There is a growing interest in the effectiveness of codes of ethics in the workplace. Lots of recent attention has centered on improving the codes of ethics in corporate industry. Business ethics comes into notice as the world become more and more fickle. In the hotel industry ethical issues have a bound for both businesses itself and the community. According to Selvaraj and Cloninger (2009, p. 398-399)1, day-to-day ethical assessment of employees are not well understood. Little research in the ethical domain has directly addressed the subjective nature of ethical performance and measurement. Most research has either been prescriptive or focused on surveys regarding perceptions or opinions of ethical performance.
The unique nature of the hospitality industry, there are more opportunities than in any other industry when ethics becomes an issue at stake (Stevens and Fleckenstein, 1999)2. Business ethics becomes a significant issue in the hotel industry. According to many literatures, ethics will affect individual’s attitude and behavior. In the other hand, managers have to increase the job satisfaction of employees because only pleased employees can make customers happy. When employees are not satisfied with business ethics the hotel perform, will this unsatisfactory condition affect their job productivity.
Employee motivation has been the focus of research in academic circles as scholars seek to understand what motivates employees in a variety of work settings. Particularly in the hotel industry, where the wok is labour intensive and turnover is high, understanding hotel worker attitudes and motivation has become an important issue for research.The hotel industry is characterised by paramount restrain, high demands and expectations on productivity. Considering the above trends in the hotel industry, many employees are pressured to cut corners, break standards and rules, and engage in other forms of questionable practices.
According to Robbins and Judge (2007)3, many employees are confronted with instances where they need to define and decide right and wrong conduct. The characteristics of good ethical behaviours have never been clearly projected in the recent management literatures where the line that differentiates right against wrong conduct has become even more blurry in managers and leaders respond to ethical behaviour issues.
The hospitality and tourism industries serve millions of people from different parts of the globe and multibillion-dollar industries (Brymer, et al. 2005)4 and among the largest industries in the world. For economically-inclined experts, this is an opportunity for business and revenue acquirement in the world. And that reason business ethics is very important for Hotel industry to providing acceptable standards hospitality and services for its sustainability. .
Stakeholders are key players of the hotel industry and the managers are the key implementers of managerial pursuit. But sometime managers are in outside pressures including stakeholders. Managers on these particular cases are engaged in ethical dilemma. And in return affect it has bad implementation of staffs motivation and performance.
Businesses today have entered a new era in the relationship between the companies and their employee. Employees are not part of their loyal family or easily replaceable resource. In this new era employees need to be respected and like to be treated as valuable human capita. Therefore, how much ethically a company treats its employees increasingly determines whether a company is going to thrive or even to survive.
Ireland hotel industry accounts 57,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal jobs in 2007. Ireland has 920 hotels with 60,000 rooms. (Irish Hotel Federation Budget 2009)5. It is a major contributor to the economy and significant on going public policy support. Earlier this year the Irish Hotel Federation (IHF) found that minimum wages for the hotel sector placed Ireland second in Europe in terms of cost. (Ronan McGreevy, 2009)6. But there is lots of gap of staffs productivity in this industry. That means money is only small part of motivate in this world. There is a general notion that if only management can identify other things that can motivate the workforce apart from money and increase staffs’ productivity. The aim of this research therefore is to find out from empirical studies whether business ethics, other than money can put in their best to contribute to the productivity and growth of the organizations.