Search

A perpetual challenge for educators is the occurrence of student cheating, a problem exacerbated because of the availability of electronic technology. As a result, this longitudinal study was undertaken to empirically examine the cheating practices of those that will likely face ethical dilemmas in their careers, the undergraduate business students. Findings suggest that while the volume of unethical behavioral incidences vary by type of behavior, the percent of students exhibiting these behaviors is decreasing for most unethical behaviors. However, participation in e-cheating is on the rise. Even though the student perception is that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to cheat on an online course exam, for example, now two-thirds of students perceive that it is easy to cheat and one-fourth indicate that he/she cheat on these exams. Finally, results suggest that gender is a factor with respect to electronic cheating incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalizing of the world brings new challenges that must respond to both private and public sectors. Private but also public organizations are looking for ways to become more efficient, to gain competitive advantage, to reduce costs but the fact is that terms like ethics, morality, justice or solidarity are becoming increasingly discussed by both practitioners and scholars. The paper deals with ethics in the Czech Republic, history of which contains a number of historical periods that must have negatively affected the perception of ethics by the Czech society. The aim of this paper is to determine current state of awareness of ethics and find out how approaches to ethics differ among organizations in the Czech Republic. In a questionnaire survey, respondents representing major private organizations, companies with a state share and Regional Offices were contacted. Subsequent comparative analysis provides a comprehensive look at the issue of factors which influence ethical behavior of employees, ethical dilemmas of employees, opportunities to educate employees in ethics or influencing ethical behavior of employees by working environment itself. The paper thus becomes not only theoretical view of ethics across private and public sectors, but also a tool that can establish the base for the way to cultivate environment that would encourage ethical norms and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to determine if there are differences in the. perception of ethical behavior among students in three different countries, namely, Spain, Chile and the United States. College students are used in this study because they represent a fairly homogeneous group. The results support previous work that gender and aggressive/cooperative attitudes play an important role in ethical attitudes. Further, the results suggest that there are only limited differences in the ethical attitudes of students in the U.S. versus Spain and Chile. There were, nonetheless, several situations in which these students had statistically significant differences in what they would consider ethical behavior. In all three countries, women are statistically more likely to be ethical than men, although the gap narrows considerably for some situations in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers play a major role in an ethical exchange relationship of the seller/buyer dyad. Consumer ethically questionable behaviors would disrupt the effective exchange process, leading to unproductive exchange and significantly damaging business profitability. The scale of consumer ethically questionable behaviors in retailing is thus needed to develop. The four dimensions with 19 items of consumer questionable purchasing activities in retail store were finally conducted. Further research and market manager can imply this scale to examine and consider the unethical practice made by consumers in marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption of certain corporate ethics management practices through inappropriate cultural management objectives may undermine the effectiveness of ethics management efforts. This article explains how several important dimensions of organizational culture can influence the effectiveness of ethics initiatives, and recommends the development and structural adjustment of ethical behavior in global business during the crisis. Aristotle makes a general ethical principle, likely to guide us in making the right decisions and in forging the exercise of virtues. Virtue, Aristotle says, "is the middle ground between two vices, one caused by the excess, and the other for failure". Business Ethics inspiration Aristotelian emphasis on training and developing positive character traits of economic, cultivating a set of values focused on social responsibility and altruism. Aristotelian-inspired business ethics focuses on training and developing positive character traits of economic agents, cultivating a set of values focused on social responsibility and altruism, ethics business, the relevance theory is characterized by concepts: cooperation, conflict, rational choice, dilemma prisoner. Virtue ethics appears in many contexts specific issues relevant to analysts in business ethics. For example, virtue of a specific businessman or manager assumes responsibility, authority, flexibility, tact, discretion, etc. But, above all, a good businessman or manager is one who, by its initiatives, made a profit as important. But no one can be and should not be just manager and so, requires a whole man and other qualities than commercial success. Here one reasons (not nearly the only) for the pursuit of profit as a trader, you should not remove any other criterion value of life and work of a businessman, as a whole man, he must cultivate those attitudes and traits character capable of it given a deserved dignity and happiness. Unlike Kantian ethics, utilitarianism is an ethical consequentialist, which is not so important intrinsic value of moral action, but their pragmatic effects. The Highest Principle Beatitudes prevail, meaning that an action is moral to the extent that causes maximum pleasure and no pain. Ethical decisions are taken only from the results or consequences they produce. For Kant, intention and consequences of the act not matter to determine its moral value. Autonomy will be its ability to not be influenced by affect or feelings. Debt central ranks of his theory: any action, in order to gain the moral value of the debt must be under a categorical imperative form: "must". To be moral, we must have regard to the maximum our action to be necessary and universal, that man should always be regarded as end and never as means. So, in the current crisis in which we are all, it is expected that these cases are found increasingly more often, the challenge remains in each institution to decide which ethical theory is appropriate to each crisis and to act in accordance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents several conference paper abstracts on conflict management. Dispute Resolution System Effectiveness: Complementarities and Mediators, by Corinne Bendersky tested how and why employment dispute resolution system comprised of three types of components more effectively improve conflict attitudes, reduce avoidance and increase negotiation and resolution behavior than systems with only one or two types of components. Naive Trust, Prudent Trust, Distrust and Social Intelligence, by Lívia Markóczy tested and found support to the view that trustful individuals are neither necessarily gullible nor are necessarily socially intelligent as assumed in the literature but rather there are two types of trustful individuals, the ones who are vigilant for opportunism and the ones who are not vigilant. Conflict Avoiding in Chinese Culture: An Exploration of Five Alternative Models, by Raymond A. Friedman developed five alternative models for Chinese-American differences in conflict avoiding tendencies, and tested them using a scenario study with respondents from Taiwan and the U.S. The results showed that, contrary to expectations, differences in the expected career costs/benefits of good/bad relations with others does not explain Chinese-American differences in avoiding is strong social norms that favor avoiding among Chinese.

Purpose- The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between the role of organizational culture in employee ethical behavior based on empirical analysis of Technology Companies in Kosovo. Design/methodology/approach- The study uses a quantitative research method. The approach of this study is based on the primary data which are obtained by completing the questionnaire from 250 employees of Technology Companies in Kosovo. The questionnaire was structured in 5 sections were answers of questions were based on the Likert Scale. Findings- Findings show that organizational culture and employee ethical behavior are important factors of the organization by highlighting the strong impact that organizational culture has and it's a significant effect on employee ethical behavior. Practical implications - The study has major implications for human resource management. Also, the study findings are useful to the business community and policymakers to improve the organizational culture level of employees that would lead to ethical behavior in the workplace. Originality/value - This research is the first quantitative study that explains the role of organizational culture in employee ethical behavior of Technology Companies in Kosovo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees who witness counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) often fail to report such behaviors to management. To require witnesses to report CWBs-and thus facilitate CWB detection- organizations may implement formal systems of peer reporting policies. Little is known, however, about whether peer reporting policies achieve their intended purpose-that is, to increase the base rate of peer reporting CWBs. The purpose of this study is to determine if and when formal systems of peer reporting policies impact the base rate of peer reporting CWBs. First, using Treviño's (1986) person-situation framework, we hypothesize that both an obligation to report (person) and peer reporting policy presence (situation) are positively related to the base rate of peer reporting CWBs and that policy presence enhances the relationship between an obligation to report and the base rate of peer reporting CWBs. Next, drawing on Tenbrunsel, Smith-Crowe, and Umphress's (2003) formal system strength perspective, we argue that the strength of the formal system-that is, policy strength-is positively related to the base rate of peer reporting CWBs and enhances the relationship between an obligation to report and the base rate of peer reporting CWBs. Finally, we examine whether these moderating effects differ by CWB target. Results supported the main effect relationships of an obligation to report and policy presence in enhancing the base rate. In addition, policy presence and policy strength moderated (strengthened) the relationship between an obligation to report and the base rate. These moderator effects also differed by CWB target, which clarifies the type of CWBs that are impacted by peer reporting policies. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and applied implications of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although recent research suggests that leader humility is generally beneficial to follower performance, in this research we examine a situational form of leader humility, leader moral humility, and its effect on followers' moral behavior. Utilizing social cognitive theory and a blended-method design to theoretically develop the concept of leader moral humility and its effects on followers, we propose that leader moral humility fosters the enactive mastery, vicarious experience, and verbal persuasion necessary to increase follower moral self-efficacy. In Study 1, we report the results of twenty-six qualitative interviews detailing the nature, function, and consequences of leader moral humility. Using insights from this qualitative data and the extant literature we propose a theoretical model wherein leader moral humility and follower implicit theories about morality interact to predict follower moral self-efficacy and moral behavior. In Study 2, we find support for our theoretical model using multi-source, time-lagged data from 64 leaders and 295 followers. Furthermore, we show that leader moral humility predicts follower moral self-efficacy and moral behavior beyond ethical leadership and leader general humility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide a multi-mediation and moderated mediation theoretical model to understand how and when ethical leaders influence the ethical behavior of employees at work. By integrating institutional theory, we proposed that ethical leadership through its normative, mimetic and coercive force might stimulate the behavior of employees at work. We further proposed that collectivism- individualism and power distance orientation of employees strengthen the relationship of underlying mechanisms. We proposed that collectivism- individualism and power distance orientation would strengthen these processes, such that employees having high collectivistic orientation would exhibit ethical behavior due to normative force whereas, employees high on individualism exhibit ethical behavior due to mimetic force and employee having high power distance orientation show ethical behavior due to coercive force. We conclude by highlighting empirical questions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency is an underpinning of workplace ethics. However, most of the existing research has focused on the relationship between leader transparency and its consequences. Drawing on social and self-regulation theory research, we examine the antecedents of followers' transparency. Specifically, we propose that followers have higher levels of transparency when they are working with peers who have a high level of transparency. We further suggest that followers' conscientiousness and agreeableness moderate the relationship between peer transparency and followers' transparency. Using a time lag design, we provided support for the proposed theoretical model. We found that follower conscientiousness substitutes the social regulation effect (embodied in the relationship between peers and follower transparency), while follower agreeableness enhances this social regulation effect. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courses and programs that teach ethics in business schools have long fallen short in promoting ethical decision-making and behavior. In this research, we further developed a teaching program based on moral identity principles by assessing its effectiveness in promoting students' ethical decision-making and ethical behavior. Data were collected from 92 undergraduate marketing students undertaking the program in one week (one session) within a twelve-week teaching period. Results suggest that students who attended the teaching program based on moral identity principles reported greater levels of ethical decision making (post-test) and ethical behavior (delayed post-test) compared to those who attended the control program. Moreover, there was a marked improvement in the ethical decision-making of older as opposed to younger students. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this symposium is to examine how issues related to individual values, morality, and ethics influence the way in which people build relationships with leaders and co-workers, and ultimately, the way work gets done inside organizations. Research has heralded the significance of interpersonal relationships in the workplace, even calling relationships the most highly valued human goal (Dutton & Heaphy, 2003). This symposium illustrates how relationships at work are driven by factors that go beyond the boundaries of the organization. In particular, beliefs about right and wrong -- what is ethical and unethical -- are deeply imbued in individuals outside of the boundaries of work, but can have a profound impact at work. We propose to bring together a variety of research questions, methods, and findings to incite an interesting conversation around how the morals and values of individuals can drive the way they interact with others at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to advance our understanding of and confidence in the relationship between employee public service motivation (PSM) and ethical behavior by testing the degree to which PSM predicts the ethical behavior or behavioral intention of government employees. Building on previous research, we argue that government employees with higher PSM are not only more likely to internalize values that support public interests they also are likely to be concerned less about the potential consequences that they may experience by reporting unethical conduct within their agencies. Using data collected through a survey from 477 employees working in a large state agency, we find that supervisors with higher PSM are more likely to be perceived by their subordinates as exhibiting ethical leadership and that employees with higher PSM express a higher willingness to report unethical behavior within their agency. We discuss implications of these findings for research in public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholarly interest in investigating potential touchpoints between ethics and emotion is increasing, the nature of the relationship between them remains under-specified. Given the relevance of emotion to a host of organizational processes, such as creativity, team interactions, leadership, and culture, that have an ethical dimension, there is a clear need to better understand the intersection of ethics and emotions. Further, while prior work has considered the possibility that socially defined 'good' or 'bad' emotions lead to commensurately good or bad outcomes, research demonstrates that the ethical consequences of specific emotions are more nuanced than implied by broad good-vs.-bad categorizations. More generally, expressing emotion itself may have important and underexplored ethical implications for expressers, targets, and organizations. In order to address these compelling issues, in this symposium a set of four exciting theoretical and empirical papers takes a fresh perspective, exploring the intersection between emotions and ethics in a variety of contexts, including both broadly relevant interpersonal work scenarios (e.g., between employees and customers) as well as situations involving specific contexts like cheating and deception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral ethics research makes two competing predictions about dispositional creativity and the role it plays in unethical behavior in organizations. Some researchers view dispositional creativity as a precursor to unethical behavior since creative individuals are able to think flexibly and divergently, so they can easily devise moral loopholes. An alternative perspective is that dispositional creativity diminishes unethical behavior because creative individuals have strong self-regulatory processes and complex-problem-solving capacities, so they are able to find solutions to problems that are both effective and ethical. In this study, we reconcile these two opposing views by drawing on both a self-control framework and the social cognitive theory of moral disengagement. We highlight two boundary conditions, trait negative affectivity and moral identity, and a mediating mechanism, moral disengagement. We hypothesize and find that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between creative personality and unethical behavior. Our findings show that when creative individuals have high moral identity, they tend to behave more ethically. However, when they have low moral identity and high trait negative affectivity, dispositional creativity is positively related to unethical behavior. These findings suggest that certain individual mechanisms are at play in determining whether an individual with a creative personality will behave unethically, such that, they are likely to behave unethically when they are low on moral identity and high on negative affectivity through the process of moral disengagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Do Consumers Value Responsible Products? Fair Trade Orientation and Its Impact on Product Loyalty, Price Premium, and Buying Intention" by Sascha Hendrik Langner and colleagues is presented.

By integrating psychological research from the social, cognitive and organizational domains, this symposium explores the factors that contribute to leaders acting ethically and seeks to identify the mechanisms through which such leaders are effective. Factors such as follower isolation, individual mindfulness, and organizational climate were found to be critical in influencing important organizational variables such as follower goal orientation, and unethical follower behavior. We seek to advance ethical leadership research by identifying the antecedents and mechanisms through which ethical leadership has its consequences. This symposium will expound on the interplay between ethical leaders, followers and the surrounding organizational context. Ethical Climate or Ethical Leaders: Does Alignment Matter?. Presenter: Rabiah Sahara Muhammad; U. of Maryland. Presenter: Joo Y. Park; U. of Maryland. Presenter: Paul J Hanges; U. of Maryland. In Good Conscience: Ethical Leadership and Employee Ethical Mindfulness. Presenter: Scott B. Dust; Eastern Kentucky U. Presenter: Christian J. Resick; Drexel U. "How Breached Obligations, Isolation, and Fairness Shape Ethical Leadership Perceptions". Presenter: Craig D. Crossley; U. of Central Florida. Presenter: Maribeth Kuenzi; Southern Methodist U. Presenter: Ronda R. Callister; Utah State U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of negative and positive incidental emotional states on both harmful behavior and prosocial behavior. We hypothesized that negative emotions will reduce harmful behaviors, whereas positive emotions will increase prosocial behaviors. The findings of two empirical studies confirm that negative incidental emotions reduce the likelihood that people would engage in behavior with harmful consequences for others, an effect that is found to be partly mediated by higher-level cognitive processes, such as perceived moral intensity of the issue (Jones, 1991). Contrary to our predictions, we found no evidence for an influence of positive emotional state on prosocial behavior; instead the emotion sadness seemed to induce "compensatory" prosocial behavior. The implications for the role of incidental emotions in influencing ethical decision making and these two types of ethical behavior in a business context are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review of 58 qualitative research papers in the field of business ethics demonstrates how eight different qualitative approaches have been successfully used to study ethical and unethical behavior in organizations. It, furthermore, gives an introduction to the different approaches, their basic assumptions, historical origins and procedures. By outlining the strengths and possible applications of each approach the aim of this review is to support future researchers planning a qualitative research project concerned with business ethics or a similarly complex management topic. As qualitative research in it very essence embraces the art of conveying and interpreting meaning, this review directly addresses this year's overall Academy of Management Annual Meeting theme "The Power of Words". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens when people have repeated opportunities to cheat? Across 5 studies, we gave 2,585 people over 25,000 opportunities to cheat. We observed a consistent pattern: Cheating increased at the end of a series of ethical choices. Cheating took two forms: Participants could repeatedly lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a payoff that they would otherwise not receive (Studies 1-3), or they could repeatedly overbill us for work (Study 5). In both cases, the cheat-at-the-end effect depended on the number of cheating opportunities that remained rather than the number of opportunities they had already faced, making it difficult for depleted self-control or the gradual erosion of moral standards to explain the results. Mediation analysis suggested that anticipated regret about foregoing a last opportunity to enrich oneself explained elevated cheating at the end (Study 4). These results shed light on the psychological and behavioral dynamics of repeated ethical choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that current conceptions of greed, particularly in the workplace, may need improvement in several respects. A review of the literature indicates that while progress has been made in understanding greed at work, difficulties with defining and operationalizing the construct has impeded its development. Given the subjective nature of the construct, it is suggested here that future conceptualizations of greed at work should be empirically developed through an organizational perspective, with particular focus on actor (employee) behavior. Some implications of this perspective are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence and theory on the effects of individualism- collectivism and self-construal on ethical behavior have been inconsistent, suggesting that interdependent construal may be both positively and negatively related to unethical behaviors and values. In order to explain these inconsistencies, we develop theory and hypotheses regarding the role of self-construal in predicting unethical behavior. Importantly, we emphasize the importance of considering who bears to gain from an unethical behavior prior to delineating the effect that self-construal will exert. We test our hypotheses with two lab experiments which utilized random assignment. Based on our results for self-construal, we make inferences regarding cultural differences in individualism- collectivism and unethical behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines what happens when employees witness supervisory abuse in the workplace. In particular, it explores whether--and when--employees will respond to witnessing supervisory abuse of a coworker by engaging in prosocial actions aimed at benefitting the target of abuse. In doing so, it extends work on abusive supervision. Traditionally, abusive supervision research has focused on the impact of abuse on the victim him/herself. However, this work explores the impact of abusive supervision on third party observers. In addition, because abusive supervision represents a form of organizational injustice, this paper extends both work on abusive supervision and third party reactions to injustice by considering the positive, prosocial reactions abuse might trigger in employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]