The Relationship Between Individual Work Values and Unethical Decision-Making and Behavior at Work

• Published in: Journal of business ethics Vol. 158; no. 4; pp. 1133 - 1148
• Main Authors: Arciniega, Luis M., Stanley, Laura J., Puga-Méndez, Diana, Obregón-Schael, Dalia, Politi-Salame, Isaac
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01-09-2019; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavior; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Computers; Customer service; Decision making; Education; Ethics; Management; Original Paper; Philosophy; Power; Professional conduct; Professional ethics; Professional training; Professionals; Quality of Life Research; Quality of service; Ratings & rankings; Sales; Sales workers; Selfenhancement; Software; Students; Values; Work values; Professional conduct; Cyberloafing; Non-work-related computing; Work values; Unethical behavior
• ISSN: 0167-4544; 1573-0697
• DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3764-3

This paper explores the relationship between individual work values and unethical decision-making and actual 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 rate power as a relatively important value (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 principles. Study 2, which examines a group of employees from an IT firm, demonstrates that those rating power as an important value 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.