ABSTRACT
In recent years, ethical issues that are confronted in the business world, and the distrust, instability, and loss of reputation that have emerged from these ethical issues have caused work ethics to gain importance. The principles of work ethics are being considered in decisions, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as in manufacturing and presenting products and services to enhance efficiency, profitability, and quality. Health sector, in which the focus is people and which deems the protection of human health as the most sacred duty, is one of the sectors that mostly need moral principles and rules. The aim of this study is to question the relationship between work ethics and institutional performance in health services. In the model of this study, work ethics was categorized into three aspects: ethical manner of managers, ethical manner of workers, and ethical manner of hospitals. Using questionnaires, the data were gathered from 207 people working in public hospitals in İstanbul. As a result, the positive relationship between these three aspects of work ethics and institutional performance is observed. The aspect that mostly affects the performance of hospitals is the institutional policies followed by the attitudes and behaviors of managers. The study found that the ethical attitudes and behaviors of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff have a clear but less impact on performance. These results indicate that the work ethics practices are important not only in terms of sentimental values, but also in terms of hospital performance and health service sustainability.