Ethical attitudes and ethical behavior: are managers role models?

Abstract

Ethical attitudes and ethical behavior in organizations may have substantial ramifications on a firm's operation. This study investigates whether or not managers are perceived by employees to exhibit ethical attitudes and ethical behavior and thereby being their role models. A sample of 111 employees within the finance department of a major municipality who are exposed to unethical behavior responded to a structured questionnaire concerning ethical and unethical episodes. There were three major findings: first, consistently perceived ethical behavior is lower than perceived ethical attitudes of the employee, his peers and of his managers; second, self-enhancing bias exists; and third, managers do not exhibit an ethical role model in the organization. Implications for human resource management and policies are discussed.

The Role of Business Ethics in Merger and Acquisition Success: An Empirical Study

“…Business ethics related studies cover an array of issues, including macro environmental issues (Singh and Carasco, 1996), human rights principle (Cragg, 2000), industry-specific practices (Lamb, 1999), organizational philosophy (Hunt et al, 1989), and individual conducts (Kantor and Weisberg, 2002;Lund, 2000). Business ethics has been widely studied in the areas of marketing, information management, labor relations, and human resource management.…”

Ethical Antecedents of Dysfunctional Behaviour in Performance Measurement and Control System

“…As such, it can be argued that EA will significantly influence whether or not a manager would engage in DB, or likewise, how one behaves may actually mirror their EA. Prior researchers (like Ferrell, & Weaver, 1978;Izraeli, 1988;Kantor, & Weisberg, 2002) suggested that employees could be more ethical in some behavioural situations than in others and different situations may lead to different ethical perceptions. Employees exhibited strong ethical attitude against the perceived most unethical actions that clearly may hurt another person or damage the organization, but were much simpler to rationalize and justified the slightly unethical acts.…”

“…Under personal ethics, ethical attitudes (EA) has been suggested as the best predictor of employees' unethical behaviour (Izraeli, 1988) and has attracted a profound concern as evidenced by the large number of studies published (like Ghosh, & Crain, 1995;Izraeli, 1988;Kantor, & Weisberg, 2002;Longenecker, McKinney, & Moore, 2003;Longenecker, Moore, Petty, Palich, & McKinney, 2006;Medlin, & Green, 2003;Reckers, Sanders, & Roark, 1994;Wong, 2008;Zabid, & Alsagoff, 1993). EA refers to the perceived rightness or wrongness of a situation which might reflect a favourable, unfavourable, or neutral view, and subsequently affect one's decision whether to commit a behaviour (Kantor, & Weisberg, 2002).…”

“…Gaming behaviour, metric manipulations, or management myopia are difficult to identify because it is typically hidden from the researcher (Courty, & Marschke, 2008;Soobaroyen, 2007) and in many cases, from the organization (Courty, & Marschke, 2008). Gaining honest responses also proves difficult (Hirst, 1983;Merchant, 1990), besides the difficulty to determine, measure and predict actual behaviour in real life (Kantor, & Weisberg, 2002). Unfortunately, the issue remains important, hence, needs further probe and investigation.…”

“…EA refers to the perceived rightness or wrongness of a situation which might reflect a favourable, unfavourable, or neutral view, and subsequently affect one's decision whether to commit a behaviour (Kantor, & Weisberg, 2002). However, it is highly personal and relative (Longenecker et al, 2006;Trevino, & Nelson, 2004), hence, many employees would not view information manipulation in the PMCS with the same sense of morality (Argyris, 1990;Fisher, & Downes, 2008), with some might even view it as ethical especially if it is encouraged by management and anticipated by subordinates (Flamholtz, 1996).…”