Ethical climate index: Evidence of validity of the brazilian version

Abstract

Purpose: Ethical issues have been a growing concern in Brazilian organizations. One of the variables that have been studied in this field is ethical climate. Victor and Cullen's (1988) measure is the one most applied to address this phenomenon. This scale has been criticized because its structure has not been empirically supported and the need for update measures has been highlighted. As an answer to this critique, Arnaud (2010) proposed the ethical climate index - the ECI. This measure uses Rest's (1984) model of ethical decision-making as background. The main goal of this work was to develop a Brazilian version of the ECI. Originality/value: The ECI does not yet have a Brazilian version. Design/methodology/approach: The first study presents the translated measure, an exploratory and confirmatory study of the factorial structure on a sample of 1,306 employees. In study 2 (sample of 3,087 employees), we performed first and second order confirmatory analyses of the structure found in study 1 in a different sample. Findings: The original model showed better goodness of fit in both studies. Additionally, the relationships with ethical leadership and abusive leadership were identified. Overall, findings suggest the scale presents good psychometrical properties, presenting itself as a good measure to evaluate ethical climate.