Likelihood Of Unethical Behavior Research Articles

A Paradox of Ethics: Why People in Good Organizations do Bad Things

This article takes a novel approach to explaining the causes of unethical behavior in organizations. Instead of explaining the unethical behavior of employees in terms of their bad organization, this article examines how a good organization can lead to employees’ unethical behavior. The main idea is that the more ethical an organization becomes, the higher, in some respects, is the likelihood of unethical behavior. This is due to four threatening forces that become stronger when an organization becomes more ethical. These forces are the upward, downward, backward, and forward forces. Each of these forces is illustrated with two effects and each effect is explained by a specific theory. The effects are the effects of the gold digger, high-jump bar, retreating-cat, forbidden-fruit, cheese slicer, moving-spotlight, repeat-prescription, and keeping-up appearances. This paradox of ethics, when goodness breeds badness, opens new research directions.

“Hit the Bricks, Buddy”: Nepotism and the Dark Side of Reinventing Government

The Reinventing Government (ReGo) movement that was popularized during the 1990's by Osborne and Gaebler’s 1992 book of the same title is founded on the concept of “managerialism,” which has “management rights” as its core theme (Shafritz & Russell, 2005). The principle of management rights advocates wideranging discretion for administrators in the decision-making process that can possibly circumvent the constitutional value of due process in the public sector. With this questionable allowance, unscrupulous public administrators have the opportunity to employ patronage practices beyond acceptable limits that allows a “spoils system” of favoritism to prevail over merit practices. In this article, the concept of “spoils in government” is linked to reinventing government precepts that allow corruption to become ingrained within an organization’s culture. As a consequence, opportunities for ethical violations of office increase relative to the degree of discretionary authority afforded to public administrators. Should a corruptible individual assume office in such an environment, the likelihood of unethical behavior becomes relatively certain. A case study of nepotism from the same decade of reinventing government is documented that illustrates how the implementation of an employment pool in the hiring process of a municipal fire department permitted unethical violations of due process by its fire chief. The discretional authority afforded to a corruptible fire chief in the name of managerialism reinstated a culture of favoritism prevalent within the department from earlier days. The resulting public scandal was sensational but shortlived and was ineffectual in redressing the wrongs brought about by the misuse of authority. The discretionary hiring process not only continues in the department to this day but has been expanded to include promotions.

The Effects of Different Types of Internal Controls on Employee Self-Control

One key reason companies implement internal controls is to reduce the likelihood of unethical behavior. Yet, research on ego depletion from psychology suggests that some controls may cause reductions in employees’ self-control, which could lead to increases in unethical behavior. Therefore, this study examines how different types of controls — namely preventive, detective with immediate feedback, and detective with delayed feedback — impact self-control and ethical judgments. Based on the results of three different experiments with 462 participants, we find no significant relation between self-control and the types of internal controls tested. Furthermore, we find that the types of controls tested have no effect on ethical judgments or ethical ideology. Thus, our results suggest that controls in general and some types of internal controls do not differentially impact self-control.

Chinese Auditors' Ethical Behavior in an Audit Conflict Situation

This paper draws on the economics of ethical compliance model to examine the association between ethical reasoning, perceived risk of detection, perceived levels of penalties and Chinese auditors' ethical behavior in an audit conflict situation. Using 53 Chinese auditors from Shenzen as subjects, and a survey questionnaire, this study found that there is a significant negative association between ethical reasoning and the likelihood of unethical behavior and that this negative association is weaker for auditors who perceive higher risks of detection.