Ethical work climate (EWC), introduced by Bart Victor and John Cullen, plays a central role in the business ethics literature due to its influence on employee’s ethical decision-making. Yet, the often-used framework is limited as a descriptive and prescriptive model because it lacks a normative focus and does not allow for organizations guided by (arguably) universal ethical principles. We revisit Victor and Cullen’s original conceptualization of ethical climate and propose a reformulation of the ethical criteria to be conceptually consistent with Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development and to accommodate principled climates. We also describe how the locus of analysis dimension can be simplified to allow for a more parsimonious and potentially more valid theory. In doing so, we eliminate redundancy noted in the original model and clarify normative preference among the ethical climate types. We discuss implications for research, teaching, and practice.

巴特·维克托（Bart Victor）和约翰·库伦（John Cullen）提出的道德工作氛围（EWC）由于对员工的道德决策产生影响，因此在商业道德文献中起着核心作用。但是，经常使用的框架仅限于作为描述性和描述性模型，因为它缺乏规范性的关注，并且不允许组织接受（可以说）普遍的道德原则指导。我们回顾了维克多和库伦最初对道德气候的概念，并提出了对道德标准的重新表述，以在概念上与科尔伯格的认知道德发展理论相一致，并适应原则性气候。我们还描述了分析的轨迹维度可以简化，以允许使用更简约和可能更有效的理论。通过这样做，我们消除了原始模型中提到的冗余，并阐明了道德气候类型之间的规范偏好。我们讨论对研究，教学和实践的启示。