Abstract
Many organisations develop codes of ethics to help guide business conduct.
However, not much is known about the contents of codes of ethics.
Objectives: This article aims at investigating the code of ethics content construct and its
measurement properties using a sample of firms from South Africa.
Method: The study followed a quantitative research approach. The sampling frame consisted
of the top 500 companies in South Africa. A structured questionnaire was administered using
the telephone survey method. The respondents consisted of company secretaries and heads or
managers responsible for ethics in the respective companies. At the end of the data collection
period, a total of 222 usable responses were obtained.