Marymount University

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Marymount UniversityDigital FocusBusiness
Ethics Surveyof Technology CEOs

• Technology CEOs Ethics Forum
• May 15, 2001
• McLean, Virginia

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Overview

• Context Caveats
• Practices Importance Effectiveness
• Organizational Values Norms
• Summary
• Questions

Leadership always comes down to a question of
character Warren Bennis
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Context Caveats

• Co-sponsored by Marymount University Digital
  Focus
• Developed collaboratively, with assistance from
  the Ethics Resource Center
• Administered in Fall/Winter 2000
• Forty-three (43) CEO-level respondents,
  representing Northern Virginia high technology
  companies ranging in size from under 100 to
  thousands of employees
• Potential non-response bias and non-probability
  sampling design preclude statistically valid
  inferences to the population of high-technology
  companies.
• Responses may not reflect the views of non-senior
  level employees.

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Practices Importance Effectiveness
Technology CEO Ethics Forum

• With one exception, (hiring maintaining a
  diverse work force), there is a gap between
  perceived importance perceived effectiveness.
• A few practices identified in the literature as
  important determinants of organizational health
  received relatively low importance ratings (e.g.,
  practices 7 - 10)

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The Ethics of Business Practices

• There is surprisingly large variation in whether
  respondents perceive certain practices to be
  ethical or not, e.g., monitoring email accounts.
• The mode of communication appears to influence
  whether a practice is ethical or not -- e.g.,
  monitoring phone conversations versus monitoring
  email accounts.

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The Ethics of Business Practices (cont.)

• In general, practices are consistent with the
  judgments about the ethics of the practice
• The exception is shown to the right. While the
  relationship is not statistically significant,
  there appears to be some disparity between
  perception and reality.

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Organizational Values Norms All Respondents

• .

Scale 1 Strongly Disagree 5
Strongly Agree
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Organizational Values NormsThe Influence of
Organizational Size

• The larger the size of an organization, (defined
  as number of employees), the lower the ratings
  for several key dimensions, including Respect
  for one another, regardless of position...

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Organizational Values NormsThe Influence of
Organizational Size

• The larger the size of an organization, (defined
  as number of employees), the lower the ratings
  for several key dimensions, including Level of
  trust within the organization

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Organizational Values NormsThe Influence of
Organizational Size

• The larger the size of an organization, (defined
  as number of employees), the lower the ratings
  for several key dimensions, including Extent to
  which employees have control over work-related
  decisions affecting their lives.

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Organizational Values NormsThe Influence of
Organizational Size

• The larger the size of an organization, (defined
  as number of employees), the lower the ratings
  for several key dimensions, including
  Acceptability of turnover rates.

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Organizational Values NormsThe Influence of
Organizational Size

• For other ethical dimensions, however,
  organizational size appears to have little or no
  influence, as reflected, for example, in the
  consistency of respondents agreement with the
  statement I expect my organization to do what
  is right, not just what is profitable.

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What Are Significant Predictors of Key
Organizational Values and Norms?
All predictors marked (?) are statistically
significant (p. lt .05)
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Survey Summary

• Gaps between perceived importance and
  effectiveness.
• Variation in perception of whether certain
  practices are ethical or unethical some
  discrepancies between espoused values and
  practice.
• The larger the organization, the lower the
  perceived trust, respect, and employee
  involvement in decision making.
• Trust is a significant predictor for multiple
  variables including balancing ethics with
  profitability, maintaining an ethical image with
  clients, and intra-organizational honesty.

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Select Discussion Points

• What is the relationship between ethical
  practices, and organizational performance and
  profitability?
• What role does ethics play in attracting and
  retaining employees?
• What is the role of senior management in
  fostering ethical behavior within an
  organization?
• How applicable is a Code of Ethics in an
  organizations day-to-day business operationshow
  is it made real?
• Since Trust is such a pivotal value in predicting
  ethical behavior, what does it mean in the
  business context, and how we can foster it as a
  value within our organizations?
• What policies and practices foster and sustain an
  organizational culture of respect, and honesty?
• To what extent would the views of CEOs
  represented in the data coincide with the views
  of the employees, were they asked the same
  questions?
• Why are common practices such as monitoring email
  viewed so differently by different persons? Are
  these practices ethical? If so, why? If not,
  why?