Can an ethical work climate influence payment discipline?
Abstract: All European
companies are faced with the lack of payment discipline, which often affects
even their survival. One of the key reasons for the lack of payment discipline
is poor business ethics, which is primarily introduced with the subject of ethical
climate in the literature. For this reason, we wanted to determine whether a
company's ethical climate influences its payment discipline.
Design/methodology/approach: In the research, we used Arnaud's
measurement instrument (2010) that helped us to identify six dimensions of
ethical climate. The data about a company’s ethical climate were later compared
with the data about its payment discipline, calculated using the Dun &
Bradstreet rating agency methodology. We included in the sample 273 Slovenian
companies, which represented 9.1% of all companies invited to take part in the
survey (2978 Slovenian enterprises with 10 or more employees).
Findings: We established that (among the six dimensions of the ethical
climate) the dimension “moral sensitivity – the lack of norms of empathetic
concern” had statistically significant influence on the average delay of
payment, and the more significant for the company the lack of norms of
empathetic concern was, the longer the delay of the payment to suppliers would be.
Our conclusion is that the appropriate forms of the incorporation of training
and education on ethical subjects into business studies may increase the
payment discipline of companies.
Originality/value: The present study represents an important contribution
to understanding the causes of payment defaults. The study also includes
non-financial antecedents of payment discipline, which represents a new,
important contribution of the research.
Author: Tanja Salamon, Maja
Mesko
Jornal Code: jptindustrigg160016
