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Employees’ ethics at work are driven by individual, issue-specific, and environmental factors. Building an ethical company requires addressing them all.What causes employees to steal, lie, or behave aggressively? Unethical behaviours like these can be driven by individual, issue-specific, and environmental factors. Researchers Jennifer Kish-Gephart, David Harrison, and Linda Treviño analyzed 136 academic studies of ethical and unethical choices. They examined what leads to unethical intentions and behavior and how employers can reduce it. 3 Reasons for Unethical BehaviourThe researchers describe the different factors as “bad apples” (individual factors), “bad cases” (issue-specific factors) and “bad barrels” (environmental factors). Here’s how they play out.
Two things that don’t influence ethical choices: Research doesn’t support two common ideas about what drives ethical behaviour. Demographic qualities —employee age, gender, and educational level — have little effect on unethical action. And, the existence of a code of conduct does not curb unethical actions, although enforcement of such a code does. The researchers suggest that stated codes of conduct have become so common that they have lost their power. How to Keep Employees EthicalStrategies exist for addressing bad apples, cases and barrels. The researchers recommend these actions for companies.
Make Ethical Choices AutomaticOften ethical choices are impulsive, rather than calculated, the researchers report. People first do things, and later rationalize them, or first feel things, and later think about them. This tendency means that ethical choices need to become almost automatic. David Harrison told NBS: “Repeated, regular engagement with ethical matters and routine processing in moral ways is going to reap the most dividends. Ethical habits, organizational cultures, and consistent norms, along with the personality features and individual differences, shape outcomes.” After all, we all tend to follow our self-interested impulses. “The key to solutions for all of the causes is to find some way to check that impulse,” said Harrison. Making good decisions automatic is the best way to do that, and businesses can do a lot to create a context that supports that effort. This article was originally published in 2010 and updated in 2020 and 2022 through exchange with the researchers. Linda Treviño, David Harrison, and Jennifer Kish-Gephart reviewed the article and contributed new insights. Read the researchKish-Gephart, J., David A. Harrison, and Linda Klebe Treviño. 2010. Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1): 1-31. Join the ConversationShare this post:
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