. For practitioners, the authors highlight training and awareness, stakeholder management and the crucial role of organizational culture, including senior management commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to see to what extent Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy could be used to unveil how corporate discourse about financial crimes (in codes of ethics) is closely linked to the process of understanding.

Corporate ethical discourse of 20 business corporations will be analyzed, as it is conveyed within their codes of ethics. The companies came from five countries (USA, Canada, France, Switzerland and Brazil). In the explanatory study, the following industries were represented (two companies by industry): aircrafts/trains, military, airlines, recreational vehicles, soft drinks, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, beauty products, telecommunications and banks.

Historically-based prejudices in three basic narrative strategies (silence, chosen items and detailed discussion) about financial crimes are related to the mindset, to the basic outlook on corporate self-interest or to an absolutizing attitude.

The historically-based prejudices that have been identified in this explanatory study should be analyzed in longitudinal studies.

The historically-based prejudices that have been identified in this explanatory study should be analyzed in longitudinal studies. Historically-based prejudices could be strengthened by the way corporate codes of ethics deal with financial crimes. They could, thus, have a deep impact on the organizational culture in the long-run.

The paper analyzes the way corporate codes of ethics use given narrative strategies to address financial crimes issues. It also unveils historically-based prejudices that follow from the choice of one or the other narrative strategy.

The purpose of this study is to propose a contemporary-specific model entitled “sustainable development model of accounting professional ethics (SDM-APE)” and empirically investigate and quantitatively prioritize its components.

The study adopts the mixed content analysis research method and integrates both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The necessary data for the initial model are extracted after examining 569 published articles related to professional ethics of accounting in Iran during 2005-2015. Then, the ethical codes are reviewed, summarized and extracted via “content analysis.” Based on the findings of this study, a sustainable accounting model is developed, which consists of four constructs, including personal, social, economic-organizational and environmental factors, with 69 components. Afterward, the model is tested through collecting questionnaires and simple random sampling by 217 academic and professional experts. Accordingly, the second-order confirmatory factor analysis in LISREL software is used.

The paper clearly demonstrates that ethics in the professional accounting are underpinned by four major constructs: personal, social, economic-organizational and environmental factors; all four mentioned constructs of the model are interconnected and affect professional ethics in accounting and maintain a proper goodness of fit. Meanwhile, social, personal, economic-organizational and environmental features reveal the greatest fit accordingly. The variable of “avoiding the misuse of organizational property and information” is the most important variable of the model. It is followed by deontology, responsibility and accountability for environment, preventing environment degradation and emission of environmental pollutants, promoting the culture of environmental conservation, standing in the second to fifth priority levels, respectively.

This paper has developed a contemporary practical model in professional accounting ethics, which is extensive and applicable to various organizations.

This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam.

The study relies on survey data collected from 283 practising accountants in Vietnam. Organisational culture was measured using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, developed by Cameron and Quinn (2011). The Instrument is developed based on the competing values framework comprised of four distinct cultures: clan, hierarchy, market and adhocracy. Ethical judgement and ethical intention were measured based on respondent responses to five ethical scenarios, each linked to a principle of professional conduct in the code of ethics.

The findings indicate that the clan culture (family oriented) is dominant and has a significant positive influence on accountants' ethical judgement and ethical intention. Respondents in the clan culture evaluate scenarios more ethically compared with accountants in the adhocracy and market cultures but not the hierarchy culture. Accountants who emphasise the adhocracy and market cultures display a more relaxed attitude towards unethical scenarios whereas respondents in the hierarchy culture (rule oriented) display the highest ethical attitude.

The code of ethics, its content and how it is interpreted and applied may differ between professions, organisations or cultures.

Organisational research on ethical decision-making is ample but few studies link organisational culture with ethical judgement and ethical intention from the perspective of individual accountants.

This chapter seeks to advance the neglected debate on the ethical issues between formal organization and practice arising from innovation in an organization. To that end, the chapter discusses the sources of possible moral dilemmas for practitioners who belong to a practice with a shared identity, values, and standards of excellence, and who need to conform to new rules of formal organization. While formal organization ideally strives for generalized fairness principles for all organizational members when introducing an innovation, the contextualized nature of practices may lead to particular needs and goals of the practice which can only be recognized as such by practitioners and not by formal management, and to which procedural justice cannot respond. The chapter proposes how practitioners may interpret moral dilemmas, aligned with their practice-based identity and ethical values, and what options for action they may seek. The discussion is illustrated with examples of innovation in the field of information systems design.

Working with organizations is central to organizational ethnography. However, while research ethics relating to individual participants is widely discussed, research ethics relating to the organizations has been neglected. The purpose of this article is to address this shortcoming and introduce the concept and domain of “meso-ethics” in research ethics. Meso-ethics pertains to organizations as research participants and thus allows for the explicit inclusion of organizations in ethical considerations and practice. Meso-ethics complements the known domains of micro-ethics and macro-ethics in research ethics.

The concept of meso-ethics takes point of departure in the micro-ethical principles of “respect, and avoiding harm” and adjusts these to apply to organizations. The organizations are first defined as a distinct type of research participants, which differs from individual participants. The organizations are formally organized units that possess resources to assert power and stakeholders with a vested interest in the research. Second, the relationship between researchers and organizations is related to issues of power, allowing for a view of the power relations as flexible and relational. Moreover, this includes a potential vulnerability to harm on both sides.

The new concept and domain meso-ethics allows for explicit reflections and practice of research ethics in relations to organizations, a central participant in organizational ethnography. There is a discussion that meso-ethics should be combined with micro-ethics and macro-ethics in future practice to allow for comprehensive reflections and practice of research ethics.

The article contributes a new concept and domain of research ethics, meso-ethics, in organizational ethnography and related research to explore and practice research ethics in relation to organizations participating in our research. Meso-ethics complements the known domains of micro-ethics and macro-ethics in research ethics.

The story of business ethics would seem to be a tale of horses, deckchairs, Molotovs and ostriches. There is little evidence that the growth in organisational codes of ethics (OCoE) in recent years has had much effect on organisational activity. Such was also the experience with the social responsibility debate of the 1970s – a debate which the current business ethics experience so closely parallels. The theme here is that business ethics and social responsibility have failed to “root” because (a) they have remained undefined and imprecise, and (b) organisations have neither the mechanisms for, nor the interest in, their adoption. As a result neither ethics nor responsibility has entered the “soul” of organisations. Commentators have misunderstood this and continue so to do because the bulk of debate in the business ethics arena adopts the individualist orientation that characterises much of the history of the philosophy of ethics.

The purpose of this research is to determine the commitment to business ethics in UK corporations. This study reports on the responses of those organizations that participated in the survey and possessed a code of ethics.

An unsolicited questionnaire was sent to the top 500 private sector organizations by market capitalization in the UK. A total of 92 companies responded, of which 56 possessed a code of ethics.

The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in developing business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level. The supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be under‐utilized by many of these UK organizations. This suggests that many organizations have not so far developed a strong organizational commitment to embedding their codes of ethics into organizational practices.

While the responses provided a rich picture of organizational actions, further research exploring internal culture and attitudes would add to an understanding of organizational commitment.

It is found that in order to influence practice, it is not enough to have the artefacts of an ethical culture, such as codes, without ensuring that all employees are assisted in understanding what is required of them.

Despite a history of business ethics research, there are a limited number of studies seeking to understand UK companies' commitment to ethical codes. The paper provides guidance on steps that organizations can take to develop a higher level of commitment.