Business Ethical Assurance and Organizational Culture: A Study of Selected Star-Rated Hotels in Kisumu City, Kenya

Hospitality organizations today have written codes of ethics with statements such as integrity, equality, fairness, customer focus and commitment to excellence. However, hospitality organizations face difficulties in spite of a written code of ethics in stemming unethical issues such as fraud, unfair treatment, discrimination, misleading information and environmental harm through mainstreaming business ethics in organizational culture. This is evident as a result of little that has been done to ensure the written codes of ethics are embedded into the day–to–day operations. The main purpose of this study was to find out the effects of business ethical assurance on organizational culture. The specific objectives were to find out the extent to which, business ethical assurance affects the organizational culture of hotels in Kisumu City, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey design and an explanatory research design. The target population was 150 employees, out of which 135 formed the sample size from five hotels rated between three to five stars in Kisumu City. The study employed purposive sampling which was used to select five hotels. Simple random sampling was used to select the respondents. Instruments for collecting data included self-administered questionnaires and interview schedules. Questionnaires were distributed to employees in the selected hotels and interviews were conducted among 15 departmental managers of the five selected hotels. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha at the level of 0.7. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The study yielded an R-value of 0.935 and an R Square value of 0.874. The findings of this study indicated that business ethical assurance (t= 4.197, p=0.000) affects organizational culture. The study concluded that assuring business ethics affects organizational culture. The study therefore recommends that hospitality organizations increase measures that enable an ethical workplace to minimize unethical issues that arise at the workplace