Psychological Reports, 1993,73, 667-674. THE ETHICAL CLIMATE QUESTIONNAIRE: AN ASSESSMENT OF ITS DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY 1 JOHN B. CULLEN BART VICTOR Washington State University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill JAMES W. BRONSON Washington State University Summary—The Ethical Climate Questionnaire measures the ethical climates at individual and organizational levels of analysis. With 1,167 individuals tested across three surveys the results at the individual level have suggested strong support for the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. However, given the limited number of organizations (a = 12) surveyed, the presence of organizational-level ethical climates remains contestable. This paper reports on the development of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire, includes the results of the latest survey, and contrasts these results with previous findings. Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988) developed the Ethical Climate Question- naire to measure types of ethical climates within organizations. Responses to the questionnaire have indicated the multidimensional nature of ethical climates and substantiated the existence of a number of hypothesized ethical climates. This paper (1) provides the latest version of the questionnaire, identifying theoretical climate types, (2) reports some psychometric properties of the questionnaire, (3) discusses ethical climates at the individual and organizational levels, and (4) summarizes results of a survey using the current version of the questionnaire and compares these with earlier survey findings. TYPES OF ETHICAL CLIMATES Kohlberg (1981) proposed that, as individuals develop morally, they use different types of ethical criteria and display different types of moral reasoning. He suggested that moral development is multistage and sequential in nature, progressing from reasoning governed by fear of punishment to concern for others and concern for universal rights and humanity as a whole. Within this progression, Kohlberg defines three major types of ethical standards, namely, self-interest, caring, and principle. These three standards also reflect three major classes of ethical theory, i.e., egoism, utilitarianism, and deontology (Fritzche & Becker, 1984; Williams, 1985). An initial assumption of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire is that ethical climates in organizations, as functions of aggregated individual perceptions of ethical norms, divide along dimensions similar to Kohlberg’s ethical ‘Address comments to John B. Cullen, Department of Management and Systems, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164-4726.