Abstract:
Although the subject of ethical business practices has a well-established
tradition in large corporations where shareholder value maximisation is largely dependent
on such entities’ conduct of good business ethics, its investigation in small businesses in
agile, economically depressed economies such as that of Zimbabwe has targeted business
owners and managers but excluded their employees. Given the middleman role that
employees of emerging indigenous-owned retail firms play in the distribution chain from
manufacturers to the consumers, the ethical perceptions of these employees are critical to
the leveraging of businesses’ strategic orientations. Employees are the coal face of the firm,
withering intense competition from these firms’ rivals and achieving the firms’ strategic
orientations (profitability, market share, business growth and survival). In order to meet
stakeholder expectations simultaneously largely depends on the ethical conduct of such
employees.
Aim: The overall aim of this study is to contribute to ethical theory and literature by
demonstrating how employees’ ethical perceptions and behaviour shape the strategic
orientations of the business. To achieve this aim, the study sought to: (1) establish the typical
ethical dilemmas that employees of these retail firms faced in their daily tasks, (2) assess how
they responded to these ethical challenges, (3) ascertain whether demographic factors such as
age, level of education, gender and their position in the organisational hierarchy influence
their reaction to ethical dilemmas; and (4) determine these employees’ overall perceptions of
ethical issues within their organisations.
Setting: The study was conducted on employees of an indigenous-owned fast-food firm
operating in two cities in Zimbabwe.
Methods: A survey was conducted on 108 employees working in two cities. A structured
questionnaire was developed and administered to the employees.
Results: The results suggested that a majority of the respondents were ethically conscious and
could make ethical choices. In addition, most respondents deemed the ethical scenarios
presented to them as morally wrong, suggesting that the surveyed employees wished to
engage in ethical behaviour. However, while the respondents were deemed to be ethically
astute in their individual capacities, they seemed to lack an in-depth knowledge of the ethical
policies of their organisation.
Conclusion: The study concludes that owners and managers of small firms should provide
interventions to cascade ethical policy to the lower ranks of the organisation to enhance the
ethical perception amongst employees of these firms. The study implication is that an
institutional top-down approach is critical to embedding ethical sensitivity into employees
without which employees may continue to speculate about the business ethics of their
organisation.