An Empirical Study of Information Ethics by Management Levels

경영계층별 정보윤리의식에 관한 실증적 연구

It is assumed that employees' ethical judgements and attitudes in handling personal and organizational information differ, depending upon their hierarchical ranks in organizations and types of information. Therefore we investigated how differently employees at different ranks judge hypothetical behaviors(or situations); their manner of handling various types of information in their daily activities in business organizations. Sixteen hypotheses based on combinations of 3 ethical areas and 5 information types were developed and tested. We found that three management ranks have shown significantly different ethical attitude about i)the accessibility to strategic planning and managerial information and ii)the property of managerial, operational and informal information. This research can help organizations to design better education programs and ethical codes to guide employees who process sensitive information.