Entrepreneurship & Organization Management

Many organizations overlook the need and value of strengthening ethics because they have a code of conduct statement or occasional ethics training. However, these have proven to be ineffective in some cases.

There are barriers throughout the organization that make it hard to consider stronger ethics and even harder to take effective actions. Unethical business practices are gaining more and more attention in various industries. Codes of ethics are being revisited with attention being placed on what may be missing. With unethical practices are on the rise, companies are asking themselves is do they have ethical leaders.

Over the last decade, organizations have experienced its share of ethical dilemmas. The behaviors leaders have appropriated have resulted in one scandal after another. Headlines have been ripe with allegations of unethical behavior daily.

Unethical behavior isn’t associated with one organization or industry. It spreads across organizations and people at the local, state, national and international levels. Betrayals by leaders seem to have catapulted to a larger scale and year after year the same betrayals continue. People have become weary and untrusting of organizations and for good reason. It seems that basic values have been regulated to an afterthought or no thought at all, behind profits and promotions.

According to Agbim et al. it is important to explore how spiritual values influence one’s perception, choices, actions and relationships with others positively. The question this paper explores is, “Does one’s spirituality influence how leaders act at work?”

Agbim et al. argue that the internalization and practice of spiritual values by leaders will ensure spiritually virtuous and ethical organizations.

This study purports to investigate antecedents of startup intention, with particular reference to the restaurant business. The model of goal-directed behavior (MGB) provided theoretical background in developing the proposed research model with five constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, desire, and startup intention. Using convenience sampling, 379 usable data was collected from current employees of foodservice companies in South Korea. To test hypotheses, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used. Analysis of the data found support for all of the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, all three independent variables were found to be positively related to desire, which was in turn significantly related to startup intention. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in detail.