-Public interprises, govt most corrupt

Staff Reporter
Zimbabwe has lurched into an ethical crisis, with three in every 10 employees having witnessed unethical conduct during the course of their work in the past six months, a research by Industrial Psychology Consultants (IPC) has revealed.

The report, "Business Ethics, Who Is Business Ethics?", indicated that the public service and the law and legal services  had the highest incidences of unethical conduct at 50 percent, highlighting the depth of graft in government in the judiciary delivey system.
The report, a product of research on business ethics in Zimbabwe, said: "Our findings suggest that in the last six months, three in every 10 employees surveyed have observed an unethical business activity happening in their organisation. This is an alarming result. The prevalence of unethical business practices seems to vary across sectors, with public enterprises and government departments having the highest observed incidences."
It said one in every two public service employees surveyed had witnessed an unethical business practice in the last six months.
The IPS said in the report that research had shown that business ethics could have a profound effect on company performance.
It said research undertaken by Webley and More had revealed that companies with fewer incidences of unethical business activity generated significantly more economic value added (EVA) and market value added (MVA) than those with higher incidences.Similarly, said the report, the same companies also experienced less price/earnings volatility and showed a gradual increase in average return on capital employed than did companies with business ethics challenges.
"Our assessment shows that this same argument may hold for Zimbabwean companies. A correlation of the perceived incidences of corruption to the projected growth forecast for the respective sectors revealed a negative correlation (-0,25) between the two variables. In essence, our assessment suggests that the sectors that are set to grow faster this year have fewer employees who can say they have witnessed corruption taking place in their organisations," IPS said.
The report showed that the retail sector had the second highest incidences of unethical conduct at 45 percent, followed by engineering (37,50 percent), automotive (35 percent), agriculture and agri-processing (32,30 percent), education (32,10 percent), construction (28,60 percent) and tourism and hospitality (26,30 percent), mining (25 percent), non-governmental organisation (25,00 percent), IT and telecommunications (23,80 percent), manufacturing (21,10 percent), financial services (18,60 percent), marketing and advertising (13,80 percent) and medicine and pharmaceuticals (8,70 percent).
"Our research shows that unethical business practices in Zimbabwean organisations seem to be endemic, that is, unethical business practices cannot be said to be exclusive to a particular segment of employees," said IPS.
"Though fewer non-managerial employees (22,60 percent) agreed that they have seen an act of corruption in their organisations, the concern is the higher probability of concealing unethical business practices amongst non managerial employees when compared to other employee segments. The trend we noted suggests that the lower ranking an employee, the higher the probability that that employee will not report a colleague's unethical business practices. This poses a serious challenge for whistle blowing initiatives," noted the report.
The report suggested that unethical business activities were being spurred on by a "rather lackadaisical response of management to the reported cases.  13,36 percent of the surveyed employees said management did not do anything about the report; in essence, the report died a natural death".
"If unscrupulous acts are allowed, or even encouraged in the organisation, then those types of personalities dominate during the hiring process. Eventually it permeates throughout the entire organisation and may negatively affect business through poor customer service, compromised quality control, theft and ineffective human resource policies," the IPS report said.
IPS said very few Zimbabwean organisations had business ethics policies.
"The norm is for managers to view policies as an inconvenience. For whistleblowing interventions to succeed, employees should receive information about the company's confidentiality and whistleblower protection policies in writing. Employees should also be offered training to clarify when, why, and how to report misconduct. Such training provides an invaluable forum for employees to discuss issues and raise questions. Further, employees should receive ongoing, targeted messages reminding them of available reporting channels and encourage them to raise concerns." - Staff Reporter.
Table: Have you observed an act of corruption in your company/ organisation in the past six months?
Employee level               YES             NO
Non-managerial             22,60%             77,40%
Junior management       32,80%             67,20%
Middle management       23,70%             76,30%
Senior management        27,60%             72,40%
Executive    30,40%             69,60%

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