“…participants' workplace decisions do indeed become less ethical when corporate management adopts a profit-oriented approach compared to when it values integrity, or when no corporate values are professed. Interestingly, there was very little difference in the ethics of workplace decisions when no reference was made to corporate values versus when integrity and good business practices were valued by the management. This seems to suggest that employees in work situations, on an average, tend to make ethical decisions except when the management is very profit-oriented and performance-driven. Further, ethical standard of employees was a very significant explanatory variable when corporate management values integrity, only marginally significant in the control condition, and not significant when management is very profit-oriented.” (Ghosh, 2008, p. 79)
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Recommended Reading:
Ghosh, D. (2008). Corporate values, workplace decisions and ethical standards of employees. Journal of Managerial Issues, 20(1), 68-90.