Hu, Y, Yang, Y and Lee, PKC (2022) Effective practices for improving service professionals' ethical behaviors: A multiple method study. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. 1042142 - ?. ISSN 1664-1078

[thumbnail of Effective practices for improving service professionals ethical behaviors A multiple method study.pdf]
Preview
Text
Effective practices for improving service professionals ethical behaviors A multiple method study.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Enhancing frontline professional service employees' ethics has been an increasingly important issue for organizations in sustaining their reputation and long-term profitability. While many organizations have implemented general ethics programes such as ethics codes and ethical training, unethical scandals regularly still appear in many service organizations. This research offers new insights into the practices that can effectively enhance marketing practitioners' ethical behaviors and the pertinent contextual factors that have a bearing on the effectiveness of ethics programes.

METHODS: It uses a multi-method methodology to conduct two studies in the Chinese banking setting. Based on the rank of revenue and profitability published by Fortune magazine of year 2021, in Study 1, we choose five main Chinese banking organizations to conduct case studies to explore the framework of effective ethics programes of banks. In Study 2 we use the valid instruments from the literature to measure the involved constructs and employs data from randomly selected 146 frontline banking teams in five main Chinese banking organizations to examine the effectiveness of three specific ethics practices and ascertain the moderating role of role stress in such effectiveness.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Our findings indicate the effective behavior control practices within organizations' ethics programes and the implications of having a stressful workplace when adopting such practices. In addition, we integrate organizational concepts regarding behavior control and employee ethics, and use two empirical methods to systematically explore the effectiveness of ethics programes. This paper advances the management and marketing literature and has significant managerial implications for improving frontline service professionals' ethical behaviors.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2022 Hu, Yang and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Uncontrolled Keywords: behavior control, ethics, professional service organizations, role stress, multi-method
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Keele Business School
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Symplectic
Date Deposited: 04 Jan 2023 12:17
Last Modified: 02 Mar 2023 10:04
URI: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/11827

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item