Date of Conferral
2021
Degree
Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)
School
Business Administration
Advisor
Dina L. Samora
Abstract
Unethical conduct among business leaders and managers results in employee turnover. Senior business leaders who cannot mitigate unethical behavior risk increased hiring and training costs, decreased productivity, and reduce employee performance. Grounded in the ethical leadership construct and a composite of the social learning theory and the social exchange theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies senior leaders use to mitigate managers’ unethical conduct in their organizations. The participants comprised five senior leaders of a United Kingdom-based company in the northeast region of the United States who successfully implemented strategies to mitigate unethical conduct. Data were collected from documents, public websites, and semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Five themes emerged: communicating the company’s values continuously, building an ethical culture, creating an ethical climate, leading by example, and having a growth mindset. A key recommendation is that organization leaders build ethical cultures through ethics programs that include codes of ethics, ethics training, and communication plans to reinforce the expectation of ethical conduct. The implications for positive social change include the potential to allocate and use investments to strengthen underserved communities’ social, economic, and environmental growth and initiatives to protect the natural environment.
Recommended Citation
Sawyer, Miranda Evelyn, "Leaders’ Strategies for Reducing Unethical Behavior in Organizations" (2021). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 10846.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/10846
