The German Ethical Culture Scale (GECS): Development and First Construct Testing

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Business Ethics
• Management Science

Background:

• Organizational misconduct is influenced by both individual "bad apples" and the
• bad barrels" of the organizational context.
• Recurring corporate scandals highlight the need to foster ethical behavior and improve organizational culture.
• Assessing corporate ethical culture requires reliable and valid measurement tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a German measure for assessing ethical culture in organizations.
• To provide a tool for promoting research on ethical culture in German-speaking countries.
• To integrate compliance- and integrity-based ethics programs with the concept of ethical culture.

Main Methods:

• Development and validation of the German Ethical Culture Scale (GECS).
• Three studies conducted with heterogeneous samples of German and Swiss employees and managers (N > 2000).
• Testing of construct, criteria-related, and incremental validity.

Main Results:

• The German Ethical Culture Scale (GECS) was successfully developed and validated.
• Evidence for the measure's construct, criteria-related, and incremental validity was provided.
• The GECS integrates compliance- and integrity-based approaches with ethical culture.

Conclusions:

• The GECS is a valid and reliable multidimensional scale for measuring ethical culture.
• The scale can aid organizations in enhancing ethical behavior and preventing misconduct.
• Implications for future research on corporate ethical culture in German-speaking regions are discussed.