Assessing the impact of work values on ethical decision making and behavior in professional contexts

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between individual work values and unethical decision making and behavior at work, through two complementary studies. Specifically, we use a robust and comprehensive model of individual work values to predict unethical decision making in a sample of working professionals and accounting students enrolled in ethics courses, and IT employees working in sales and customer service. Study 1 demonstrates that young professionals who value power (i.e., those reporting high levels of the self-enhancement value) are more likely to violate professional conduct guidelines despite receiving training regarding ethical professional guidelines. Study 2, which examines a group of employees from an IT firm, demonstrates that those who value power are more likely to engage in non-work-related computing (i.e., cyberloafing) even when they are aware of a monitoring software that tracks their computer usage and an explicit policy prohibiting the use of these computers for personal reasons. Together, these studies provide evidence that individual work values influence ethical decision-making and behavior. Furthermore, our study is the first to use individual work values to predict unethical behavior and decision-making in a professional context.