ERIC Number: EJ1099889
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-7240
EISSN: N/A
Examining the Link between Organizational Democracy and Employees' Moral Development
Pircher Verdorfer, Armin; Weber, Wolfgang G.
Journal of Moral Education, v45 n1 p59-73 2016
While much is understood about the role of the family context and educational experiences for moral development, less attention has been devoted to the occupational context. In this research, we used Kohlberg's approach of moral education as a framework and investigated the relationship between structurally anchored organizational democracy and employees' moral development. Employees (N = 285) of five conventional (i.e., traditionally owned and hierarchically managed) and five democratic (i.e., collectively owned and democratically managed) enterprises participated in our study. Consistently with our theoretically derived hypotheses, the results provide initial support for the theoretical model in that employees from democratic firms scored higher on moral development than employees from conventional firms. In turn, contrary to our expectations, the socio-moral climate within organizations failed to explain variance in moral development. Theoretical implications of our findings as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.
Descriptors: Moral Development, Moral Values, Organizational Climate, Correlation, Democracy, Employee Attitudes, Guidelines, Scores, Corporations, Models, Comparative Analysis, Multivariate Analysis, Socialization
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A