Discussion
The result on factors affecting ethical climate perception confirmed the study of Wimbush and
Shepard (1997). It found that employees with long tenure in organizations had a higher perception of
ethical climate. However, it also found that employees with less than 1 year tenure had a high
perception of ethical climate.
The study found that having ethics training in organizations had affected the perception of
ethical work climate. This was in line with the study of Delaney and Sockell, (1992) which pointed out
that the improvement of the ethical behavior of organizational members was to focus on changing the
organization’s ethical climate through training.
Most business ethics research conducted in Western countries were different from those of
Asian countries, especially in Thailand. Here, social network as well as domination took part in
personnel placement. The study found that almost 20% of employees knew that domination existed
in personnel placement of their organizations. This was in line with the study of Lawler et al. (1989)
which found that in small organizations, acquaintances or important employees had tendencies to
acquire the jobs. From the remark of Dessler and Tan (2006), there were some similarities in Asian
countries. This included unfair practices. The study found that about 10% of employees perceived
the unfair actions on disciplinary in their organizations. Due to these existences, the awareness of
unfair practices of human resource management in selection (domination in placement) or
disciplinary actions (unfair) did not have any influence on ethical work climate perception and may be
considered as none of their business. However, it would be their business in term of the unfair
treatments such as lower compensations than the others or the disagreement on their appraisal
results. These employees had lower perception on ethical climate than those who had never
experienced unfair practices in the same situations.
Recommendations from the study
1. Communication modes in the organization can generate ethical climate at work. The
results showed that employees who received appraisal results had higher perception of ethical
climate than those who did not receive any results.
2. From the study, information display or trainings on rules and regulations of the
organization helps generate ethical climate at work. Organizations can also give employees information
by coaching and mentoring in order to reduce employees’ practices frequency on unethical aspects.