Communicating ethics: Analysis of annual letters to stakeholders

This research examines how executives, leaders and managers communicate their sense of ethics. Literature from various disciplines is increasingly focusing on the strong ethical tone at-the-top and strong ethical culture to prevent organizational wrongdoing. The literature suggests that leaders face unique challenges in communicating their ethics and that the communication of ethics is inhibited by a psychological bias and the work is grounded in the cultural communication theory of Geertz and Pacanowsky and the organizational culture work of Schein.;The research focuses on CEO annual letters written to stakeholders. This form of communication is a high-profile channel of communication and written to satisfy the needs of a broad array of stakeholders. The letter offers CEOs a valuable opportunity to express their commitment to ethics. The content analysis examined 221 CEO letters and finds that only 15% of CEOs use this channel opportunity to express their sense of ethics.