Situating Ethical Behavior in the Nomological Network of Job Performance

Ethical employee behaviors in the consensus taxonomy of counterproductive work behaviors

“…Kaptein, ; Treviño et al, ). Russell et al (, p. 254) offered a definition that retained the focus on norm violation, but considered a wider variety of sources for these norms: ‘Unethical behavior at work is behavior that violates a prescribed norm that is based on a code of behavior at work that is (a) ascribed to by the relevant organization or professional group, (b) prescribed by relevant regulatory bodies or by statute, or (c) widely endorsed in the society.’ Both research groups also attempted to draw distinctions between unethical behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB, see below). However, the operational definitions of (un)ethical behavior adopted by both groups do not clearly align with this distinction or with the offered definitions.…”

“…Russell et al (, p. 254) included both organizational as well as professional and broad societal norms in their definition of ethical performance, and they are highly inconsistent in their distinction between unethical behavior and CWB. For example, they provide ‘falsifying information’ as an example of organizationally directed CWB (p. 256), then subsequently as an example of ‘Truthfulness’, an ethical behavior category they maintain is not CWB (p. 269).…”

“…Russell et al () presented the most comprehensive taxonomy of employee ethical behaviors to date. Russell et al conducted a series of three studies using a variety of methodologies, including literature review, critical incidents reports of government employee behaviors, reviews of professional society codes of ethics, ethicality ratings of behavioral vignettes, and scale development and factor analysis, to develop a 10‐category working taxonomy of ethical behaviors.…”

“…In Table , we present a synthesis of a Consensus Taxonomy of Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CT‐CWB), including unethical behaviors, with comparisons to Russell et al's () categories, Birkland, Foldes, and colleagues’ (Birkland, ; Birkland et al, ; Jackson, ) taxonomy of senior leader CWB, and other CWB taxonomies. This CT‐CWB taxonomy divides the CWB domain into its two major aspects—interpersonally directed (CWB‐I) and organizationally directed (CWB‐O), while also incorporating and distinguishing a wide range of more specific CWB behavioral facets identified by various researchers (which are conceptually distinct and may have distinct personal and situational antecedents; Mercado, Dilchert, & Giordano, ).…”

“…There are clear parallels across taxonomies of unethical and counterproductive work behaviors, supporting the conceptual placement of unethical behavior as part of the broader CWB domain. For example, Russell et al's () Truthfulness is similar to aspects of Gruys and Sackett's () category of Misuse of Information, and Intellectual Property Violations are simply a particular form of Theft that might be performed by professional and senior‐level employees.…”