Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 1

Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics

Michelle Estrada

Dr. Flores

ORGL 3311

March 1, 2019
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 2

Abstract
This paper will focus on the topics of organizational commitment, ethics and ethical behavior.

Ethical and unethical behaviors will be characterized as well as the different forms that

organizational commitment embody and how they arise. The relationship between organizational

commitment and ethics will be discussed in detail on how they after one another. Within that

discussion, topics of organizational wrongdoings, whistleblowing, and unethical employees will

serve as examples that occur in the relationship.

Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 3

There are many factors and topics of discussion that contribute to the work place, all

which determine the success of an organization. The aspect of organizational commitment goes

hand in hand with a business’s ability to create a successful and ethical work environment.

Organizational commitment amongst employees creates a dynamic between many different

topics presented in the work place. Although, the way that organizational commitments amongst

those employed with a particular company can lead to both positive and negative behavior, more

specifically ethical behaviors. Ethical behaviors in the work place are affected by a variety of

things but organizational commitment can play a very large role in an employee’s ability to

perform with ethical or unethical behaviors. Therefore, there is a relationship between

organizational commitment and ethics in the work place.

Defining what is ethical and unethical is crucial; this allows for the understanding of how

organizational commitment manages to affect these behaviors. Ethics are the moral principles

that control people’s behaviors. Ethics alone are simply a mindset that helps influence a person’s

behavior. Normally, ethics are closely associated with behaviors and mindsets that are positive

and caring to the wellbeing of others. But to better describe, it is the ethical behaviors which are

acted upon by an employee that may be affected due to organizational commitment. Ethical

behaviors usually are reflected by an employee’s respectfulness, friendliness and teamwork. This

essentially branches out to a plethora of positive behaviors that arise in the work place. An

employee’s courtesy towards their managers, coworkers and customers, their timeliness, and

their initiative to volunteer to do more work all fall into the realm of ethical behavior

(Cropanzano 1997). The establishments of trustworthy and honest relationships between

employees and managers and supervisors also play a large role in defining ethics in the

workplace. Managers and supervisors in particular manage to face a more extended variety of
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 4

ethical behaviors due to needing to perform all the behaviors already listed and to the addition of

that they must act ethically toward the employees they oversee. The ethical behaviors that

managers and supervisors must take into action while in the work place are fairness, sensitivity

and avoiding favoritism amongst their employees. Berberoglu wrote on how open

communication between employees and managers create a more ethical work environment where

giving and receiving feedback and offering support to one another also ties into a manager’s or

supervisor’s ethics (2018). The reduction of conflict amongst a group of employees is also a

crucial addition to ethical behaviors; establishing an organizational environment where warmth

and cooperation is present should be practiced (Berberoglu 2018). This is how managers and

supervisors are able to show sensitivity towards employees by allowing space for communication

and cooperation. Fairness and avoiding favoritism are an ethical role that is crucial to a

manager’s and supervisor’s ethic due to immense amount of negative impact that takes places

when these ethical behaviors are not present. The distribution of rewards, working hours, days

off, raises, bonuses and promotions is somethings that managers and supervisors must act on in

an ethical and fair manner. Ensuring that a positive and fair environment remains in the

workplace because it occurs that when unfairness and favoritism arise, issues are further created.

Although the topic of ethics and ethical behaviors may be extensive, they are usually originated

from the moral principles that both the employees and the managers alike should practice. Being

respectful, courteous, fair, and considerate towards the people in a work place are the roots of

ethics and ethical behavior.

Organizational commitment is easily defined as the, primarily emotional, commitment or

attachment that a person has towards their company of employment. Naturally, when a work

environment is positive and brings happiness to an employee then that employee has a larger
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 5

probability to remain a part of that company. This is how organizational commitment can usually

be based off the emotional involvement and value found between an employee and the company

they are working for. It can often be seen as a form of loyalty and devotion to not only excelling

at their job performance and roles but they anticipate and willingly contribute to the

advancement of the company as well; essentially this further motivated an employee’s desire to

commit to their company. Although, emotional value is not the only factor that can contribute to

an employee’s commitment to their companies as there are three different types of organizational

commitment that can be found in workplaces. Normative commitment, continuance commitment

and affective commitment are the three different forms in which organizational commitment take

place and each have their own unique circumstances in categorizing the most common reasons

and employee will remain working for a particular company. Normative commitment refers to an

employee remaining in a company because they consider it their obligation to do so. There are

various reasons that could normally contribute to an employee’s commitment being a normative

one. Many times, what occurs is that an employee will feel as if their own their loyalty and

commitment to their company in order to show gratefulness for the investments that the company

has made towards that employee. This leads to employees feeling that remaining in their

companies is the right thing to do and it does not necessarily imply that their sense of obligation

stems from positive emotions (Berberoglu 2018). Obligation is a two-way street, employees

might feel this on behalf of true gratefulness and happiness towards their jobs and companies or

they may feel burdened with the guilt of leaving a company that has provided for them.

Continuance commitment, on the other hand, is the type of organizational commitment where the

emotional value an employee has for their company is not the primary element found in their

commitment. This type of organizational commitment takes place when an employee absolutely
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 6

needs to remain in a company because they cannot afford to suffer the losses involved with

leaving (Berberoglu 2018). Regardless of whether this originates from not having another job at

their disposal or not receiving the opportunities that a current employer offers; continuance

organizational commitment is created out of necessity rather than emotional reasons. As for

affective organizational commitment, it is what is ideally thought of when discussing a

commitment between an employee and a company. Affective commitment occurs when an

employee works for a company simply because they have the desire and the aspiration to do so.

Employees with a affective commitment are there because they want to work for their company

and this is usually a result of their overall job satisfaction (Berberoglu 2018). When a strong

emotional attachment is developed between an employee and their company it is often due to the

employee enjoying their jobs and being able to find a place within the company’s values and

goals. Naturally an affective organizational commitment is ideal for employees for they have a

sense of job satisfaction which brings in strong feelings of agreeance with their company.

Organizational commitment as a whole has many influences and reasons behind its

development which creates leading factors in influencing an employee’s ethics and ethical

behaviors. While it can positively influence an employee to further develop an ethical mentality

and ethical behaviors in the workplace there is also possibilities of unethical behavior being

practiced. Organizational commitment being present is not the general cause of a change in

ethical behavior arising. Although, the level of an employee’s commitment largely contributes to

the ethical changes that might occur. An employee is more likely to engage in unethical behavior

if they have a high level of organizational commitment. The larger amounts of responsibility and

involvement that is a part of higher levels of commitment pressure different variables onto

employees, which result in being some of the common causes of the practice of unethical
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 7

behaviors. The ethical change that occurs usually leads an employee’s trustworthiness, honesty

and fairness to diminish which essentially creates an unethical work environment and employee.

The unethical behaviors that arise primarily arise are lying, deceit and subterfuge (Grover 1993).

Many factors contribute to these behaviors but they usually occur on behalf of the high levels

organizational commitment that are potentially present. Unfortunately, these types of unethical

behaviors mostly occur amongst employees who have a role of importance in the company such

as managers, supervisors, directors and those who are in the process of receiving those roles. The

factors that contribute to this consist of, but are not limited to, role conflict, inter-role conflict,

and performance pressure (Grover 1993). Usually, it causes an inner conflict with an employee

and it results in them misrepresenting the truth, lying and focusing to selfishly achieve their own

goals in order to continue or further their commitment to their company. This is where

organizational commitment becomes a negative influence towards its relationship to ethical

behaviors. It slowly and eventually creates a pressure that, when looking solely at a role, could

lead to employees to partake in unethical behaviors. Additionally, an employee’s ability to make

good judgement and decisions about an unethical work environment becomes clouded.

Truthfully, an employee’s organizational commitment potentially creates a flaw in an

employee’s ethical responsibilities to both recognize and accept organizational wrongdoing.

Loyalty to a company may lead towards employees either turning a blind eye towards

organizational wrongdoings or be unable to consider unethical actions as unethical to begin with.

Ethics at this point diminish for the sake of the avoidance of conflict or for the benefits of an

employee who is highly committed to the organization to which shows an obvious problem. The

action of reporting wrongdoing is more commonly seen as something that can be done only by

employees with certain levels of organizational commitment and staff acceptance (Roberts
Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 8

2011). Contrary to this, reporting wrongdoing is an action that all employees have the right to

part take in although there are a limited amount of reports and actions taken towards what is

reported. This further allows for unethical behavior to continue and it essentially is unethical due

to leading employees to neglect their ethical responsibilities. Reporting wrongdoings is

synonymous to whistleblowing; there is a very large negative stigma towards employees who are

whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are those who reveal information of unethical, illegal and

incorrect activities occurring within an organization. These reports are hardly ever made amongst

those who have high organizational commitment for variety of reasons but primarily because

they wish to avoid the consequences that follow making these types reports. A study that was

discussed in Robert’s Whistling While They Work showed that “57 percent of surveyed

employees feel they have had direct evidence of wrongdoing but did report” it in the workplace

(2011). This contributes to the unethical behavior of working of the sake of one’s self interest

since it is considered a burden by many and reporting unethical behavior “may be costly for the

employee” (Ting 2008).

The relationship between organizational commitment and ethics is evidently present in

the workplace and it has the potential to heavily affect ethical work environments. Identifying

that organizational commitment can be one of the causes that unethical behavior and the

diminishing emphasis on ethics in the workplace shows how the pressure that these committed

employees undergo isn’t productive or beneficial.

Organizational Commitment Shaping Ethics 9

Works Cited

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Cropanzano, R., Howes, J., Grandey, A., & Toth, P. (1997). The Relationship of Organizational

Politics and Support to Work Behaviors, Attitudes, and Stress. Journal of Organizational

Behavior, 18(2), 159-180. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.southtexascollege.edu:2048/stable/3100247

Grover, S. (1993). Lying, Deceit, and Subterfuge: A Model of Dishonesty in the Workplace.

Organization Science, 4(3), 478-495. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.southtexascollege.edu:2048/stable/2634955

Roberts, P., Brown, A., & Olsen, J. (2011). ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT. In

Whistling While They Work: A good-practice guide for managing internal reporting of

wrongdoing in public sector organisations (pp. 17-35). ANU Press. Retrieved from

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Ting, M. (2008). Whistleblowing. The American Political Science Review, 102(2), 249-267.

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