Search

Little is known about how ethical organizational contexts influence employees’ perceived stress levels and well-being. This study used two theoretical lenses, ethical impact theory (Promislo et al. in Handbook of Unethical Work Behavior, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, 2013) and ethical decision-making theory (Schwartz in J Bus Ethics 139(4): 755–776, 2016), to investigate the relationships among perceived organizational ethics (comprised of ethical climate, leader/manager ethics, and corporate social responsibility), work-related stress, and employee well-being (comprised of vitality, life satisfaction, personal growth initiative, flourishing, positive mental health, and self-actualization). Findings across two studies indicated that organizational ethics was negatively related to work-related stress, and that work-related stress was negatively related to employee well-being. Perceived organizational ethics is positively related to employee well-being, with post hoc mediation tests indicating that work-related stress partially mediates this relationship. Our findings suggest that organizations should be proactive in improving their ethical climate, such as choosing ethical leaders, developing a robust and well-communicated code of ethics, and actively practicing CSR. These measures should reduce excessive work-related stress and improve employee well-being.

Business ethics education is most effective when students take an active approach and must respond to various demands and feedback. In this paper we describe a classroom exercise in which students are tasked with delivering an ethics briefing to “executive teams” (role played by other students or even by real executives). Through a combination of individual analysis and group work, students become immersed in real-world ethics problem-solving, in which there are no easy solutions. Students must defend their ethical recommendations as well as challenge those from other groups. The exercise concerns an existing controversial business called Seeking Arrangement. Survey results from graduate students who have participated in the exercise reveal that it is effective in producing better ethics problem solving, as well as greater confidence in addressing ethical issues.

Force feedback during teleoperation and in Virtual Reality (VR) environments is becoming increasingly common. We are interested in understanding the impact of motion on the directional accuracy of force perception, as observed in a VR environment. We used a custom force-feedback system that pulled a handle with a force of 1.87N at various angles in front of N=14 subjects. The virtual environment showed a curved wall, which corresponded to the locations from which the force could physically originate. Subjects selected where they perceived the force to originate from with a virtual laser pointer and by orienting their head. We compared several conditions: the subject held the handle still; the subject moved the handle back and forth toward the center of the wall; the subject moved the handle back and forth across their body; and the subject moved the handle back and forth toward where they thought the force was originating. Subjects were able to localize the force with an average accuracy of 1–10 degrees depending on the force’s location, which is better than previous studies. All conditions had similar accuracies. Subjects had the best precision when they followed the force as compared to either of the other conditions with movement. As a secondary objective, we compared the accuracy of a hand-held controller and the head-mounted display (HMD); the HMD was 2.4 degrees more precise than the hand-held controller.

In this essay, we explore the misinformation that management professors give to students in the classroom. Although faculty do not intend to deceive students with this misinformation, nevertheless, it can have damaging consequences, including undermining students’ well-being and limiting their aspirations. We discuss two general types of misleading statements: misinformation about the economic model (e.g., that money and material possessions lead to happiness) and misinformation about what matters in life (e.g., that career success is the most important component in the fabric of life). Most of this misinformation is deeply rooted in our materialistic culture and economic system, and a belief in profit maximization as a predominant goal. Last, we discuss ways in which faculty can escape from providing this misinformation and help students find fulfilling paths in life.

Increased focus on spirituality issues over the past few decades has extended into the area of organizational science, to the degree that it has been asserted as a distinct discipline by researchers and practitioners. The most commonly accepted reason for this is that as individuals experience social anomie as a function of our increasingly mobile society, they are looking to their work environments to fulfill needs for belonging, social interaction, and feelings of significance (Jurkiewicz and Grossman 2012). This, combined with a trend toward seeking spiritual solutions to balance rapid business and social changes (Cash et al. 2000), enhanced by an overall shift toward socially responsible values, has increased attention toward spiritual issues in the workplace. Although the growth of research in this area has been rapid, there is much yet to be learned about the variables that impact its integration into in the workplace and whether any benefits observed can be sustained over time. Further, the definition of workplace spirituality has taken a number of permutations over time (Dent et al. 2005), making it a challenge to measure the same things in the same way (Davis et al. 2015; Kim et al. 2016). The definition given the greatest credence and used in the majority of studies on the topic is the one adopted here: workplace spirituality refers to the “aspects of the workplace, either in the individual, the group, or the organization, that promote individual feelings of satisfaction through transcendence” (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz 2010).

Finance is an area that, in practice, is plagued by accusations of unethical activity; the study of finance had adopted a largely nonbehavioral approach to business ethics research. We address this gap in by assessing whether individual ethical orientations (moral identity, idealism, relativism, integrity, Machiavellianism) predict the acceptability of questionable decisions about financial issues. Results show that individual ethical orientations are associated with different levels of acceptability of questionable decisions about financial issues, though the pattern of these differences varies across individual ethical orientations assessed. These results represent evidence that ethical individual differences are associated with the acceptability of questionable finance decisions and are discussed in terms of methodological limitations and future directions in finance ethics research.

The issue of the dimensionality of materialism and postmaterialism, and their impact on key social and personal indicators, has been a hotly debated topic for decades. This study sought to achieve two goals to further our understanding of these constructs. First, it assessed whether an interactive materialism–postmaterialism conceptualization could be expanded to predict outcomes related to well-being. Second, the study extended the interactive model by using Richins’ three dimensions of materialism instead of the unidimensional construct utilized in previous studies. Results indicated that the interactive model successfully predicted three different measures of well-being, specifically physical symptoms, stress, and subjective vitality. Results are discussed in terms of extending materialism–postmaterialism theory, both with respect to refining the materialism construct as well as its associations with new criterion variables.

How might one conceptualize the ethical organization? The argument presented here is that the truly ethical organization accentuates three main components. First it must be law-abiding in its basic execution of its organizational ethical responsibility. Second, the organization must exercise strong ethical leadership in its day-to-day operations and policies. Finally, at the organizational level, there must be ongoing monitoring processes ensuring compliance of the organization. Specific techniques for consistent, ongoing monitoring and enforcement of ethical compliance by an objective party are described.

Following on theoretical work and studies that assert a relationship between unethical activities and diminished well-being, and a common belief that those more ethically inclined experience greater well-being, the present study examined whether individual differences in ethical orientation may be associated with the experience of well-being. This paper reports the findings of two separate studies showing that individual differences in moral attentiveness, moral identity, idealism, relativism, and integrity were associated with differences in a wide range of well-being measures. Of particular significance is not all ethical orientations were found to contribute to well-being. In fact, some negatively impacted individual levels of well-being. Implications for integrating these new findings into existing ethical theory and considerations for future research are explored.

The literature on organizational ethicality to date has focused primarily on elements of the cultural, social, and political factors that enhance positive behaviors, interspersed with isolated accounts of malfeasance and wrongdoing. This treatise defines the anatomy of organizational dysfunction as a matter of ethicality, reframing the relationship from individual transgression to the organization itself. It is argued that the structure of an organization predisposes in large part whether it is itself conducive or prohibitive to unethical acts. Our approach allows for a new stream of ethics research whose focus is how an organization functions rather than on the specific acts of those within it.

Research indicates that a heightened value of materialism has negative outcomes for subjective well-being. But organizations may see materialism in employees as an important antecedent of productivity and utilize this value to achieve organizational goals. At issue is whether materialism results in negative effects on employee behavior at work, which in turn implies negative effects on fellow employees and the organization. This study investigates the relationship between materialism and two indicators of behavior at work: organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance. Results show a significant negative materialism-organizational citizenship behavior relationship and a positive materialism-interpersonal deviance relationship. Materialism was not significantly related to organizational deviance. These results support the concern that materialistic values lead to negative behavioral consequences, which in turn affect fellow employees and the organization. In supplementary analyses we failed to find evidence that materialism is significantly related to task performance, further questioning organizational attempts to create or utilize this value.

We propose that some of our students are socialized with destructive thinking toward ethics and virtue that distorts their mind-sets long before they enter our classrooms. Students are exposed to a...

In this article, the authors integrate the theory of work adjustment (Dawis, England, & Lofquist, 1964) and the stressor emotion model of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs; Spector & Fox, 2005) to examine workplace frustration as an intervening mechanism that mediates relations between person-environment (P-E) fit and CWBs. Moreover, we adopt a multifoci perspective to estimate effects for multiple fit, frustration, and CWB foci. We examine the nature of relations between fit, frustration, and CWB for like foci (target similar effects), as well as cross-foci effects. Study 1 examines proposed effects in a sample of 447 employee-coworker dyads. Study 2 uses a 3-wave survey design and tests effects in a sample of 669 employees. Results from both studies suggest that (a) frustration mediates the effects of P-E fit on CWBs and (b) the most consistent effects were observed among the variables with matching foci. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Although organizations can derive competitive advantage from developing and implementing information systems, they are confronted with a rising number of unethical information practices. Because end-users and computer experts are the conduit to an ethical organizational environment, their intention to report unethical IT-related practices plays a critical role in protecting intellectual property and privacy rights. Using the survey methodology, this article investigates the relationship between willingness to report intellectual property and privacy violations and Machiavellianism, gender and computer literacy in the form of programming experience. We found that gender and computer expertise interact with Machiavellianism to influence individuals’ intention of reporting unethical IT practices. This study helps us to improve our understanding of the emergent ethical issues existing in the IT-enabled decision environment.

Prior research has studied the antecedents of beliefs regarding ethics and social responsibility (ESR). However, few studies have examined how individual well-being may be related to such beliefs. In this exploratory study, we assessed the relationship between perceived importance of ESR – both individually and of one's company – and indicators of physical and psychological well-being. Results demonstrated that perceived importance of ESR was associated with three aspects of well-being: exuberance for life, sleep problems, and job stress. The results are discussed in terms of future directions for research, and the need for a conceptual framework connecting individual and organizational perceptions of ESR and outcomes of well-being.

Can valuing money and material possessions lead to conflict between work and family? In this paper, we build on Carlson and Kacmar's call for more research on personal values in the context of the work–family interface. In a field study, we examined the relationship between materialism and two components of work–family conflict: work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW). Results supported our main hypotheses that materialism is associated with both forms of work–family conflict. Further, work overload mediated the relationship between materialism and WIF, while FIW moderated the association between materialism and work overload, thus supporting a model of mediated moderation. By linking materialism to work–family conflict, this study adds to the growing evidence of the deleterious effects of holding materialistic values.

Materialism is a defining aspect of many societal cultures. Unfortunately, a large body of research has documented a negative relationship between materialism and indicators of non-work personal well-being. This study extends the materialism research into the organizational domain, investigating whether materialistic values are related to work-related indicators of personal well-being. Our field study results indicate that materialistic values are negatively associated with a range of indicators of work-related personal well-being, including intrinsic and extrinsic reward satisfaction, job satisfaction, and career satisfaction. Further analyses suggest that the relationship between materialism and work-related personal well-being is driven by the happiness and centrality dimensions of materialism, and not by the success dimension. Implications for future research and practice are presented.

The start of a new editorial team provides the opportunity to refine the direction of a journal, whether the journal is 5 years old or 50 years old. Particularly in the case of an emerging field of...

Adler and Harzing's excellent comprehensive treatment (this issue) of the issues surrounding academic rankings clarifies the problems with an approach that has characterized the logic and practices of academic research institutions. But this clarification is short-lived, for soon an overwhelming question becomes apparent: "Why?" Why is it that the academic environments in research institutions have been skewered by a system that is ineffective? Why have we succumbed to a system that reduces the search for truth into a wrongheaded and ill-conceived obsession with the less interesting and less productive question of what journals are best? What follows is my attempt to answer these questions as an accompaniment to the themes that Adler and Harzing have evoked. I first center on the mind-set that drives the focus on rankings and then turn to the amnesia that has allowed rankings to play such a prominent role. Finally, I argue that rankings have disconnected us from the way the rest of the world thinks and operates, and I offer a possible way to evaluate impact of this disconnection.

This study tests a refined materialism—postmaterialism scale, concomitant with a measure of hope, toward the end of predicting ethics and social responsibility concerns in individuals. Results indicate that this interactive model including hope, materialism and postmaterialism successfully predicted ethical and social responsibility orientations. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for the interdisciplinary research on materialism—postmaterialism, the relationship of materialism to ethics and social responsibility and on understanding individual ethics and social responsibility concerns.

The authors developed an integrated model of the relationships among abusive supervision, affective organizational commitment, norms toward organization deviance, and organization deviance and tested the framework in 2 studies: a 2-wave investigation of 243 supervised employees and a cross-sectional study of 247 employees organized into 68 work groups. Path analytic tests of mediated moderation provide support for the prediction that the mediated effect of abusive supervision on organization deviance (through affective commitment) is stronger when employees perceive that their coworkers are more approving of organization deviance (Study 1) and when coworkers perform more acts of organization deviance (Study 2).

The article focuses on the creation of ethical sentinels in business schools. Particular attention is given to the ethics of students, the choices confronting business educators, as well as the sig...

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed.

While the topics of business ethics and social responsibility education have received much attention in scholarly and pedagogical literature (although less in the pedagogical literature), the autho...

A longitudinal study of 308 white-collar U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and gratitude increase concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, employees with stronger hope and gratitude were found to have a greater sense of responsibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly, employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. These findings offer an extension of research by Giacalone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz (2005, Journal of Business Ethics, 58, 295-305).

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research.

Ethical ideology is predicted to play a role in the occurrence of workplace deviance. Forsyth’s (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire measures two dimensions of ethical ideology: idealism and relativism. It is hypothesized that idealism will be negatively correlated with employee deviance while relativism will be positively related. Further, it is predicted that idealism and relativism will interact in such a way that there will only be a relationship between idealism and deviance when relativism is higher. Results supported the hypothesized correlations and idealism and relativism interacted to predict organizational deviance. Idealism was a significant predictor of interpersonal deviance, but no interaction was found.

This article challenges educators about helping students in their intellectual and moral development. Certainly, there is enough blame to generously blanket many groups. Substantive culpability goe...

The postmaterialist values paradigm has long argued whether materialist and postmaterialist values are opposite ends of a single continuum or two values on separate continua, ignoring the possibility that these values are interactive as well. In two studies, using a strong inference approach, we tested whether a previously unexplored interactive formulation of the materialism-postmaterialism relationship explained more variance than Inglehart’s unidimensional or a bidimensional conceptualization. Using a revised materialism-postmaterialism scale (R-MPMI), we assess the individual and interactive utility of these values in predicting dimensions of personal and social identity (DPSI), key correlates of Inglehart’s postmaterialist theory. Results indicate that the interactive conceptualization explains more variance of DPSI. The findings suggest that a restructuring of the conceptualization of postmaterialism is necessary, and a rubric toward that end is discussed.

While information technologies present organizations with opportunities to become more competitive, unsettled social norms and lagging legislation guiding the use of these technologies present organizations and individuals with ethical dilemmas. This paper presents two studies investigating the relationship between intellectual property and privacy attitudes, Machiavellianism and Ethical Ideology, and working in R&D and computer literacy in the form of programming experience. In Study 1, Machiavellians believed it was more acceptable to ignore the intellectual property and privacy rights of others. Programmers and R&D workers considered violating intellectual property rights more acceptable. Programmers did not consider violating privacy rights more acceptable, but R&D workers did. Finally, there was an interaction between Machiavellianism, programming and R&D. Machiavellians who also had programming experience or worked in R&D found violations of intellectual property much more acceptable. The effect of Machiavellianism on attitudes toward violations of privacy was enhanced by working in R&D, but not by programming experience. In Study 2, idealists believed it was less acceptable to ignore the intellectual property and privacy rights of others. Relativists found it more acceptable to violate intellectual property rights, though they did not consider it more acceptable to violate privacy rights. Those with programming experience were more accepting of intellectual property rights violations, but not of privacy violations. Finally, programming experience moderated the relationship between idealism, relativism and attitudes toward these unethical information practices. Implications for diminishing unethical behavior among Machiavellians, Relativists, programmers and those in R&D are discussed.

If students are to understand ethical problems at work, practical applications are essential in translating classroom learning into real world knowledge. This article describes the ethical complaint letter as one pedagogical approach for MBA students to understanding real world ethical situations. Students write an objective, fact-filled complaint letter to an organization that has behaved in an unethical manner toward them. A specific assignment protocol is presented for the students and for discussing organizational responses in class. Finally, an examination of expected outcomes, cautions, and learning opportunities is detailed.