Synonyms
Organizational Ethics and Contemporary Business
More and more firms are now creating the position of Chief Ethics Officer (EO) as part of their overall ethical governance program. In the USA, the advent of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1991, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and the well-publicized corporate scandals that precipitated these legislations seemed to have provided the impetus for corporations to create the office of the ethics officer. The Sentencing Guidelines stated that companies with effective compliance and ethics programs, including the position of ethics officer, could receive preferential treatment during prosecutions for white-collar crimes.
Organizations themselves may be showing greater sensitivity to ethical issues, and corporate boards of directors no longer tolerate even minor lapses. For example, RadioShack fired its CEO for lying on his resume. Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn lost her job after...
References
Adobor H (2006) Exploring the role of corporate ethics officers. J Bus Ethics 69(1):57–75
Barry M (2002) Why ethics and compliance programs fail. J Bus Strateg 23(6):37–40
Bartels L, Harrick E, Martell K, Strickland D (1998) The relationship between ethical climate and ethical problems within human resources management. J Bus Ethics 17:799–804
Bass BM (1985) Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Free Press, New York
Boss AD, Sims HP Jr (2008) Everyone fails! Using emotion regulation and self-leadership for recovery. J Manag Psychol 23:135–150
Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership. New York. Harper & Row
Clark H (2006) Ethics officers, who need them? Fortune, Oct 23. https://www.forbes.com/2006/10/23/leadership-ethics-hp-lead-govern-cx_hc_1023ethics.html#54b364365182. Retrieved 1 Oct 2018
DiPiazza SA (2001) The value of the corporate ethics officer: musing from the “other” CEO. Vital Speeches of the Day, Sept 17, pp 712–717
Ethics Officer Association. http://ecoaconnects.theecoa.org/home
Ferrell OC, Fraedrich J, Ferrell L (2005) Business ethics, 6th edn. Houghton Mifflin, New York
Izraeli D, BarNir A (1998) Promoting ethics through ethics officers: a proposed profile and an application. J Bus Ethics 17:1189–1196
Jose A, Thibodeaux MS (1999) Institutionalization of ethics: the perspective of managers. J Bus Ethics 22(2):133–143
Kohlberg L (1981) The philosophy of moral development. Harper and Row, San Francisco
Manz CC (1986) Self-leadership: toward an expanded theory of self-influence processes in organizations. Acad Manag Rev 11:585–600
McCoy K (2018) Number of CEOs who exited after bad behavior grows. USA Today, Jun 21, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/06/21/number-ceos-leaving-after-bad-behavior-grows/721025002/. Retrieved 10 Oct 2018
Neck CP, Manz CC (1992) Thought self-leadership: the impact of self-talk and mental imagery on performance. J Organ Behav 12:681–699
Pontefract D (2018) We need chief ethics officers more than ever. Fortune, May 16. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2018/05/16/we-need-chief-ethics-officers-more-than-ever/#6ae09dbb100a. Retrieved 20 Sept 2018
Shen L (2017) The ten biggest scandals of 2017. Fortune, Dec 31, 2017. http://fortune.com/2017/12/31/biggest-corporate-scandals-misconduct-2017-pr/?utm_source=emailshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-share-listicle&utm_content=20181009. Retrieved 30 Sept 2018
Trevino LK (1986) Ethical decision-making in organizations: a person-situation interactionist model. Acad Manag Rev 11:601–617
Trevino LK, Hartman LP, Brown M (2000) Moral person and moral manager: how executives develop reputation for ethical leadership. Calif Manag Rev 42(4):128–142
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Adobor, H. (2019). Corporate Ethics Officers. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_66-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_66-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences