The social organization of managerial definitions of unethical behavior

Abstract

This investigation attempted to ascertain whether managerial perceptions of potentially unethical business conduct, and recommendations for social control, vary according to the social characteristics of the employee committing the behavior. Subjects consisted of management personnel from a variety of industries. Data was gathered via instruments developed for this research. Instruments consisted of (1) a description of an employee; (2) a description of a potentially unethical behavior committed by the employee; and (3) scales for subjects to (a) rate the seriousness of the employee's behavior and (b) recommend the social control they would use against the employee. Perceptions of seriousness did vary significantly with variations in the employee's social characteristics. However, recommendations for social control did not vary with changes in employee characteristics. Thus, whereas observers may judge the ethicality of socially decontextualized behaviors against universally held standards of morality, observers become less adamant about these standards as the behavior becomes more contextualized.