How Do Organizations Address the Tension Between Codes of Ethics and Employee Creativity? The Role of Ethics Training

Abstract

Current companies need to be ethical and creative at the same time to survive in the rapidly changing environment. However, it is not easy for creativity to be compatible with ethical behavior. Codes of ethics which companies have adopted to prevent unethical behavior of employees can impede employee creativity by forcing employees to follow rules and regulations and generating the fear of sanctions. Addressing the tension between codes of ethics and employee creativity is essential. Paying attention to the role of ethics training in addressing the tension, this research investigated the effects of value-oriented ethics training on employee behaviors (i.e., employee creativity and ethical behavior). In addition, employing affective events theory and cognitive appraisal theory, this research examined the moderating effects of emotional and cognitive reactions to ethics codes on the relationship between value-oriented ethics training and employee behaviors to identify the boundary conditions in which the effects of value-oriented ethics training on employee behaviors are strong.Data were collected from sales representatives and their managers/peers working in pharmaceutical companies which have codes of ethics and provide regular ethics training to sales representatives in South Korea via an online survey. The hypotheses were tested through hierarchical regression analyses, interaction plots, and simple slope tests. The findings of this study confirmed that value-oriented ethics training can foster both employee creativity and ethical behavior. In addition, the effect of value-oriented ethics training on employee creativity is stronger for sales representatives having low positive emotions and cognition than those having high positive emotions and cognition. However, sales representatives having high positive emotions and cognition generally showed high levels of employee creativity and ethical sales behavior regardless of value-oriented ethics training. The findings of this study contribute to compliance literature by empirically demonstrating how codes of ethics and ethics training collectively influence employee creativity as well as ethical behavior. Furthermore, this research can provide practical implications regarding how to create effective value-oriented ethics training by identifying boundary conditions to make the effect of value-oriented ethics training stronger.