Abstract:
Work ethics refers to the norms, guidelines, moral principles, standards, or set of values that
control people's behavior at work and promote hard work and diligence. The purpose of this
research was to examine the effect of work ethics on employees' performance in the case of
Ethio Telecom's Central West Region (CWR). The researcher used descriptive and
explanatory research designs. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered from both
primary and secondary sources on work ethics and employees' performance, respectively.
The researcher used simple random sampling as an appropriate method to select a sample of
192 from the 371 total targeted populations. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics
such as correlation and regression with the aid of IBM SPSS version 24. The means,
frequencies, and percentiles of the dependent and independent variables were computed and
interpreted. Pearson correlation, the coefficient (r), was used to determine the relationship
between each independent variable and the dependent variable. The correlation result
indicated that there was a positive relationship between all of the independent variables and
the dependent variable. This implies that any increase or decrease on the independent variable
will bring corresponding changes to employees‟ performance. The researcher also examined
the effect of work ethics on employee performance using regression analysis. The results
showed that the five-predictor factors accounted for a 73.2% increase in the change criterion
(employees' performance). The study also found that work ethics affect employees'
performance significantly. The regression analysis also shows three variables namely,
Employee commitment, ethical behavior and integrity has insignificant relationship with
employee performance. Findings revealed that work ethics have an effect on employees'
performance. The study recommended that the telecommunication industry have to give more
emphasis to maximizing and institutionalizing work ethics as underlying factors of
employees' performance, incorporate elements of work ethics in the form of guidelines, and
have them instilled and ingrained in the minds of employees.
