Internal controls driven by mindfulness toward enhanced ethical behaviors: Empirical evidence from Vietnam

This study develops and tests a moderated mediation model regarding the effectiveness of internal control structure on organizational ethical behaviors via the mediating role of internal control effectiveness and the moderating role of organizational mindfulness in the relationship between internal control structure and internal control effectiveness. The proposed model and its hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS3 with survey data from 540 large Vietnamese manufacturing and service firms. This study found the following: (1) The internal control structure positively affects internal control effectiveness, which in turn promotes ethical organizational behaviors; and (2) The effect of internal control structure on internal control effectiveness is amplified by strengthening organizational mindfulness. The findings demonstrate that combining internal control systems and organizational mindfulness contributes to the ethical business practices of firms in an emerging market. Our study bridges the gap in the literature on internal control and mindfulness by providing empirical evidence on how the interaction between organizational mindfulness and internal control systems can promote ethical business practices. Additionally, our study advances the current understanding of how internal control systems can interact with organizational mindfulness to influence ethical business practices in the context of an emerging market.