Business & Entrepreneurship Journal
A values framework for measuring the influence of ethics and motivation regarding the performance of employees
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Abstract
Nowadays, there is an increased interest in exploring the exact way which corporate ethical values impact employees’ motivation and performance [52], [60]. Corporate ethical values (CEV) have gained special interest in the last decades due to financial scandals (such as Enron, WorldCom) that had a great impact on economic world [17]. Literature [11] suggests that corporate ethics influence a firm’s effectiveness and survival. This study approaches corporate ethical values as a motivating factor that affects employees’ performance. Hence, it was studied among other motivators such as fair wages, promotion incentives, self-esteem and creativity shedding light on their impact on work performance. A case study method was used and a sum of 189 questionnaires were gathered from a private institution and analyzed with SPSS software. For triangulation reasons, secondary data were also collected and an interview with a top manager was conducted. Creative work and self-esteem were evaluated higher than the rest of the motivators. Regression analysis revealed that work performance was significantly explained by pay incentives, self-esteem and corporate ethical values. The predicting capability of the suggested model was noteworthy (R2=0.209, sig<0.000), while corporate ethical values were found to have the greatest influence among all predictors. Moreover, considerable differences were detected between women and men in the majority of motivating factors such as the hierarchical advancement, security, the working conditions and responsibilities. The results bring attention to the significant role that ethical values play in employees’ performance as well as to the divergences to motivating attributes between males and females.
JEL classification numbers: M12, M14, M54
Keywords: Corporate ethical values, Performance, Motivation, Greece
