Empirical Look at the Factors Affecting Perception of Business Ethics in Turkey

Vedat Akman

doi:10.5195/emaj.2011.5

Abstract

This study aims to explore the influence of gender, age, education, profession and sector choices towards factors affecting business ethics in Turkey. Self-administered questionnaire with scale of 1-5 was used to measure attitudes towards business ethics (1= "strongly agree" to 5="strongly disagree") with reasonable good score on Cronbach's realibility test. With Cronbach alpha of .692 and KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Meaure of Sampling Adequecy) .746 (which sould be greater than .5 for a satisfactor analysis) we proceeded to our analysis successfully. Choice job, sector, age and gender were significant determinants to factors affecting perception of business ethics but education level was not a significant determinant.

Highlights

Factors influencing business ethics have attracted attention in Turkey following a series of collapses in the Turkish financial system
In today's business scandals fundamentals are not lack of intelligence or education anymore but instead a lack of business ethics. (Choe Kum - Lung, 2010) This current situation has intensified the importance of business ethics in the governance of corporations especially in developing countries. (Barclay and Smith, 2003) In the case of Turkey, there are about 15 professional associations giving information or education which are in general accepted as public bodies having either codes of conduct on its website, have ethics commission or professional ethics rules listed on their websites. (TYEC report III, 2009) A code of ethics is a crucial element in forming a professional
The distribution of the PA‟s according to three choice of criterias by the TYEC are (TYEC Report-II, 2009); Turkish Dental Association, Turkish Pharmacist Association, The Confederation of Turkish Tradesman and Craftsmen, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, Turkish Medical Associations, Turkish Veterinary Medical Association, Union of Turkish Bar Associations, Union of Turkish Public notaries, The Union of Certified Public Accountants and Sworn-in Certified Public Accountants of Turkey, Association of the Insurance and Reisurance Companies in Turkey, The Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges of Turkey, Union of Turkish Chambers of Agriculture, The Association of Capital Market Intermediary Institution of Turkey, The Banks Association of Turkey and The Central Union of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey

Summary

Introduction

Factors influencing business ethics have attracted attention in Turkey following a series of collapses in the Turkish financial system. The distribution of the PA‟s according to three choice of criterias by the TYEC are (TYEC Report-II, 2009); Turkish Dental Association, Turkish Pharmacist Association, The Confederation of Turkish Tradesman and Craftsmen, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, Turkish Medical Associations, Turkish Veterinary Medical Association, Union of Turkish Bar Associations, Union of Turkish Public notaries, The Union of Certified Public Accountants and Sworn-in Certified Public Accountants of Turkey, Association of the Insurance and Reisurance Companies in Turkey, The Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges of Turkey, Union of Turkish Chambers of Agriculture, The Association of Capital Market Intermediary Institution of Turkey, The Banks Association of Turkey and The Central Union of Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey. Research on the determinants of ethical decision making in the literature include; competition and business ethics (Hegarty and Sims, 1978), peer influence on ethics (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996), quality of the work experience on business ethics (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996), managerial influences on ethics (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996; Stead et al, 1990); reinforcement contingencies (Hegarty and Sims, 1978; Jansen and Von Glinow, 1985; Stead et al, 1990; Trevino, 1986); and ethical decision making models (Dubinsky and Loken, 1989; Ferrell and Gresham, 1985; Ferrell et al, 1989; Hunt and Trevino, 1986)

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Conclusion