Fatores que facilitam a internalização dos códigos de conduta ética nas organizações

Abstract

The acceptance of behavioral norms depends on the company's ability to structure inductive reasoning that allows the employee to realize the importance of compliance. The main tool to establish homogeneous practices of ethical reasoning in organizations is its Code of Ethics. The identification of the factors Brazilian employees perceive as critical for the internalization of an ethical code favors the Code’s best formulation, acceptance, management and consequent success. This empirical-theoretical research involves 70 respondents from Rio de Janeiro State who assessed the importance of 16 factors, already identified in the literature, for the effectiveness of a Code of Ethics. The importance of each factor was initially inferred by analyzing the frequency and descriptive statistics. Observed multicollinearity among the factors also led to the use of factor analysis. The results show that 94% of respondents agree that the Code of Ethics should be accepted and respected by all hierarchical levels. There is a clear preponderance that it should present examples, emphasizing prohibited actions, and formal mechanisms to respond to deviations, such as call line to report misconducts and the existence of an Ethics Committee. There were no statistically significant differences of opinion in terms of gender, time of work in the company, age, education and previous experience in other companies with codes of ethics. Compared to a similar study of Sarmento (2008), there are indications that there is now a greater unanimity on the need of the Audit Committee, the requirement that the Code of Ethics is to be observed by all, means for anonymous reporting of misconducts and strict punishment of deviations. On the other hand, there are signals that the participation of employees in the development of the Code of Ethics is currently deemed as less necessary. When compared to Sarmento (2008), the factor analysis shows lower collinearity among the factors, perhaps reflecting that the Code of Ethics is in a more mature stage in organizations, today being easier for its users to differentiate which factors are relevant to its effectiveness.