We present an instrument developed to explain to students the concept of the personal ethical threshold. The PET represents an individual's susceptibility to situational pressure in his or her organization that makes moral behavior more personally difficult. Further, the PET varies according to the moral intensity of the issue at hand, such that individuals are less vulnerable to situational pressure for issues of high moral intensity, i.e., those with greater consequences for others. A higher PET reflects an individual's greater likelihood (...) of adhering to the morally correct path, even in the face of high situational pressures and low moral intensity. PET questionnaires were completed by 506 students representing eight business schools throughout the United States. Relationships between respondents' PET and their gender, age, and major field of study, as well as the geographical location of their school, are explored. Results indicate that older students have higher PETs and that students attending schools in the northeastern part of the United States have lower PETs. These findings are discussed. It is argued that the PET instrument can be used to help students identify organizational pressures and intrapersonal processes that can impede their moral behavior in organizations. (shrink)

Earlier evidence predominantly supports that women are more ethical than men. With the replication of such a hypothesis for testing, this study further examined whether feminine gender roles are a better predictor of ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and corporate responsibility values than the biological sex. Four hundred ten management students from two technical institutes in eastern India participated in this study. Along with the socio-demographic variables in the questionnaire, inventories were used to assess gender roles, ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and (...) corporate responsibility values. The inventories had acceptable reliability and validity. The results suggested that when the confounding effects of age, caste, and rural/urban origin are controlled, women manifest higher corporate responsibility values than men, but they embody similar ethical attitudes and ethical behaviors as men. Furthermore, the feminine roles of the participants were found to be more consistent, potent, and direct predictors of ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and corporate responsibility values than the biological sex. Hence, individuals with feminine roles may be better suited for ethical responsibilities. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to examine the decision-making processes at work among French buyers—whether beginners or more experienced individuals, when confronted with a dilemma involving an ethical or non-ethical choice to be made. We go on to illustrate these dilemmas through the use of five original scenarios that reproduce typical situations that arise in a purchasing context in relation to the environment, physical integrity, conflict of interest, or paternalism. Based on 172 participants, the results of our study show (...) that, ethical decision-making depends very clearly on two main factors: expertise and gender. The study also reveals that there is not always a coherent link between ethical choices made and the reasons and justifications given for those choices. Ethical options chosen are not exclusively justified on the grounds of purely ethical reasons but also on the grounds of commercial or economic reasons, or else reasons of avoidance. (shrink)

The article reports the findings of a study conducted among 387 consumers regarding their perceptions of the unethicality of business practices of firms and how these affect their response behavior, in terms of trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. The study confirmed that high levels of perceived corporate unethicality decrease consumer trust. This in turn reduces consumer satisfaction, which ultimately has negative effects on customer loyalty. It was also revealed that, although both consumer gender and urbanity have a moderating effect on the (...) link between perceived unethicality and trust, the age group and level of education of the consumer did not exhibit such an effect. With regard to consumer cultural characteristics, both high uncertainty avoidance and low individualism were found to increase the negative impact of business unethicality on trust, as opposed to power distance and masculinity that did not have any moderating effect on this relationship. Implications for managers are extracted from the study findings, as well as directions for future research. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper develops a framework for examining decision making about ethical issues and tests the applicability of a social contract perspective. Using two separate samples of students and salespeople, we determine that community members (salespeople) tend to judge a potentially unethical act to constitute a violation of an implicit social contract and non-community members (students) do not. Also, consistent with the emphasis on context specificity of integrative social contracts theory, situational variables influence perceptions of ethicality for the community members, but (...) do not affect the perceptions of individuals outside the community. The study finds considerable support for the use of a social contractarian perspective in the study of decision-making processes about ethical issues. (shrink)

Over the past two decades there has been a great deal of research conducted into the question of gender differences in ethical decision making in organisations. Much of this has been based on questionnaire surveys, typically asking respondents (often students, sometimes professionals) to judge the moral acceptability of actions as described in short cases or vignettes. Overall the results seem inconclusive, although what differences have been noted tend to show women as 'more ethical' than men. The authors of this paper (...) believe that attention should be paid to the insight, from Carol Gilligan and others, that women are more inclined than men to subscribe to an 'ethic of care', and that once this perspective is adopted a pattern is discernible. In a critical examination of previous research we pay particular attention to the detailed content of cases used in surveys, and the statistical analysis of findings. We advocate greater reflection on the results of quantitative surveys and sensitivity to different possible interpretations of findings. This we do with our own exploratory study, conducted with UK undergraduate students of accounting, the findings from which seem to support the original hypothesis that where a 'care' orientation is invited, women do indeed react differently to business ethics issues than do men. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to increase our understanding of the ethical climate of entrepreneurial firms as they grow and develop. A developmental framework is introduced to describe the formal and informal ethical structures that emerge in entrepreneurial firms over time. Factors influencing where firms are within the developmental framework are posited, including the entrepreneur's psychological profile, lifecycle stage of the business, and descriptive characteristics of the venture. It is also proposed that the implementation of ethical structures will impact (...) perceptions of the clarity and adequacy of the ethical standards of the firm and the firm's preparedness to deal with ethical challenges as they arise. Results are reported of a cross-sectional survey of small firms at different stages of development. The findings indicate the existence of four distinct clusters of firms based on their formal and informal ethical structures: Superlatives, Core Proponents, Pain and Gain, and Deficients. Evidence is also provided of statistically significant relationships between the proposed antecedent and outcome variables. Implications are drawn from the results, and priorities are established for future research. (shrink)

In today's complex business world, the question of business ethics is increasingly gaining importance as managers and employees face numerous ethical dilemmas in their jobs. The ethical climate in the Turkish business environment is also at a critical stage, and the business community as a whole is troubled by ethical problems. This study attempts to determine the effect of individual, managerial and organizational factors on the ethical judgments of Turkish managers, and to evaluate the ethical perceptions of these managers. The (...) findings of this study reveal that the ethics score, the measure of ethical judgment, of Turkish managers differs significantly only with respect to gender and that female managers have higher ethics score than male managers. Other individual, managerial and organizational factors considered in this study do not have any significant effect on the ethical judgments of the managers. A comparative analysis between female and male managers in terms of their ranking of the eleven ethical business scenarios, ranking of the sixteen unethical acts, ranking of the factors influencing managers to engage in unethical practices, and ranking of the various parties to whom a company is socially responsible enables the researchers to enlighten the subject of business ethics in Turkey. (shrink)

This study examined the impact of gender on perceptions of various business practices by male and female Russian managers. Female managers considered various activities such as doing personal business on company time, falsifying time/quality/quantity reports, padding an expense account more than 10 percent, calling in sick to take a day off, and pilfering organization materials and supplies more unethical than male managers. Female managers also perceived the acceptance of gifts and favors in exchange for preferential treatment more unethical than male (...) managers. (shrink)

Differences in ethical ideology are thought to influence individuals'' reasoning about moral issues (Forsyth and Nye, 1990; Forsyth, 1992). To date, relatively little research has addressed this proposition in terms of business-related ethical issues. In the present study, four groups, representing four distinct ethical ideologies, were created based on the two dimensions of the Ethical Position Questionnaire (idealism and relativism), as posited by Forsyth (1980). The ethical judgments of individuals regarding several business-related issues varied, depending upon their ethical ideology.

Despite the obvious link between spirituality, religiosity and ethical judgment, a definition for the nature of this relationship remains elusive due to conceptual and methodological limitations. To address these, we propose an integrative Spiritual-based model derived from categories presumed to be universal across religions and cultural contexts, to guide future business ethics research on religiosity. This article aims to empirically test in the context of Islam. It examines how different Muslims' views of God influence their ethical judgments in organizations, and (...) how this process is mediated by their religious practice and knowledge. Comprising focus group and vignette designs, the study was carried out with a random sample of 427 executives and management professionals from Saudi. After data collection, the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The findings confirmed that a view of God based on hope might be more closely associated with unethical judgments than a view based on fear or one balancing hope and fear. Furthermore, religious practice and knowledge were found to mediate the relationship between Muslims' different views of God and their ethical judgments. These results provide unique theoretical insights into religiosity's influence on ethical judgment, with important implications for management. (shrink)

The study uses a dataset from Ghana to test for differential features regarding ethical orientation, among students based on eight categorisations. Data was collected by a questionnaire. The respondents were business students within Ghanaian universities and the number of useable responses was 79, out of a possible 100 students contacted, from an online survey. The results are mixed but substantially align with earlier studies except for a few deviations and a synthesis of the literature is used to explain the findings (...) emanating from this study. This study hypothesises new relationships regarding the impact of kinship systems on ethical orientation hence adding to the literature. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to highlight how business schools can improve the ethical behaviour of future managers. It assesses the positions of ethical judgement and ethical intent within a sample of UK business students, together with an analysis of underlying explanatory factors to those positions, such as levels of depression, anxiety, stress, motivation and self-compassion. A range of scales were used to evaluate the ethical stance and psychological characteristics of a group of UK business students. The results indicate (...) that feelings of self-compassion, a sense of self-direction and mental health affect the ethical judgement and intent of students in a range of business and university scenarios. It is recommended that in addition to more formal ethics education, universities consider the mental health and psyche of their students to improve the efficacy of ethical training. (shrink)

Increasingly it is recognised that the background characteristics of employees in the hotel industry affect their ethical behaviour in the service delivery process. In particular, the gender of employees in the hotel industry has been shown to affect the ethical conduct of employees. Despite this recognition, few empirical studies in Ghana have examined the relationship between the gender of employees in the hotel industry and their ethical behaviour. Based on a cross-sectional survey of 320 randomly sampled hotel employees in the (...) Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana, this paper will investigate the relationship between the gender of hotel employees and ethical behaviour in the performance of their daily service delivery roles. Data will be analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Findings suggest that there are more male employees than females in the hotel industry in Kumasi. More males than females also occupy managerial positions. However, females were more likely to exhibit ethical conduct in the service delivery process than their male counterparts. The implications of these findings will be discussed. Conclusions will be drawn and recommendation for further research will also be indicated. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on (...) the idealism and relativism levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism, exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments. (shrink)

This empirical investigation reexamines the impact of gender on ethics judgment of marketing professionals in a cross-section of firms in the United States. In the study, gender differences in ethics judgment focus on decisions in the context of marketing-mix elements (product, promotion, pricing, and distribution). The results of statistical analyses indicate that men and women marketing professionals differ significantly in their ethics judgment. Overall, female marketing professionals evinced significantly higher ethics judgment than their male counterparts. Given the changing demographics of (...) corporate America, it is conceivable that ethical decision-making in organizations stands to improve as the ratio of women in executive positions increases. The finding also bodes well with the recent emphasis of moving away from transaction-based in favor of relationship-focused conceptualization of marketing. (shrink)

This study was designed to examine the determinants of and differences between the ethical beliefs of two groups of Japanese students in religious and secular universities. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students of the Japanese religious university perceived that young, male, relativistic, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did older, female, and idealistic students. Students of the Japanese secular university perceived that male, achievement-oriented, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did female and experience-oriented students. (...) Opportunism was found to be one of the most important determinants in explaining misconduct. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) revealed that students of the Japanese secular university tended to score higher on achievement and humanism, and lower on theism and positivism than did students of the Japanese religious university. In addition, students of the Japanese secular university were somewhat more sensitive to academic dishonesty practices than were students of the Japanese religious university. (shrink)

This study examines whether ethical climate influences managers' unethical practices and work behaviour. The sample comprised of 340 middle-level executives from twa private and two public sector companies. Irrespective of the nature of the organization and the age of the managers, while a caring and professional climate reduced only the manipulative behaviour of managers, an individual-centred climate consistently fostered unethical practices of manipulation, cheating and violation of organizational norms. On work behaviour, a caring and professional climate was conducive for increasing (...) managers' performance, involvement, affective commitment, predominant intrinsic job satisfaction, extrinsic job satisfaction and taking initiative; while an individual-centred climate was unfavourable for continuance commitment to the organization. (shrink)

Micro and small businesses contribute the majority of business activity in the most developed economies. They are typically embedded in local communities and therefore well placed to influence community wellbeing. While there has been considerable theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the nature of micro-business community responsibility (mBCR) remains relatively under-explored. This article presents findings from an exploratory study of mBCR that examined the approaches, motivations and barriers of this phenomenon. Analysis of data from (...) 36 semi-structured interviews with micro-business owner-operators in the Australian city of Brisbane revealed three mBCR approaches, suggesting an observable mBCR typology. Each mBCR type was at least partly driven by enlightened self-interest (ESI). In addition to a pure ESI approach, findings revealed ESI combined with philanthropic approaches and ESI combined with social entrepreneurial approaches. The combination of doing business and doing good found amongst participants in this study suggests that many micro-business owner-operators are supporters of their local communities and, therefore, driven by more than profit. This study provides a fine-grained understanding of micro-business involvement in community wellbeing through a lens of responsible business behaviour. (shrink)

This paper examines public accountants' perceptions of the relative importance of business ethics as a selection criterion for entry-level public accounting positions. Also, it seeks to determine whether gender differences do exist with respect to these perceptions. The data were collected through a survey of 335 professional accountants in four southeastern states. The results show that, among the eight selection factors that were studied, technical competence in accounting, communication skills, and interpersonal skills were the most influential, while professionalism and leadership (...) abilities were the least important. Ethics was ranked fourth by the females and sixth by the males. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the genders with respect to five of the eight factors. The females' scores were higher for ethics and interpersonal skills and lower for conceptual aptitude, strategic thinking, and leadership abilities. Implications for accounting educators and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)

Managers often encounter situations that require them to make decisions with ethical implications that affect the organization as well as the managers themselves. The issue we address in this study concerns whether the ethical consistency of managerial decisions is situation dependent. That is, are the decisions managers make ethically consistent when they are faced with different ethical situations? We hypothesize that managerial decisions will vary depending on the type of ethical situation they encounter. We also hypothesize that gender plays a (...) role in determining the ethical consistency of managerial decisions. Results of statistical analyses support our hypotheses. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a survey examining if there are gender and career stage differences between male and female practitioners regarding ethical judgment. The results show that, on average, females adopted a more strict ethical stance than their male counterparts on 7 out of 19 vignettes. Males on the other hand, demonstrated a more ethical stance than their female counterparts on 2 out of 19 vignettes. The results furthermore indicate there is a significant difference in ethical judgment across (...) career stages. Overall, it appears that practitioners in later career stages display higher ethical judgment than practitoners in lower career stages. Implications are provided for both practitioners and academicians. (shrink)

To date, the study of business ethics has been largely the study of the ethics of large companies. This paper is concerned with owner/managers of small firms and the link between the personal ethics of the owner/manager and his or her attitude to ethical problems in business. By using active membership of an organisation with an overt ethical dimension as a surrogate for personal ethics the research provides some, though not unequivocal, support for the models of Trevino and others that (...) suggest a link between personal ethics and business ethics. (shrink)

Corporate entrepreneurs -- described in the academic literature as those managers or employees who do not follow the status quo of their co-workers -- are depicted as visionaries who dream of taking the company in new directions. As a result, though, in overcoming internal obstacles to reaching their professional goals they can often walk a fine line between clever resourcefulness and outright rule breaking. A framework is presented as a guideline for middle managers and organizations seeking to impede unethical behaviors (...) in the pursuit of entrepreneurial activity. This paper examines the barriers middle managers face in trying to be entrepreneurial in less supportive environments, the ethical consequences that can result, and a suggested assessment and training program for averting such dilemmas. We advise companies that embrace corporate entrepreneurship: (1) establish the needed flexibility, innovation, and employee initiative and risk-taking; (2) remove the barriers that the entrepreneurial middle manager may face to more closely align personal and organizational initiatives and reduce the need to behave unethically; and (3) include an ethical component to corporate training which will provide guidelines for instituting compliance and values components into the state-of-the-art corporate entrepreneurship programs. (shrink)

In 1999, the Journal of Business Ethics published its 1 500th article. This article commemorates the journal's quest "to improve the human condition" (Michalos, 1988, p. 1) with a summary and assessment of the first eighteen volumes. The first part provides an overview of JBE, highlighting the journal's growth, types of methodologies published, and the breadth of the field. The second part provides a detailed account of the quantitative research findings. Major research topics include (1) prevalence of ethical behavior, (2) (...) ethical sensitivities, (3) ethics codes and programs, (4) corporate social performance and policies, (5) human resource practices and policies, and (6) professions – accounting, marketing/sales, and finance/strategy. Much remains to be done. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the area of corporate social responsibility suggest that organizational size has complex meanings and thus requires more scholarly attention. This article explores organizational size in the context of relative power in inter-organizational networks. To shed light on the ways relative power interacts with size we studied social responsibility practices among cleaning subcontractors in three firms of different sizes. Our focus on the network differentiates these firms on the basis of their size and sector. Semi-structured interviews were used (...) to trace cleaning subcontractors' CSR-related practices. We analyzed subjective reports and discursive practices involved in subcontractors' self-presentations. While the economic and philanthropic dimensions of social responsibility were presented by the cleaning subcontractors as independent of network constraints, the findings show that the legal and ethical dimensions were subject to large client-firm pressures. What we learn from our data is that the four dimensions of Carroll's model, the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic, should all develop from and be evaluated against a fifth root dimension of inter-personal commitment. (shrink)

The study of ethical behavior and ethical decision making is of increasing importance in many fields, and there is a growing literature addressing the issue. However, research examining differences in ethical decision making across fields and levels of experience is limited. In the present study, biases that undermine ethical decision making and compensatory strategies that may aid ethical decision making were identified in a series of interviews with 63 faculty members across six academic fields and three levels of rank as (...) well as across gender. The degree to which certain biases and compensatory strategies were used in justifications for responses to ethical situations was compared across fields, level of experience, and gender. Major differences were found across fields for several biases and compensatory strategies, including biases and compensatory strategies related to use of professional field principles and field-specific guidelines. Furthermore, full professors tend to differ greatly from assistant and associate professors on a number of constructs, and there were differences in the consistency with which biases and compensatory strategies were displayed within these various groups. Implications of these findings for ethics training and future research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that consumer demand for unethical behavior such as fraud can impact employee turnover through market and psychological forces. Widespread conditions of unethical demand can improve career prospects for employees of unethical firms through higher income and stability associated with firm financial health. Similarly, unethical employees enjoy increased tenure from the financial and psychological rewards of prosocial behavior toward customers demanding corrupt or unethical behavior. We specifically examine the well-documented unethical demand for fraud in the vehicle emissions testing (...) industry, and its impact on employee tenure. We use data from tests conducted by several thousand licensed inspectors to demonstrate that fraudulent employees and employees of fraudulent firms enjoy longer tenure. These results suggest further work to separate the multiple psychological and economic mechanisms likely driving our findings. (shrink)

The study examines whether (a) personal and organizational values differ in private and public sectors, and (b) personal values and value congruence -the extent of matching between personal and organizational values -influence unethical practices and work behavior. Three hundred and forty middle-level managers from four manufacturing organizations rated 22 values as guiding principles to them to identify their personal values. In order to index organizational values, 56 top-level managers of the same organizations rated how important such values were to the (...) organization. Results revealed that the important shared values among managers of private and public sectors are product quality and customer service. Congruence between personal and organizational values is found to be higher in the private sector compared to the public sector. Middle-level managers in the private sector shared the organizational values more than the managers in the public sector. Irrespective of the type of organizations and age of managers, personal values more potently and consistently decreased unethical practices and increased work behavior compared to value congruence. Hiring managers emphasizing personal values can demote unethical practices and promote work behavior. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether the individual attributes of locus of control, gender, major in college and years of job experience affect the acceptability of certain workplace behaviors. A total of 198 college students of a mid-sized southeastern university formed the sample for this study. Locus of control, gender and years of job experience were found to have some affect on whether an individual considered a certain behavior acceptable or unacceptable.

This study surveys the internal audit department of a large financial services organization. Respondents were challenged to recognize and evaluate ethical and unethical situations often encountered in practice. Four key demographic variables were investigated: gender, age, years of employment and peer group influence. For the most part, respondents view themselves as more ethical than their peers. There does appear to be a gender effect suggesting females' ability to identify ethical behavior better than their male counterparts. This study contributes to the (...) extant literature in that it has explored a previously unexplored profession, namely, the internal auditing profession. (shrink)

The role demographic, personality, and situational factors play in the ethical decision making process has received a significant amount of attention (Ford and Richardson, 1994). However, the empirical research on students' decisions to engage in collegiate cheating has not been included in this literature. This paper reviews the last 25 years of empirical research on collegiate cheating. The individual/situational factor typology from Ford and Richardson's review (1994) is used to compare the two literatures. In addition, issues pertaining to the quantification (...) of academic dishonesty, the perception that cheating is increasing, and methodological considerations are addressed in this review. (shrink)

Sales professionals have been frequent targets of ethical criticism. This paper reports on a survey on ethics of sales professionals in South Africa. The results revealed salespeoples views on controversial sales practices that involve direct monetary consequences; on practices that adversely affect customers, employers and competitors; and on sales peoples sensitization of ethical issues. Stealing from a competitor at a trade show was viewed as the most unethical of the scenarios, while phone sabotage and lying to a customer were held (...) to be the next most unethical scenarios. Analysis of the results lead to a discussion of the implications for sales management. Ethical perceptions were affected by financial considerations. Marketing and Sales Managers will have to review their approach to training in sales ethics as well as how sales professionals implement the market driven approach. (shrink)

This study uses a sample of 242 European professional purchasers to examine the six characteristics of the decision-making process developed by Jones. The illustration mobilizes six original scenarios reproducing typical purchasing situations. Two versions of each scenario were used, one representing low moral intensity and the other showing high moral intensity. Two populations were sampled: one of 120 purchasers responding to the first version of the questionnaire and a second of 122 different purchasers responding to version two. Each version contained (...) three low-moral-intensity scenarios and three high-moral-intensity scenarios. The research also investigates two concepts suggested by Hannah et al. :663–685, 2011): examining the complexity of ethical decision-making through scenarios and microsocial professional ethical contexts. The findings reveal that neither traditional individual characteristics nor standard company characteristics have a real impact on two stages of Rest’s model. They also show that internal locus of control and a high microsocial ethical environment have a positive impact on purchaser awareness and intention to act ethically for four of the six dimensions: magnitude of consequences, social consensus, temporal immediacy, and concentration of effect. Moral intensity factors also have a positive impact on these four dimensions. The two other dimensions are not related to the independent variables. (shrink)

This study examines the role of acculturation in shaping consumers’ views of ethics. Specifically, it examines the relationships between the desire to keep one’s original culture, the desire to adopt the host culture, and the four dimensions of the Muncy and Vitell (Journal of Business Research Ethics 24(4), 297, 1992) consumer ethics scale. Using two separate immigrant populations – one of former Middle-Eastern residents now living in the U.S. and the other of Asian immigrants in the U.S. – results indicate (...) that those who want to keep their original culture are less tolerant of unethical consumer activities, while those who are more willing to adopt the host culture are more tolerant of these same consumer activities. Furthermore, the immigrants in both studies who are more tolerant of unethical consumer activities are those who are generally somewhat younger and with less formal education. The relationship between gender and consumer ethics was not significant. (shrink)

Ethical issues at the workplace have once again become topical and important due to considerable adverse publicity surrounding reports of unethical business practices by corporate managers. Accordingly, this paper re‐visits the question of whether gender, age and work experience do have an effect on ethical judgement, using 655 business students as respondents. This is necessary as business students are likely to become managers during their career and will face complex ethical concerns and dilemmas in their daily, routine affairs. The findings (...) currently demonstrate that females are more ethically aware than their male counterparts – that is, there are differences between males and females regarding ethical judgement. There is also evidence to suggest that age is a factor that does impact on ethical judgement. However, we also found evidence to suggest that in some cases, the age factor does not necessarily have a significant impact on ethical awareness. The results further indicate that there is a difference in ethical judgement related to work experience. However, at the same time, in one question there is no evidence to suggest the claim that work experience does impact significantly on ethical judgement. Overall, it appears that ethical awareness does increase alongside work experience. (shrink)

PurposeThe information technology related ethical issues will only increase in frequency and complexity with the increasing diffusion of IT in economies and societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore Egyptian students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, access, property, and accuracy, and it evaluates the possible impact of a number of personal characteristics on such attitudes.Design/methodology/approachThis research utilized a cross‐sectional sample and data set to test five hypotheses. It adopted an instrument to collect the respondents' background (...) information and assess their attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, property, accuracy, and access. Egyptian business students at Alexandria University were asked to participate in the survey. A total of 305 responses were collected and analyzed.FindingsThe analysis revealed that students are sensitive to the ethicality of information privacy, information accuracy, and information access. However, students are insensitive to the ethicality of property right. In addition, years of education have a main effect on students' attitudes towards property, and gender and age have an interaction effect on students' attitudes towards access.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this research are based on a cross‐sectional data set collected from a sample of business students at a public university. Students, however, may make poor surrogates for business or IT professionals. Future similar research designs that employ large samples from Egyptian working professionals and students in other private and public universities are needed to verify the findings of this research.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that the investigated university as well as the other similar Egyptian universities should consider integrating ethics education into their curricula. Teaching information ethics, especially from an Islamic perspective, is expected to positively influence students' information ethical attitudes. The enforcement of the existing property right protection laws should also curb software piracy in the Egyptian market.Originality/valueIt is vital to expand the ethical research currently being performed in IT in order to help bridge the gap between behavior and IT. The findings of this research extend the understanding of students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues in Egyptian culture and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on global information ethics. (shrink)

Society is increasing its demands for more ethical behaviour by managers of organizations. However, societal and workplace ethical attitudes are constantly evolving as generational differences and demographic diversity make the workplace more complex. While a number of studies have attempted to classify ethical attitudes into different categories, more work in this area is needed. This paper reports on a study that examined attitudes towards the acceptability of workplace behaviour that might be considered unethical. Graduate business students at an Australian university (...) were asked to indicate the ethicality of 17 different behaviours, drawn from the business ethics literature. Exploratory factor analysis identified distinct factors, consisting of misuse of company resources, self-serving deceit, and the giving or receiving favours for personal gain. The derived factor structure was then tested with confirmatory factor analysis. Descriptive statistics indicated that misuse was considered less unethical than exchanging favours for personal gain. Deceit was considered the most unethical type of behaviour. Implications for managers and directions for further research are discussed. (shrink)

Using Robert Merton’s perspective on social structure [Social theory and structure. Free Press, New York, 1968], this study tested the individual-level association between job position and ethical reasoning. Anomie theory was employed to examine how country-level factors moderate that individual-level association. The hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) method was used to analyze 22,359 subjects from 28 nations. The statistical results proved that workers are more likely to justify ethically suspect behaviors, and that this individual-level relationship is moderated by the country-level factors (...) of power distance, masculinity, social inequality, and education accessibility. These results imply that Merton’s view of social structure and contemporary anomie theorists’ perspective of anomie [Messner and Rosenfeld (Crime and the American dream. Wadsworth, Belmont, 2001); Rosenfeld and Messner (The future of anomie theory. Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1997)] are mutually complementary rather than exclusive. (shrink)

Historically, students have held negative perceptions about the ethics of salespeople. Using an experiment, this study explores which factors affect students' perceptions of how frequently salespeople behave unethically. Additionally, the study investigates whether the same factors influence the degree to which certain behaviors are considered serious ethical violations.

The ethical behavior of a national sample of marketing professionals was examined by analyzing their responses to four different types of ethical dilemmas presented in vignette form. The ethical situations operationalize the concepts of coercion and control, deceit and falsehood, conflict of interest, and self integrity, within the context of the marketing mix elements – place, promotion, price, and product. Responses were examined to determine whether behavior varied by type of ethical situation, and whether demographic factors affected their responses. The (...) results indicate that marketing professionals vary their ethical decisions depending on which marketing mix decision they face. Among demographic variables, age, gender, and education level had significant but mixed influence on respondents' ethical decisions across the different situations. (shrink)

Business ethics attracts increasing attention from business practitioners and academic researchers. Concerns over fraudulent behavior keep attentionfocused on ethics in businesses. The accounting profession pays particularattention to matters of ethical judgment. The profession has adopted a strictcode of conduct and many states require the passage of an ethics exam to gaincertification. The more that is understood about the relationship of gender and ethics, the better chance of education and training programs will bedesigned to improve ethical awareness and sensitivity. Prior studies (...) have found that personal characteristics are an important aspect of cultural norms.This study analyzes the responses of students from eight different countries toquestions on their probable actions to an ethical dilemma. (shrink)

Emergence of purchasing as a strategic function has not only broadened the scope of purchasing, it has also changed the responsibilities of the purchasing managers by empowering them to spend large sums of money in procuring goods and services. However, this has also presented them with an array of ethical dilemmas involving questionable purchasing practices. This study proposes a framework to examine ethicality of decision making when faced with such dilemmas and presents the results of a survey conducted to assess (...) the ethical inclinations of purchasers operating in Singapore. The results give credence to the notion that ethicality of behavior is culture-specific and reconfirms the existence of ethical relativism. (shrink)

The authors review the empirical literature in order to assess which variables are postulated as influencing ethical beliefs and decision making. The variables are divided into those unique to the individual decision maker and those considered situational in nature. Variables related to an individual decision maker examined in this review are nationality, religion, sex, age, education, employment, and personality. Situation specific variables examined in this review are referent groups, rewards and sanctions, codes of conduct, type of ethical conflict, organization effects, (...) industry, and business competitiveness. The review identifies the variables that have been empirically tested in an effort to uncover what is known and what we need to know about the variables that are hypothesized as determinants of ethical decision behavior. (shrink)

In this study, we propose considering membership in the Ethics Officer Association (EOA) as a proxy for the firm's commitment to ethical decision making, and we analyze the influence of firm- and CEO-specific characteristics on this commitment. While we observe a positive relationship between membership and firm size, we also document a negative relationship between EOA membership and the executive's time in position and, to a more modest extent, accounting returns. Pursuing this further, we present evidence that firms with past (...) legal issues may seek EOA membership as a signal of their intention to be compliant in the future. (shrink)

The relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior at work has remained elusive. In fact, inconsistent results in observed magnitudes and direction led Hood et al. (The psychology of religion: An empirical approach, 1996 ) to describe the relationship between religiosity and ethics as “something of a roller coaster ride.” Weaver and Agle (Acad Manage Rev 27(1):77–97, 2002 ) utilizing social structural versions of symbolic interactionism theory reasoned that we should not expect religion to affect ethical outcomes for all religious individuals; (...) rather, such a relationship likely depends on specific religious attitudes including religious motivation orientation (intrinsic RMO vs. extrinsic RMO), perceived sacred qualities of work (job sanctification), and views of God (VOG, loving vs. punishing). We examined the effects of these three religious attitudes on participants’ judgments of 29 ethically questionable vignettes. Consistent with symbolic interactionism theory, intrinsic RMO and having a loving view of God were both negatively related to endorsing ethically questionable vignettes, whereas extrinsic RMO was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. Unexpectedly, job sanctification was positively related to endorsing the vignettes. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic RMO moderated this relationship such that sanctifying one’s job was related to ethical judgments only for those who were: (a) low in intrinsic RMO or (b) high in extrinsic RMO. We reasoned based on symbolic interactionism theory that intrinsically motivated participants, in contrast to extrinsically motivated participants, may have utilized their religious beliefs as a guiding framework in making ethical judgments. (shrink)

This study examined the impact of sex, age, and level of education on the perception of various business practices by managers of a large non-profit organization. Female managers perceived the acceptance of gifts and favors in exchange for preferential treatment significantly more unethical than male managers. Older managers (40 plus) perceived five practices significantly more unethical than younger managers (giving gifts/favors in exchange for preferential treatment, divulging confidential information, concealing ones error, falsifying reports, and calling in sick to take a (...) day off). The practice of padding expense account by over 10% was reported to be significantly more unethical by managers with a graduate degree. (shrink)

Several studies have identified entrepreneurship as a key factor in wealth creations in addition to associating certain personality characteristics to its growth. The question is to what extent have these wealth creations performed ethically. The present study is set to explore the cognitive orientation (locus of control, risk taking ability and impression management) and demographic (age and gender) factors that are associated with unethical business. Two hundred and fifty-six owner–managers in the age range of 24 to 68 years participated in (...) the survey study. Male participants accounted for 63.3 per cent, while female participants were 36.7 per cent. The results indicate that risk taking and gender factors were consistently and statistically significant predictors of unethical business across the three groups in this study. The group situation appears to have effect on the individual contribution to unethical business. Implications are drawn from the results, and priorities are established for future research. (shrink)