W. R. P. K. Chandrarathne<\/b><\/p>\n Wayamba University of Sri Lanka<\/i><\/p>\n H.M.A. Herath<\/b><\/p>\n Wayamba University of Sri Lanka<\/i><\/p>\n \n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section> Abstract<\/b><\/p>\n As a service providing company the image and the success of the insurance\u00a0industry vastly depend on the ethical behavior patterns of their salesperson as\u00a0<\/span>they are the persons who have direct relationships with customers which in turn\u00a0<\/span>build up the customer\u2019s satisfaction and trust towards the organization.\u00a0<\/span>Therefore, the managers must have the knowledge of the key determinant of the\u00a0<\/span>unethical behavior of their salespersons if they want to ensure the ethical\u00a0<\/span>behavior among the salespersons. Different factors contribute to these behavior\u00a0<\/span>patterns and organizational factors are more important among them. The main\u00a0<\/span>purpose of this research was to identify the organizational factors affecting the\u00a0<\/span>unethical behavior patterns of salespersons in the Sri Lankan life insurance\u00a0<\/span>industry. An extensive literature review was conducted, and five organizational\u00a0<\/span>factors were identified as impacting on unethical behaviour of salespersons in\u00a0<\/span>the Sri Lankan life insurance industry. Namely, they were supervisory role,\u00a0<\/span>sales targets, organizational culture, code of ethics and a rewarding system.\u00a0<\/span>Data were collected from 200 individual salespersons from 10 life insurance\u00a0<\/span>companies through structured questionnaires. The stratified random sampling\u00a0<\/span>method was used for the selection of the respondents to the sample and data\u00a0<\/span>were analyzed using multiple regression. The findings of the research indicated\u00a0<\/span>that the supervisory role, sales targets and rewarding system significantly predict the unethical behavior of salespersons. Further, it revealed that sales\u00a0<\/span>targets predicted unethical behavior strongly, compared to the rewarding\u00a0<\/span>system and the supervisory role. Findings of this research also gave some\u00a0<\/span>implications on the code of ethics. It was found that there is no code of ethics in\u00a0<\/span>the companies or if exists they are not practiced or enforced. Accordingly, the\u00a0<\/span>research provides recommendations that can be used to minimize the unethical\u00a0<\/span>behavior patterns of the salespersons. To improve the generalization of the\u00a0<\/span>findings, future research should broaden the sample by including general\u00a0<\/span>insurance companies and finance companies. Continuing research is needed to\u00a0<\/span>analyze the other factors in addition to organizational factors and future\u00a0<\/span>research could also look at the customer perspective rather than the\u00a0<\/span>salesperson perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n \n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section> Keywords<\/b><\/p>\n Business Ethics; Life Insurance Industry; Organizational Factors; Salesperson;\u00a0Unethical Behavior Pattern<\/span><\/p>\n \n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>