Generation Z and Ethicality of Advancement in the Workplace: A Study of Slovenia and Lithuania

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine the ethicality of future employees’ attitudes toward advancement in the workplace in Slovenia and Lithuania. This study focuses on students representing young adults from Generation Z as future employees in organizations. Using a survey of work-related issues, we collected 212 answers from Slovenian and 159 from Lithuanian' students from business faculties. We used t-tests and regression analyses to obtain results. We found that the future employees in Slovenia see organizationally beneficial behavior and self-indulgent behavior significantly more acceptable for their advancement, than their Lithuanian peers. No differences exist in the perception of destructive behavior among participants from both countries. Substantial differences in the importance of personal values ​​among Generation Z members in both societies, provide a strong support for the divergence nature of Generation Z across cultures. The impact of personal values on the ethicality of different behavior for advancement in the workplace among future employees in both societies is substantial, but biased and follows different patterns. In Slovenia, the dominant role has power, followed by hedonism, benevolence, security, conformity, tradition, and universalism, while in Lithuania, the dominant role belongs to self-direction, followed by tradition, universalism, security, achievement, and power. This study will help us to understand Generation Z values and their perceptions regarding ethicality of advancement in the workplace and enable organizations to manage the behavior of future employees.

How personal values follow the societal lockdown due to COVID-19: Case of business students in Slovenia

“…Considering the hierarchy of values of young adults, our cohort of business students valued self-transcendence value the most. Similar results can be found in other studies of Generation Z, where self-transcendence values were at the forefront, emphasizing universalism and benevolence that define this group of values (Bojanowska et al, 2021;Nedelko et al, 2022). Thus, the surveyed individuals attached more importance to the values related to their individual development, self-expansion in society, and care for the common good (Scholtz and Rennig, 2019;Vecchione et al, 2020), consistent with the past research on the values of Generation Z (Scholtz and Rennig, 2019;Pavao, 2020).…”

“…On the contrary, the importance of conservation values has decreased, which indicates the tiredness of students with restrictions during the time of COVID-19 and the desire of students to act more freely and live with less orders, selfrestriction, and preservation of the past. In comparison with the period before the crisis, only self-transcendence values remained unchanged, as these are to the greatest extent defined by the dominant behavioral orientation of students in universalisms and benevolence as typical characteristics young adults and especially Generation Z (Nedelko et al, 2022;Alfirević et al, 2023).…”

“…The discussed business students (Haski-Leventhal et al, 2017;Potocan and Nedelko, 2021;Nedelko et al, 2022) -as well as other current young adults in Europe (Scholtz and Rennig, 2019;Spahl et al, 2022), grew up in conditions of prosperity, constant progress and social-economic security. Predominantly favorable conditions in their childhood and growing up were led formation of the similar personal values (Vecchione et al, 2016;Tormos et al, 2017;Nedelko et al, 2022).…”

“…However, the question remains open, whether past crises in Europe -especially a global economic crisis in 2009 and the refugee crisis (Sortheix et al, 2019;Chmel et al, 2021) and their deterioration of social circumstances in the childhood of considered business students in Slovenia (Potocan and Nedelko, 2021;Nedelko et al, 2022), and young adults in Europe in general (Vecchione et al, 2016;Tormos et al, 2017) influenced the formation of personal values of individuals needed to face the COVID-19 crisis. Research on this issue so far indicates that previous crises did not significantly impact on the development of personal values of currently young adults, especially because of weaker impact and short duration of these crises in Europe (Scholtz and Rennig, 2019;Sortheix et al, 2019).…”

“…The last part contains ten personal and organizational demographic variables typically used in business studies (Egri and Ralston, 2004). The questionnaire was initially developed for surveying employees (Potocan and Nedelko, 2021); therefore, we adapted the wording for surveying the student population in Slovenia and beyond (Nedelko et al, 2022). With student questionnaires, we collected data annually since 2006.…”