Research Studies

Ethical Corporate Cultures Impact the Ability to Attract, Retain and Ensure Productivity Among U.S. Workers

No author cited
LRN, August 2006

Whether a company acts ethically is a significant factor in the average American's willingness to work for an employer, according to independent research released by LRN, a leading provider of governance, ethics and compliance management applications and services. In fact, more than one in three employed Americans have actually left a job because they disagreed with a company's business ethics.

The latest LRN Ethics Study provides new evidence that links a company's ability to foster an ethical corporate culture with an increased ability to attract, retain and ensure productivity among U.S. employees. Results are based on telephone interviews conducted among a sample of full-time American workers as part of an omnibus survey from Opinion Research Corporation. Findings include:

A majority of workers – 94 percent – say it is "critical" or "important" that the company they work for is ethical.
Eighty two percent said they would prefer to be paid less but work for a company with ethical business practices than receive higher pay at a company with questionable ethics.
Eighty percent cite disagreement with the ethics of fellow employees, a supervisor or management as the most important ethical reason for leaving a job. Twenty-one percent cite pressure to engage in illegal activity.

Fifty-six percent of U.S. workers define their current company as having an ethical culture. Yet one in four say that in the past six months they witnessed unethical, and even illegal, behavior where they work. Among those, only 11 percent say they were not affected by it.

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