The effects of individual and organizational factors on ethical behavior in the South African construction industry
Date
2019
Authors
Makonye, Chido
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Abstract
Employees often face many difficult situations that demand ethical decision making from the viewpoint of society and organizations. Various factors influence the outcome of ethical or unethical decision-making and behaviour of employees. This paper briefly examined some of the major factors that may affect ethical behaviour in construction companies. The strength of these factors may vary from individuals to individuals, organizations to organizations, and situation to situation. The factors that were investigated are personal values, corporate ethical values and the organisational climate. Age and gender were used as moderators in this study. South Africa is a developing country in which many private and public organizations are being faced with a lot of fraud and corruption. It is not only in private organization but also the government. This call for an investigation on ethical behaviour but to solve a problem one must find the source of the problem. The study was designed to answer the major question: Are there any significance relationships between personal values, corporate values and organisational climate and ethical behaviour in the South African construction industry? The researcher employed a quantitative research method. Data collection was done by use of questionnaires distributed to various construction companies. A computer programmer called SPSS version 25 and Microsoft excel were used to analyse data. Descriptive statistics was used to interpret data collected from the first section of the questionnaire that is the biographic information. Linear regression and correlations were used to test the proposed hypothesis. Multiple regression was used to test the moderation effect of age and gender. The findings largely confirm previous studies that personal values and corporate values influence ethical behaviour. However contrary to some previous studies, there was no significant relationship between ethical behaviour and organisational climate. Conclusions, findings and recommendations were drawn from the results.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits business school, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters in Business Science
Keywords
UCTD, Accounting, Construction industry, Environmental management, South Africa
Citation
Makonye, Chido, (2019). The effects of individual and organizational factors on ethical behavior in the South African construction industry, University of the Witwatersrand, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/29693