What Managers Say and Do about Ethics in Financial Institutions: Implications for Employees’ Commitment

Abstract

Employees Commitment has attracted a lot of research attention from both the academia and industry and bourgeoning literature has resulted therefrom. While the literature has documented many correlates of organisational commitment, little attention however has been paid to understanding the relationship between corporate ethical values and organisational commitment. Contextually, the effects of corporate ethical values on employees commitment in organisational settings have been relatively understudied. This is particularly so in the financial industry and insurance sub-sector where ethical dilemma has been widely reported. Considering the nature of insurance services, and high potential for ethical dilemma, this study contributes to organisational commitment literature and expands the frontiers of knowledge by providing further empirical results on the impact of corporate ethical values on organisational commitment in Nigeria. Through the lenses of cognitive dissonance theory, the study proposes a significant relationship between the two constructs. Further, while controlling for some demographic factors, corporate ethical values were hypothesised as a significant determinant of organisational commitment. Data were collected from 415 managers in the insurance industry through Hunts et al. (1989) Corporate Ethical Value and Hunts et al. (1985) organisational commitment scales and analysed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 18. The results of the multivariate analysis were then presented, and discussed with managerial implications.