Organizational Ethics Research: A Systematic Review of Methods and Analytical Techniques

• Published in: Journal of business ethics Vol. 134; no. 3; pp. 429 - 443
• Main Authors: McLeod, Michael S., Payne, G. Tyge, Evert, Robert E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.03.2016; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Accounting; Business; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Corporate responsibility; Education; Ethical behavior; Ethical codes; Ethics; Hierarchies; Intellectuals; Management; Marketing; Media ethics; Moral relativism; Organizational behavior; Organizational behaviour; Periodicals; Philosophy; Professional ethics; Quality of Life Research; Research ethics; Research methodology; Research methods; Social ethics; Studies; Systematic review; United States; Virtue ethics; United States > US; Ethics; Organization; Empirical; Statistics; Analytics; Methods; Virtues; Firm
• ISSN: 0167-4544; 1573-0697
• DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2436-9

Ethics are of interest to business scholars because they influence decisions, behaviors, and outcomes. While scholars have increasingly shown interest in business ethics as a research topic, there are a mounting number of studies that examine ethical issues at the organizational level of analysis. This manuscript reports the results of a systematic review of empirical research on organizational ethics published in a broad sample of business journals over a 33-year period (1980–2012). A total of 184 articles are analyzed to reveal gaps in the literature and, subsequently, lead to suggestions for future research; this is done in an effort to stimulate and perpetuate high quality research that more broadly impacts business scholars and practitioners.