The impact of ethics code familiarity on manager behavior

Codes of ethics exist in many, if not the majority, of all large U.S. compa nies today. But how the impact of these written codes affect managerial att itudes and behavior is still not clearly documented or explained. This stud y takes a step in that direction by proposing that attention should shift f rom the codes themselves as the sources of ethical behavior to the persons whose behavior is the focus of these codes. In particular, this study inves tigates the role of code familiarity as a factor impacting the influence of an ethics code on manager behavior. Data collected from 286 executives fro m companies in the direct selling industry are used to test hypotheses (1) that the perceived usefulness of ethics codes is positively related to the degree of familiarity with the code, and (2) that ethical climate as assess ed by managers is positively related to the code's perceived usefulness. Bo th hypotheses are supported, and their implications and further research di rections are discussed.