Using 94 published empirical articles in academic journals as a data base, this paper provides a critical review of the methodology employed in the study of ethical beliefs and behavior of organizational members. The review revealed that full methodological detail was provided in less than one half of the articles. Further, the majority of empirical research articles expressed no concern for the reliability or validity of measures, were characterized by low response rates, used convenience samples, and did not offer a (...) theoretic framework, hypotheses, or a definition of ethics. Several recommendations, including a reviewer rating form addressing methodological decisions and inclusion of methodologists on the review panel, are offered to improve methodological rigor in published ethics research. (shrink)

This study investigates the differences in individuals'' ethical decision making between Canadian university business students and accounting professionals. We examine the differences in three measures known to be important in the ethical decision-making process: ethical awareness, ethical orientation, and intention to perform questionable acts. We tested for differences in these three measures in eight different questionable actions among three groups: students starting business studies, those in their final year of university, and professional accountants.The measures of awareness capture the extent to (...) which respondents felt that a particular action was unethical according to each of several ethical criteria. We found few differences between the two student groups on these measures, suggesting that their education had minimal effect on raising their awareness of the ethical issues in the vignettes. Indeed, overall, the graduating student''s scores were marginally lower than those of the entry-level students. However, the professionals viewed some actions as significantly less ethical than did the graduating students. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of a social desirability response bias as a personality characteristic (self-deception and impression management) and as an item characteristic (perceived desirability of the behavior) on self-reported ethical conduct. Findings from a sample of college students revealed that self-reported ethical conduct is associated with both personality and item characteristics, with perceived desirability of behavior having the greatest influence on self-reported conduct. Implications for research in business ethics are drawn, and suggestions are offered for reducing the effects (...) of a socially desirable response bias. (shrink)

The study assesses how a social desirability (SD) bias influences the relationship between several independent and dependent variables commonly investigated in ethics research. The effect of a SD bias was observed when a questionnaire was administered under varying conditions of anonymity and with different measurement techniques for the SD construct. Findings reveal that a SD bias is present in the majority of relationships studied, and it most frequently plays a moderating role. While the measure of SD influences the strength and (...) type of relationship, condition of anonymity has relatively little effect on the level of SD. (shrink)

Every day, in many situations, we use expressions which seem only vaguely to provide us with information. The weather forecaster tells us that "some showers are likely in Northern regions during the night", a statement which is vague with respect to number of showers, location, and time. Yet such messages are informative, and often it is not possible for the producer of the message to be more precise. A tutor tells his students that "only a few students fail their exams (...) outright". This does not give a precise incidence. Yet it might be equally misleading to do so. For example, to say that 12% failed outright last year says nothing about other years, while to say an average of 8% over the last five years says nothing about variability. We argue that a precise, numerical statement can be sometimes more misleading in reality than a vague statement. Many researchers in psychology have attempted to capture the meaning of quantities by relating them to scales of quantity. The book explores this idea in detail and shows with original studies how these expressions also serve to control attention and to convey information about the expectations held by those involved in the communication. The book works towards a psychological theory of the meaning of quantifiers and similarly vague terms. New links are drawn between formal theories of quantification and psychological experimentation. (shrink)

Despite the fundamental and administrative difficulties associated with cross-cultural research the rewards are significant and, given an increasing trend toward globalisation, the move away from singular location studies to more comparative research is to be encouraged. In order to facilitate this research process it is imperative, however, that considerable attention is given to the methodological issues that can beset cross-cultural research, specifically as these issues relate to the primary domain or discipline of investigation, which in this instance is research on (...) business ethics. Utilising the experience of a four country comparative study of both Asian and Western cultures in the field of business ethics, the following presents a discussion of methodological concerns under the three broad areas of operationalising culture, operationalising business ethics, and data interpretation. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explore the empirical agenda of business ethics research from a methodological perspective. It is argued that the quality of empirical research in the field remains relatively poor and unconvincing. Drawing on the distinctions between the two main philosophical positions from which methodologies in the social sciences are derived – positivism and interpretism – it is argued that it is business ethics' tradition of positivist, and highly quantitative approaches which may be at the root of these epistemological (...) problems. Six distinct aspects of business ethics research are identified and assessed according to their methodological impact. Accordingly, it is argued that more interpretive approaches may offer substantial liberating potential in the development of a stronger and more theory-rich empirical base. The author concludes by arguing for greater plurality and diversity in empirical research methodologies in the business ethics field. (shrink)

This study examines social desirability bias in the context of ethical decision-making by accountants. It hypothesizes a negative relation between social desirability bias and ethical evaluation. It also predicts an interaction effect between religiousness and gender on social desirability bias. An experiment using five general business vignettes was carried out on 121 accountants (63 males and 58 females). The results show that social desirability bias is higher (lower) when the situation encountered is more (less) unethical. The bias has religiousness and (...) gender main effects as well as an interaction effect between these two independent variables. Women who were more religious recorded the highest bias scores relative to less religious women and men regardless of their religiousness. (shrink)

We critique a series of recent papers in which Reidenbach and Robin developed a multidimensional ethics scale. Our critique raises four problems for the scale. First, it is not clear what the scale measures. Second, the semantic differential items used in the scale seem problematic. Third, the scale omits several important ethical rationales. Finally, no caveats accompany the scale to alert managers about its proper and improper use.

This study examined the relationship between unethical employee behavior and the dimensions of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ). In order to explore the relationship between the dimensions of the ECQ and unethical behavior, the factor structure of five previously identified empirical models and the hypothesized nine-dimension model for the ECQ was tested with a confirmatory factor analysis. The analysis revealed that the hypothesized nine-dimension model provided as good or even better fit to the data than the five empirically derived models. (...) Therefore, the nine-dimensional model was used to examine the criterion-related validity of the ECQ. The results demonstrated that the nine ethical climate dimensions were correlated with some of the unethical behaviors examined in this study, but not others. However, the results clearly demonstrated that most of the ethical climate dimensions were significantly related to an aggregate measure of unethical behavior. It was suggested that these results might account for the differences in previous studies on the criterion-related validity of the ECQ. The results also replicated a previous report that the association between unethical behavior and ethical climate is stronger in organizations that do not have a code of ethics. Finally, a difference was observed in the ethical climates for organizations with a code of ethics and organizations without a code of ethics. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of impression management and overclaiming on self-reported ethical conduct of 174 managers (67 male, 107 female) who worked for a large not-for-profit organization. As anticipated, impression management and overclaiming positively influenced perceived unethical conduct of managers. Female managers were more prone to impression management than male managers. There was no significant difference in perceived unethical conduct or level of overclaiming of male and female managers.