ethics at its birthplace.

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Title:On ethics and competitiveness: understanding business graduate students' perceptions.(Report) Pub:Competition Forum Detail:Gwen E. Jones, Linda Cannilla and Joan Slepian. 8.2 (July 2010): p.220(7). (4238 words) From Academic OneFile.

Abstract:

At no greater time in the history of our world market economy has ethics played such an important role in our competitive advantage. In this study, graduate business students rated 20 unethical workplace behaviors in terms of moral wrongfulness. Understanding the perceptions of the students--who will become our future business leaders-- will positively impact how we tailor our educational objectives and how we manage and work with individual differences in organizations. Ratings were compared across gender and across domestic versus international students (primarily from India). Both comparisons were statistically significant and follow-up analyses identified individual items that were rated differently across the groups. Implications from these findings for future research, education, and management of organizations are discussed.

Keywords: Unethical workplace behaviors, Business student perceptions, Gender differences, Cultural differences

Full Text:COPYRIGHT 2010 American Society for Competitiveness

INTRODUCTION

In the past decade, we have witnessed the collapse of giants such as Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Andersen. Recently, we have seen major financial firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapse, leading to the so- called meltdown of global financial markets. The very recent passage of the Wall Street Reform Bill, which calls for transparency, accountability, and governance of the banking and finance industry, clearly denotes a refocus on ethics in business. Goldman Sachs is under investigation for unethical practices. Bernard Madoff has become a household name for his activities that created the largest Ponzi scheme in history and cost clients over $50 billion. Many are calling the financial recession an ethics recession (Kidder, 2009) because of the lapse in moral character and ethically sound judgment that undermines the crisis. Business ethics continues to be an undeniably important subject and is fundamental to a competitive global market.

How has our current financial and business ethics climate affected the perception and views of our future business leaders? In this study, we asked graduate business students to rate the moral wrongfulness of unethical workplace behaviors generated from the literature. We examined differences across gender and across American students versus non-U.S. students and also how these results compare to results from prior similar studies 'pre-Enron'. Understanding the perceptions of business students helps to not only understand if our business education is succeeding, but it also helps us tailor our curriculum to fit and adapt to our changing student body.

DeGeorge (2006) defines ethics as "the systematic attempt to make sense of our individual and social moral experience, in such a way as to determine the rules that ought to govern human conduct, the values worth pursuing, and the character traits deserving development in life" (p. 19-20). Many studies have examined the perceptions of business students on unethical workplace behaviors or dilemmas and reported differences across biographical variables such as age, gender, country of origin, and major. Again, understanding the general differences in perceptions across demographic lines can aid in tailoring our education and in how we manage and work with individual differences.

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Gender differences continue to fascinate researchers of ethics because of the changing gender demographics of the workforce. As a greater proportion of women are in leadership roles in companies, will global markets and economies exhibit overall more ethical practices and behaviors? Another reason gender continues to be investigated is that studies have not been conclusive, results have been mixed, but generally the body of research demonstrates a tendency for females to respond more ethically than males to ethical dilemmas or to deem behaviors as more unethical. In a large, nationally representative survey study done by Patterson and Kim (1991), it was found that less than half as many women as men reported believing that the only way to get ahead was to cheat. Moreover, differences in responses across gender showed that women are less willing to compromise their values in order to get ahead. Borowski and Ugras (1998) conducted a metaanalysis of 47 empirical studies from 1985 to 1994 reporting the ethical attitudes and behavior of business students and found that women were found overall to report more ethical attitudes and behavior than men. More recent studies (e.g., Joseph, Berry, & Deshpande, 2010; Alleyne, Devonish, Allman, Charles-Soverall, & Marshall, 2010; McCabe, Ingram, & Dato-on, 2006) reported gender differences in the direction of women responding more ethically or viewing unethical behavior as more wrong.

The reason for the tendency toward women to respond more ethically is unclear from the theoretical literature. However, most research cites Gilligan's (1982) and Noddings' (1984) assertions that females and males hold a different set of criteria for determining what actions are moral. These researchers (Choderow, 1974; Gilligan, 1982; Noddings, 1984; Beutel & Marini, 1995) have consistently found that females across cultures are socialized to be more emotionally expressive, to exhibit an "ethic of care," interdependence, value the needs of others, and altruism. In contrast, men are socialized to be more independent and competitive (Choderow, 1974; Keller, 1985). Thus, based on the prior theoretical and empirical literature, we hypothesize that women will tend to rate unethical workplace behaviors as more morally wrong than will men.

A secondary demographic variable that we examined was differences between U.S.-born graduate business students and international students. It is often the case in graduate business school classes that there are a contingency of non- American students studying from abroad. In our sample, non-U.S. students were primarily from India. It is important to understand differences for better instruction of the students and also to manage individual differences in the workplace. Interestingly, there is a paucity of research comparing Indian to U.S. students or professionals in their attitudes and behaviors toward unethical workplace issues. This is not the case for comparisons between the Chinese and Americans, which have shown differences in perceptions of unethical workplace behavior are significant (Jones, 2009). Chan, Ip, and Lam (2009) identified 90 studies reported in the Journal of Business Ethics between 1999 and 2009 on Chinese ethical perceptions. India is rapidly following China as a major economic force and we need to understand Indian culture and values to remain competitive.

It is surprising there is so little research on Indian comparisons with U.S. students or professionals on ethical perceptions. Some studies have looked at values of Indian managers in the workplace (e.g., Malhotra, 1985; Soares, 1981). Cyriac (1994) and reported that Indian managers tended to have a Machiavellian orientation. In 1978, England compared values of Indian respondents with those of several other countries. He concluded that Indian managers were morally oriented unlike American managers who tended to be more pragmatically oriented and posited that American managers would be more influenced by economic aspects of behavior and decisions, whereas Indian managers would be more influenced by bureaucratic consequences of actions.

Hofstede's (1980) dimension of cultures derived from his empirical data from many countries is useful for comparison of cultural values and resulting perceptions. Indians value more of a collectivist orientation (collective effort, responsibility, conformity), whereas Americans are highly individualistic (individual work performance and achievement). Indians value a higher power distance (unquestioned authority, respect for hierarchy) than Americans. Indians are somewhat higher on uncertainty avoidance as compared to Americans, and therefore could be less tolerant of ambiguity or risk. Indians also value a more long term orientation than do Americans. It is hypothesized that there will be differences in perceptions of the moral wrongfulness of unethical behaviors between Indian and American students because of these underlying value dimensions, but the nature of those differences is purely

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speculative and exploratory in this study.

METHOD

Subjects were 105 students enrolled in graduate business courses at a large northeastern private university. All subjects were asked to sign a consent form indicating their understanding that the survey was confidential and voluntary. Of the valid responses, 54 percent were male and 46 percent were female with a mean age of 26.4. The majority were Caucasian (44 percent) or Asian/Asian American (38 percent). Fifty-five percent of respondents indicated they were a U.S. citizen and 45 percent indicated that they were not. Note that 91 percent of the non-U.S. citizens were of Asian race (primarily from India). Regarding employment, 56 percent were currently employed, with a mean of 4.2 (SD = 5.12) years full time work experience and 1.3 (SD = 2.31) years supervisory experience.

Behaviors are considered to be of an unethical nature when there is a value judgment that distinguishes right from wrong. Twenty frequent or widely known unethical workplace behaviors representing a range of moral wrongfulness intensity (Jones, 1991) from high intensity (e.g., polluting the environment), to low intensity (e.g., padding expense accounts) were identified in the literature, primarily from Ruch and Newstrom (1975), Thompson (1990), and the Ethics Resource Center (2009). The behaviors included those impacting society (e.g., marketing unsafe products, polluting the environment), those impacting the organization (e.g., embezzling company funds, falsifying invoices), and those impacting individuals (e.g., abusive behavior, passing blame for errors to an innocent coworker). A definition was provided for each of the 20 behaviors. Subjects were asked to rate each behavior on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not morally wrong) to 7 (extremely morally wrong). Two versions of the survey were distributed with the behaviors printed in reverse alphabetical order in the second version to reduce order effects bias. Finally, subjects were asked to complete a short biographical questionnaire.

RESULTS

Table 1 shows the overall mean moral wrongfulness ratings and standard deviations for the all subjects. A higher mean indicates a higher perceived degree of moral wrongfulness. Note that those unethical issues that have face validity on the dimension of moral issue intensity are rated appropriately. More specifically, issues that have high moral issue intensity, such as marketing unsafe products (possibly killing someone) are also rated as highly morally wrong, and those of a low moral issue intensity, such as using company supplies for personal use (stealing, but more on the level of petty theft) are rated as not so morally wrong.

A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to test for gender differences in rated moral wrongfulness of the 20 unethical workplace behaviors. The results for gender were significant (Wilks [OMEGA] = .630, F = 2.23, p < .01). As a result, univariate analyses of variance were performed for each of the 20 items. Mean ratings of moral wrongfulness and the univariate F ratios are shown in Table 2. As can be seen, while most items did not significantly differ across gender statistically, there were four items that women were more likely to rate as more morally wrong than men. The four items rated higher by women were (1) marketing unsafe products, (2) discriminating unfairly based on sex, race, religion, etc., (3) abusive or harassing behavior, and (4) failing to report coworkers' violations of company rules or policies.

A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was also conducted to test for differences between domestic and international students on rated moral wrongfulness of the 20 unethical workplace behaviors. These results were also significant (Wilks [OMEGA] = .563, F = 2.95, p < .001). Follow up, univariate analyses of variance were performed

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for each of the 20 items and these results are shown in Table 3. Six items were statistically significantly different across the two groups. Specifically, four items were rated by international students as more morally wrong than by American students: (1) marketing unsafe products, (2) polluting the environment, (3) using company materials, supplies, or services for personal use, and (4) conducting personal business on company time. Two items were rated by international students as less morally wrong than by American students: (1) disclosing confidential employee information and (2) covering up company errors.

DISCUSSION

This research examined the relative differences in moral wrongfulness of unethical workplace behaviors as perceived by graduate business students. These behaviors ranged in terms of moral issue intensity and whether they impacted society, the organization, or individuals. Overall, the behavior rated as most morally wrong was 'Embezzling company funds.' In a prior study conducted before the Enron collapse (Jones & Yao, 1999), we administered the nearly same list of items to business graduate students and embezzling was not the highest mean. The sample reported here were surveyed in spring of 2010, and have 'grown up' in an age of business scandals and keen attention to the role of ethics in business. Jeff Skilling of Enron and Bernie Madoff may have done much to raise awareness of the consequences of embezzlement and creative accounting on the financial world. We found it interesting that 'polluting the environment' was not higher, with the recent emphasis on sustainability and greening business. This item was actually rated near the top in the 1999 study. This finding calls for business curriculum to place more focus on sustainability and its ethical consequences for business.

This study also examined differences in mean ratings across gender. The findings support prior research that has also found that women tend to rate or perceive unethical behaviors as more morally reprehensible. Women perceived 'embezzling company funds', 'marketing unsafe products', 'discriminating unfairly', and 'abusive or harassing behavior' to be e qually and most morally wrong. Men, however, rated all of these except 'embezzling company funds' as significantly lower in moral wrongfulness than did women. The male result for 'marketing unsafe products' is surprising since this is a potentially lethal business act. In the 1999 study, it was found overall to be the most morally wrong behavior. Finding gender differences between the behaviors of discrimination and abusive behavior makes sense in that woman historically have struggled with these issues in the workplace more than men and thus may be more sensitized to these acts as morally wrong. Lastly, a highly significant difference was found between men and women for 'failing to report coworkers' violations of company rules and policies'. This was rated low relative to other items, but much higher for women. The Ethics Resource Center (2009) reported that whistleblowing is up from two years prior ("more employees said they had reported misconduct when they observed it; 63 percent in 2009, up from 58 percent in 2007 (p. 9). Whether this could be due to gender differences was not reported. However, our study suggests that woman feel more of a sense of duty to report wrongdoings in the workplace. In educational settings, we may want to foster this for woman and raise more awareness with men regarding the morality of whistleblowing.

In addition, this study examined differences in perceptions of unethical workplace behaviors between domestic and international students. The international students were primarily from India and thus cultural value differences between the U.S. and India were thought to possibly manifest differences in perceptions. One clear difference is that the international sample reported 'marketing unsafe products' as the most morally wrong act, which was not the case for the American students, who rated it significantly lower. The standard deviation is very low for the international students (SD = .64), but high for the American students (SD = 1.61). In addition, 'polluting the environment',

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another potentially lethal act and high on moral issue intensity as well, was rated statistically significantly more ethically wrong by international students than domestic students. Future research might investigate why these items were not rated higher by the American students.

'Using company materials, supplies, or services for personal use' and 'conducting personal business on company time' were rated the lowest of all the behaviors by the domestic students. The international students rated these two items significantly higher on moral wrongfulness. Perhaps in America these are viewed as 'perks', are the 'norm', and not so wrong to do these acts. In addition, this may be a manifestation of the individualist (American) versus collectivist (Indian) value orientation. These two behaviors impact one's organization and a collectivist-oriented individual may perceive acts against the group or organization to be more wrong. Conversely, American students reported 'disclosing confidential employee information, and 'covering up company errors' to be more morally wrong than did the internationals. Americans may value individual privacy (again from the individualistic value) more than Indians. In addition, they may not feel as much group loyalty (collectivism) to the organization and feel it is morally wrong not to expose or whistleblow on the company's wrongdoings, whereas Indians may feel they are betraying their organization or being disloyal to the group, and therefore try to protect the reputation of their organization.

While this study exhibits some interesting results, several study limitations should be noted. First, this was a relatively small sample of students. Generalizing to all graduate students or professionals in the workplace is cautioned. In addition, the sample was relatively young and inexperienced. The international student sample was quite small and, again, may not be representative even of Indian students. Future research should sample students from a variety of schools representing the diverse population of graduate business students. In addition, we found very little research on cross-cultural comparisons with India. Given this country's growing impact on the world economy, as well as the influx of students and workers from this country to America, we should be looking at these cultural differences to enhance our competitive advantage. Finally, while we attempted to mitigate item order effects by reversing the order of items in the second version of the survey, a randomization of items across several survey versions would better counter any order (item comparison) biases. We are truly in an era of an 'ethical' recession. It is important to understand how our students and future business professionals perceive unethical workplace behaviors so that we can better gauge our classroom instruction and management practices. As America and the world continues to face challenges in the market economy, remaining competitive will require strong ethics in the culture of organizations (Kidder, 2009) as well as the individuals who comprise them. Perceptions and attitudes affect behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and at no time has it been more important to understand ethics in business.

REFERENCES

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Beutel, A., & Marini M. (1995). Gender and values. American Sociological Review, 60, 436-448

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England, G. W. (1978). Managers and their value systems: A five country study. Columbia Journal of World Business, 13, 35-44.

Ethics Resource Center. (2009). 2009 National business ethics survey. Arlington, VA: Ethics Resource Center. www.ethics.org

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.

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Jones, G. E. (2009). Differences in the perceptions of unethical workplace behaviors among Chinese and American business professionals. Journal of Global Competitiveness, 7(2), 473-480.

Jones, G. E., & Yao, Y. (1999). A comparative analysis of the perceived moral wrongfulness of workplace behaviors: East meets west. In T. Peridis (Ed.), Proceedings of the international Eastern Academy of Management.

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Jones, T. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 79, 97-116.

Joseph, J., Berry, K., & Deshpande, S. P. (2010). Factors that impact the ethical behavior of college students. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(5), 27.

Keller, E. (1985). Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kidder, R. M. (2009). The ethics recession. Rockland, ME: The Institute for Global Ethics.

Malhotra, A. (1985, Jan.). Value erosion among Indian managers. Business India, 14-27.

McCabe, A. C., Ingram, R., & Dato-on, M. C. (2006). The business of ethics and gender. Journal of Business Ethics, 64, 101-116.

Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Patterson, J., & Kim, P. (1991). The day America told the truth. New York: Prentice Hall.

Ruch, N., & Newstrom, J. (1975). How ethical are we? Supervisory Management, 11, 16-21.

Soares, F. (1981, Oct.). Values of Indian managers, the basis of progress. Business India, 32-38.

Thompson, B. L. (1990). Ethics training enters the real world. Training, 27(10), 82-94.

Gwen E. Jones, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Linda Cannilla, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Joan Slepian, Fairleigh Dickinson University

TABLE 1: Ratings of the Unethical Behaviors from Most to Least Morally Wrong by Graduate Business Students Unethical Behavior Mean Std Dev Embezzling company funds 6.53 1.08 Marketing unsafe products 6.32 1.30 Discriminating unfairly based on sex, race, 6.30 1.03 religion, etc. Passing blame for errors to an innocent coworker 6.20 1.23 Abusive or harassing behavior 6.16 1.13 Using unsafe production techniques 5.97 1.23 Claiming credit for someone else's work 5.96 1.11 Polluting the environment 5.95 1.33 Stealing company equipment or inventory 5.89 1.40 Disclosing confidential employee information 5.82 1.37

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Falsifying invoices 5.73 1.40 Presenting false or misleading advertising 5.73 1.27 Padding expense accounts 5.70 1.29 Covering up company errors 5.56 1.45 Falsifying time or quality reports 5.34 1.31 Accepting gifts or favors in exchange for 5.04 1.59 preferential treatment Giving gifts or favors in exchange for preferential 4.85 1.62 treatment Failing to report coworkers' violations of company 4.82 1.31 rules or policies Using company materials, supplies, or services for 4.44 1.63 personal use Conducting personal business on company time 4.25 1.62 N = 105 TABLE 2: Mean Differences in Rated Moral Wrongfulness for 20 Unethical Workplace Behaviors by Men and Women Men's Rating Unethical Behavior Mean Std Dev Embezzling company funds 6.56 .83 Passing blame for errors to an innocent 6.33 .96 coworker Marketing unsafe products 6.12 1.58 Stealing company equipment or inventory 6.12 1.20 Discriminating unfairly based on sex, 6.06 1.16 race, religion, etc. Polluting the environment 6.00 1.33 Claiming credit for someone else's work 5.94 1.07 Abusive or harassing behavior 5.88 1.08 Using unsafe production techniques 5.88 1.28 Disclosing confidential employee 5.71 1.33 information

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Falsifying invoices 5.50 1.42 Padding expense accounts 5.67 1.23 Presenting false or misleading 5.65 1.41 advertising Covering up company errors 5.65 1.33 Falsifying time or quality reports 5.35 1.24 Accepting gifts or favors in exchange for preferential treatment 4.77 1.60 Giving gifts or favors in exchange for preferential treatment 4.63 1.61 Failing to report coworkers' violations 4.50 1.28 of company rules or policies Using company materials, supplies, 4.44 1.69 or services for personal use Conducting personal business on company 4.40 1.62 time Women's Rating Unethical Behavior Mean Std Dev F Embezzling company funds 6.58 1.12 .010 Passing blame for errors to an innocent 6.07 1.32 1.25 coworker Marketing unsafe products 6.58 .78 3.17 * Stealing company equipment or inventory 5.69 1.54 2.36 Discriminating unfairly based on sex, 6.58 .81 6.34 ** race, religion, etc. Polluting the environment 5.93 1.30 .06 Claiming credit for someone else's work 5.96 1.13 .00 Abusive or harassing behavior 6.51 .84 9 93 ***

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Using unsafe production techniques 5.93 1.21 .04 Disclosing confidential employee 6.07 1.27 1.79 information Falsifying invoices 5.96 1.19 2.88 Padding expense accounts 5.73 1.21 .06 Presenting false or misleading 5.73 1.18 .09 advertising Covering up company errors 5.58 1.37 .08 Falsifying time or quality reports 5.36 1.26 .00 Accepting gifts or favors in exchange 2.11 for preferential treatment 5.22 1.44 Giving gifts or favors in exchange for preferential treatment 5.07 1.41 1.96 Failing to report coworkers' violations 5.22 1.15 8 49 *** of company rules or policies Using company materials, supplies, 4.36 1.42 .07 or services for personal use Conducting personal business on company 4.27 1.60 .17 time * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001 TABLE 3: Mean Differences in Rated Moral Wrongfulness for 20 Unethical Workplace Behaviors by Graduate Business Students U.S. Citizens and non-U.S. Citizens US Rating Unethical Behavior Mean Std Dev Embezzling company funds 6.55 1.11 Discriminating unfairly based on sex, 6.34 .96 race, religion, etc. Abusive or harassing behavior 6.21 1.01

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Disclosing confidential employee 6.13 1.02 information Marketing unsafe products 6.06 1.61 Passing blame for errors to an 6.06 1.23 innocent coworker Covering up company errors 5.96 1.04 Claiming credit for someone else's 5.85 1.15 work Stealing company equipment or 5.77 1.31 inventory Polluting the environment 5.74 1.55 Using unsafe production techniques 5.72 1.41 Falsifying invoices 5.66 1.33 Padding expense accounts 5.58 1.23 Presenting false or misleading 5.49 1.45 advertising Falsifying time or quality reports 5.42 1.12 Accepting gifts or favors in exchange 5.08 1.56 for preferential treatment Giving gifts or favors in exchange for 4.87 1.56 preferential treatment Failing to report coworkers' 4.66 1.26 violations of company rules or policies Using company materials, supplies, or 3.94 1.38 services for personal use Conducting personal business on 3.85 1.45 company time Non-U.S. Rating

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Unethical Behavior Mean Std Dev F Embezzling company funds 6.59 7.9 .05 Discriminating unfairly based on sex, 6.25 1.14 .18 race, religion, etc. Abusive or harassing behavior 6.14 1.05 .12 Disclosing confidential employee 5.57 1.55 4.63 * information Marketing unsafe products 6.66 .64 5.50 *

Passing blame for errors to an 6.39 1.02 2.02 innocent coworker Covering up company errors 5.09 1.60 10 47 *** Claiming credit for someone else's 6.07 1.02 .97 work Stealing company equipment or 6.18 1.37 2.24 inventory Polluting the environment 6.25 .89 3.81 * Using unsafe production techniques 6.14 .98 2.79 Falsifying invoices 5.77 1.34 .17 Padding expense accounts 5.84 1.20 1.06 Presenting false or misleading 5.93 1.07 2.81 advertising Falsifying time or quality reports 5.23 1.36 .56 Accepting gifts or favors in exchange 4.73 1.61 1.17 for preferential treatment Giving gifts or favors in exchange for 4.66 1.57 .43 preferential treatment Failing to report coworkers' 5.09 1.29 2.76 violations of company rules or policies

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Using company materials, supplies, or 5.05 1.48 14 39 *** services for personal use Conducting personal business on 4.98 1.50 13 99 *** company time * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Source Citation Jones, Gwen E., Linda Cannilla, and Joan Slepian. "On ethics and competitiveness: understanding business graduate students' perceptions." Competition Forum July 2010: 220+. Academic OneFile. Web. 16 Mar. 2011.

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