Abstract:
Ethical practices are norms that are accepted and should be adopted in
institutions to ensure a flawless procurement management process. The
procurement system varies depending on the organization in a major way due
to the fact that most projects are donor-funded, thus creating inconsistency in
public schools. This study aimed to determine the relationship between
ethical principles and procurement management in selected public secondary
schools in Kericho County. The study was guided by the following theories
deontological theory and virtue ethical theory. The study adopted a
correlation research design. The target population used 220 public secondary
schools, which comprised 1100 tendering committees. The study used
stratified and simple random sampling techniques to sample the school. The
sample size was 294 respondents, which were derived using Yamane’s
formula. Questionnaires were used for data collection. It is hoped that the
findings of the study may benefit school management, scholars,
policymakers, and other stakeholders. Descriptive and inferential methods
were utilized for data analysis and presentation. ANOVA results indicated
that ethical principles had a significant relationship with procurement
management (p < 0.05). Ethical principles should be adhered to since it has
improved procurement management significantly. Therefore, there is a need
to tighten internal control systems in detecting procurement corruption and
fraud to ensure integrity in the process.