The Servant of the People: On the power of integrity in politics and government

Servants of the people, abbreviated to SPs, are all those who hold office in politics and government. The people grant them power under the condition that they serve with integrity. But how do you do that? This book offers the necessary concepts, insights and guidelines. Each of the 95 chapters discusses one of the many facets of integrity, with plenty of positive and negative examples involving different kinds of SPs from different countries. The central message is that integrity has great power over SPs: it can make or break their careers. Muel Kaptein is a professor of ethics and integrity and a partner at KPMG

Ethics Programs and Ethical Cultures: A Next Step in Unraveling their Multi-Faceted Relationship

The objective of an ethics program is to improve the ethical culture of an organization. To date, empirical research treats at least one of these concepts as a one-dimensional construct. This paper demonstrates that by conceptualizing both constructs as multi-dimensional, a better understanding of the relationship between the two concepts can be achieved. Employing the corporate ethical virtues model, eight dimensions of ethical culture are distinguished. Nine components of an ethics program are specified. To assess the relationship between ethical programs and ethical cultures, a survey of 4,056 members of the U.S. working population was conducted. The results show that the relationship between the individual components of an ethics program and ethical culture differs. Implications for research and practice are discussed

The Moral Entrepreneur: a New Component of Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership has become a popular subject of empirical research in recent years. Most studies follow Brown et al.’s definition of ethical leadership, which consists of two components: the moral person and the moral manager. In this paper, I argue for a third relevant component: i.e., the moral entrepreneur who creates a new ethical norm. Viewing moral entrepreneurship as a new component of ethical leadership opens up avenues for studying various antecedents and outcomes of ethical leadership that have not been acknowledged so far, or at least, not adequately

From Inaction to External Whistleblowing: The Influence of the Ethical Culture of Organizations on Employee Responses to Observed Wrongdoing

Putting measures in place to prevent wrongdoing in organizations is important, but detecting and correcting wrongdoing is just as vital. Employees who observe wrongdoing should therefore be encouraged to respond in a manner that supports corrective action. This paper examines the influence of the ethical culture of organizations on employee responses to observed wrongdoing. The findings show that, contrary to transparency and congruency of management, many other dimensions of ethical culture were negatively related to inaction and external whistleblowing and positively related to direct interven-tion, reporting to management and calling an ethics hotline. The model used for ethical culture explained 27.5% of intended responses by employees

The Battle for Business Ethics: A Struggle Theory

To be and to remain ethical requires struggle from organizations. Struggling is necessary due to the pressures and temptations management and employees encounter in and around organizations. As the relevance of struggle for business ethics has not yet been analyzed systematically in the scientific literature, this paper develops a theory of struggle that elaborates on the meaning and dimensions of struggle in organizations, why and when it is needed, and what its antecedents and consequences are. An important conclusion is that the greater the ethics gap and opposing forces, the greater the struggle required. Viewing business ethics as struggle has several implications for theory and practice