Organizational ethics: A literature review

The aim of the study was to report the results of a systematically conducted literature review of empirical studies about healthcare organizations’ ethics and management or leadership issues. The study was conducted by a four-member team, and search in electronic databases MEDLINE and CINAHL yielded 909 citations. After a two stage application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria 56 full-text articles of qualitative and quantitative studies were included for review in this study. No large research programs were identified. By examining each of the team members, and a final conclusion a lot of information from the literatures were obtained. Research in the field organizational ethics has increased since 2000. Most of the studies were in acute hospital settings from the 1990s onwards. The studies focused on ethical challenges, conflicts and dilemmas; employees and managers’ moral distress in practice and the ethical set priorities, values, beliefs and climates or environments. Study samples typically consisted of healthcare practitioners, operational, executive and strategic managers. Data collection was mainly by questionnaires or interviews and most of the studies were descriptive, correlation and cross-sectional. The result of this study, Inadequate development of organizational ethics, along with organizational change and grow general knowledge level, there is need to develop conceptual clarity and a theoretical framework around the subject of organizational ethics and the breadth of the contexts and scope of the research needs to be increased.