Deceit, Misuse and Favours: Understanding and Measuring Attitudes to Ethics

J Bus Ethics (2014) 121:123134 DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1593-y

Deceit, Misuse and Favours: Understanding and Measuring Attitudes to Ethics

Chris Perryer Brenda Scott-Ladd

Received: 21 June 2012 / Accepted: 5 December 2012 / Published online: 7 April 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract 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 (n = 234) were asked to indicate the ethicality of 17 different behaviours, drawn from the business ethics literature. Exploratory factor analysis identied 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 conrmatory 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.

Keywords Ethics Attitudes Behavior Factor structure

Introduction

In the wake of recent corporate collapses, the examination of ethical behaviour in business has attracted increased attention (Loviscky et al. 2007; McCabe et al. 2006). Interest in ethical issues in business has been evident across a broad spectrum of the practitioner and academic literature, as well as in legal and regulatory contexts and business media, with calls for more ethical behaviours. However, the distinction between behaving ethically and merely acting within the law has become blurred, with recent ethics articles covering everything from theoretical ethical principles to the establishment of checks and balances (Holian 2006; Maak and Pless 2009), governance issues (Robertson 2009), nancial reporting practices (Angus-Leppan et al. 2010) and case studies of the more infamous failed businesses. Some failed organizations appear to have had appropriate management controls such as formal approval procedures, reconciliations and audit requirements in place. What they seem to have lacked is soft controls based on a management philosophy, which requires that...