Business Ethics and Employee Assistance

Abstract

ABSTRACT Numerous environmental and financial pressures have created a demand for Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to reinvent themselves. Paralleling these pressures is a subjective perception in the field that business ethical dilemmas and violations are on the increase. Given the field's historical focus on its ethical responsibilities to individual employee clients, little is known about the prevalence of ethical concerns related to the business practices of EAPs. This article will present a national field study that describes and analyzes EA professionals' perceptions about (1) the frequency of occurrence of business related ethical problems; and (2) the most significant ethical challenges facing the field. A survey questionnaire was constructed that utilized both scales and open-ended questions, and was sent to a random sample of EA professionals who were selected from each region of the United States. Findings suggest that many EA professionals are feeling pressured to confront increasingly comp...