Anomie and Ethics at Work

Abstract

The paper reports on research undertaken in three organisations seeking to explore anomie at work. This research explores whether a distinction in the levels of anomie between people’s perception of the work and non-work contexts exists in three organisations, that is whether people are more likely to feel more hopeless and helpless in their work or non-work life. It also looks at whether people in different organisations have significantly different levels of anomie. A significant difference in the non-work anomie between organisations, but no significant difference in work anomie between organisations, was found. In the three organisations researched, the anomie score in the non-work context is lower than in the work context, indicating that respondents perceive the work context as more anomic. The work anomie for the total sample was found to be significantly higher that the non-work anomie. The implications for ethical behaviour at work and business ethics are discussed. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006Anomie, morality, business ethics, work anomie,

Anomie and the Marketing Function: The Role of Control Mechanisms

“…In contrast, our examination is focused on the departmental milieu of the marketing function. This context also delineates our study from previous work that had studied anomie in settings such as retail businesses, undergraduate business schools, and workplaces in general (Caruana et al, 2000(Caruana et al, , 2001Tsahuridu, 2006).…”

“…Finally, this approach builds upon previous research on anomie. This examination studies anomie within a functional department, thereby heeding Tsahuridu's (2006) call for anomie research aimed at "different organizational levels" (p. 171), and also meeting Caruana et al's (2001) recommendation that future research efforts study additional relationships that potentially explain a greater amount of the variance associated with anomie.…”

“…In related research, empirical studies of anomie within marketing, ethics, and management have been conducted at the individual level of analysis by using the Srole scale of anomia or a similar individual-level measurement instrument. These studies have examined abuses of retail-return policies by consumers (Rosenbaum and Kuntze, 2003), reactions to customer fraud by store employees (Ca-ruana et al, 2001), actions such as cheating by undergraduate business school students (Caruana et al, 2000(Caruana et al, , 2001, and assessments of anomia inside and outside the workplace (Tsahuridu, 2006).…”

“…(Featherstone and Deflem, 2003, p. 485) This approach is also noteworthy in three final respects. First, it adds to the paucity of research on anomie that has been noted by scholars within management (Caruana et al, 2001), organizations (Tsahuridu, 2006), and marketing (Rosenbaum and Kuntze, 2003). Second, our approach is applied to a unique milieu.…”

“…As noted earlier, prior studies have conducted examinations at the individual level (Caruana et al, 2001;Rosenbaum and Kuntze, 2003;Tsahuridu, 2006) and based their inquiries on psychological frameworks. In contrast, our examination is focused on the departmental milieu of the marketing function.…”