THE ISSUE OF ETHICS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC IN CASE OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Globalizing of the world brings new challenges that must respond to both private and public sectors. Private but also public organizations are looking for ways to become more efficient, to gain competitive advantage, to reduce costs but the fact is that terms like ethics, morality, justice or solidarity are becoming increasingly discussed by both practitioners and scholars. The paper deals with ethics in the Czech Republic, history of which contains a number of historical periods that must have negatively affected the perception of ethics by the Czech society. The aim of this paper is to determine current state of awareness of ethics and find out how approaches to ethics differ among organizations in the Czech Republic. In a questionnaire survey, respondents representing major private organizations, companies with a state share and Regional Offices were contacted. Subsequent comparative analysis provides a comprehensive look at the issue of factors which influence ethical behavior of employees, ethical dilemmas of employees, opportunities to educate employees in ethics or influencing ethical behavior of employees by working environment itself. The paper thus becomes not only theoretical view of ethics across private and public sectors, but also a tool that can establish the base for the way to cultivate environment that would encourage ethical norms and behavior.