The relationship between organizational democracy and socio-moral climate: Exploring effects of the ethical context in organizations

Armin Pircher Verdorfer, Wolfgang G Weber, Christine Unterrainer and Sarah Seyr
Additional contact information
Armin Pircher Verdorfer: Technische Universität München, Germany
Wolfgang G Weber: University of Innsbruck, Austria
Christine Unterrainer: University of Innsbruck, Austria
Sarah Seyr: ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule), Switzerland

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2013, vol. 34, issue 3, 423-449

Abstract: A great deal of attention has been devoted recently to the study of the ethical context in organizations. This article refines the concept of socio-moral climate (SCM) and its impact on organizational socialization towards ethics-related behavioural orientations. The authors expand on previous research by focusing also on specific pre-occupational socialization experiences. The empirical research was conducted in northern Italy. Employees from small and medium-sized enterprises with different levels of structurally anchored organizational democracy were surveyed with standardized questionnaire scales. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between structurally anchored organizational democracy, SMC and employees’ attitudes pertaining to prosocial work behaviours, solidarity at work, democratic engagement orientation and organizational commitment. Controlling for pre-occupational socialization experiences, the results provide evidence for a substantial socialization potential linked to structurally anchored organizational democracy and a favourable work environment in terms of SMC.

Keywords: Collective ownership; employee participation; ethical context; organizational socialization; prosocial and community-related behavioural orientations; socio-moral climate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X12450054 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:34:y:2013:i:3:p:423-449

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X12450054

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic and Industrial Democracy from Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().