The Ethical Dimensions

of Decision Processes
of Employees

ABSTPu\CT. The influence of stakeholders, organisational commitment, personal values, goals of the
organisation and socio-demographic characteristics of
individuals on the ethical dimension of behavioural
intentions of employees in various organisations are
nivestigated. The research results show that employees
working for the public sector or in educational
institutions take more ethical aspects into account
than employees working in the "private" sector. The
influence of stakeholders and organisational commitment do not significantly affect the ethical behaviour
of employees, and only some personal values and goals
of the organisation have a significant influence on
ethical behaviour. The most significant explanatory
factor of ethical decision making seems to be what
may be called "stage in the career of the employee":
"ethical" employees can be described as young, with
a relatively low income, limited work experience and
a low level of responsibility in the company.
KEY WORDS: conjoint analysis, ethical dimension
in the decision processes, organisational goals and
organisational commitment, personal values, stakeholders

Introduction
Ethical aspects of behaviour deal with what is
good or bad, with what is right or wrong, or
with moral duty and obligation (Malhotra and
Miller, 1998; McNamara, 1998). Business ethics.
Irene Roozett, Professor of Marketing, Flanders Business
School, Brussel.
Patrick De Peismacker, Professor of Marketing, University
of Antwerp, Dean of the Uttiversiteit Antwerpen
Management School.
Frank Bostyn, Professor of Management, Vniversity of
Antwerp, Chairman of the Department of Management.

Irene Roozen
Patrick De Pelsmacker
Frank Bostyn

or more particularly the ethical dimensions of

decision processes in organisations, can be studied
on different levels, from different points of view
(Goodpaster, 1983), and on the basis of different
research methods. First of all, three different
levels can be distinguished: the individual, the
organisation, and society as a whole. Secondly,
the difference should be made between normative or prescriptive approaches and more analytically oriented descriptive methods. The former
try to develop normative rules, that have their
roots in various philosophical theories, the most
important ones being deontology, teleology
(egoism and utilitarianism), relativism, justice,
and objectivism (Hansen, 1992). The deontology
philosophy focuses upon universal principles of
right and wrong. What is important is the values
and motives underlying actions, and not tbe
means that could justify the end. The egoism line
of thinking states that an action is ethical if it
promotes the individual's long-term interest. The
utilitarian point of view claims that an action is
right if it leads to the greatest good for the
greatest number of people. Relativism claims that
there are no universal rules of good and bad, but
that they depend upon cultural characteristics and
individual differences. Justice emphasizes the
concept of fairness: equals should be treated
equally and unequals unequally. Objectivism
claims that discussing about wbat is right or
wrong, and wbat is not, is not very useful. One
should focus upon the avoidance of unethical
behaviour, for instance by imposing rules of
conduct or ethical codes.
On the other hand there is the descriptive
approach. The factors that influence ethical
decision making and decision making processes
are studied in various circumstances. Numerous

Joitrnal of Business Ethics 33: 8 7 - 9 9 , 2001.

2001 KUiwer Academic Publishers. Printed Itj the Netherlands.

88

Irene Roozen et al.

descriptive studies have been carried out, most

of them focusing upon a specific set of factors
or aspects or specific industries. For instance,
Vitell et al. (1993) and Lu et al. (1999) studied
cultural differences in ethical judgements.
Kennedy and Lawton (1993) and Singhapakdi et
al. (1996a) investigate services industries, and
Malhotra and Miller (1998) study marketing
research. Although the majority of the studies
focus upon marketing-related ethical issues (for
an overview, see Dunfee et al., 1999), some
concentrate upon employee relations (Stead et al.,
1990) or moral restraints on management
decisions (Strong and Meyer, 1992), Most studies
only take into account one category of potentially important facors, and a limited number of
ethical dilemmas. Some studies try to describe
the ethical decision making process in its entirety,
by formulating an integrated comprehensive
model, including different categories of potentially influencing factors and mechanisms of
ethical decision making in organisations. The
model of Fritzsche (1991), who in turn builds
upon various earlier attempts, is a good example
of this approach.
As far as the methodological dimension of
descriptive studies is concerned, various techniques have been used. A number of studies use
a qualitative case study oriented approach (e.g.
Jonsen en Toulmin, 1988). An equally large
number of studies is more quantitative measurement-oriented. One research approach is to try
to construct scales to measure ethical attitudes
and/or ethical decision taking. Tbe ReidenbachRobin scale is probably one of the most well
known attempts. The authors started from the
different normative philosophies to construct an
"ethical behaviour" scale composed of five
dimensions; deontology, utilitarianism, egoism,
relativism and justice (Reidenbach and Robin,
1988, 1990, 1991). Empirical validation of the
scale revealed that only three dimensions could
be found, which they called: broad-based moral
equity, relativism and contractualism. Hansen
(1992) refined the scale, and came to the conclusion that four components of ethical decision
making could be discerned tbat to a certain
extent correspond witb tbe normative philosophies: a broad-based ethical judgement factor, a

deontological judgement dimension, a teleological dimension, and a social contract component

(a combination of utilitarianism and egoism).
Although tbe exact formulation of the construct
is under debate (Reidenbach and Robin, 1993),
Cohen et al. (1993), for instance, came to the
conclusion that the scale is valid and reliable.
The Reidenbach-Robin scale and similar constructs try to measure tbe extent to wbich a
person has an ethical attitude or behavioural
intention, and can be used to then further
explore the relationship between this ethical
attitude and various explanatory variables, such
as personal values and demographic characteristics. Other approaches do not try to measure a
general ethical attitude, but are based on the
scenario technique: respondents are confronted
with carefully defined scenarios of decisions or
situations with an ethical component, and are
asked to judge them on the basis of their personal
attitude (to what extent do you agree witb this ?)
or behavioural intention (would you do this ?).
Again, these "etbical scores" are tben related to
various potentially explanatory factors (see hereafter), and/or the relative impact of tbese factors
on the ethical score is assessed. As a result, in
most quantitative studies, intentions rather than
actual behaviour is measured. Tbis is inherent to
this particular methodology, and as we all know,
intentions are not necessarily good predictions of
behaviour. However, as shown by Ajzen and
Fishbein (1977), intentions are good predictors
of behaviour in bigb involvement situations such
as ethical dilemmas.
In tbis study, ethical behaviour is studied at the
individual level, using the descriptive approach,
and measuring ethical behavioural intention in a
quantitative scenario-based way. Various factors
affect etbical decision making. Kavali et al. (1999)
distinguish four categories of factors: personal
factors, inter-organisational factors, issue-related
factors and extra-organisational factors. In this
study tbe two former types of factors are
explored, i.e. personal (personal values, organisational commitment and socio-demograpbic
characteristics) an inter-organisational (organisational goals and the role of stakeholders).
Tbe impact oi^ personal values on ethical attitudes and ethical behaviour bas been studies on

The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

frequent occasions. Often, the Rokeach (1973)

scale is used as an inventory of personal values.
In this scale two kinds of values are discerned:
instrumental and terminal values. Instrumental
values refer to beliefs or conceptions about
desirable modes of behaviour tbat are instrumental to the attainment of desirable end-states
(e.g. honesty, ambition, love). Terminal values
refer to beliefs or conceptions about ultimate
goals or desirable end-states of existence (e.g. a
world of peace, wisdom). Fritzsche (1995) uses
tbe Rokeach scale and hypothesizes that ethical
decision making is related to instrumental values,
such as responsibility, honesty, and broadmindedne.ss, and to terminal values such as self-respect,
family security and freedom. This hypothesis is,
however, not confirmed by his data: only the
value "honesty" seems to be related to ethical
decision making. Finegan (1994) uses the same
scale in a study on the morality of workplace
behaviour in a sample of undergraduates. Tbe
importance of the personal value "bonesty" in
ethical judgements is confirmed. The other
significant personal value that came out of this
study is "ambition". The more ambitious a
person was, the less ethical his behavioural intention. In general, Finegan (1994) also concluded
that instrumental values are better predictors of
etbical judgement and behaviour than terminal
values, and that values are more related to
judgements than to behavioural intentions.
Singhapakdi et al. (1996b) study the predictive
power of what they call "personal moral philosophies". The conclusion is that socially responsible attitude, relativism and, to a lesser extent,
idealism, only have a low to moderate predictive power for ethical behaviour.
The tentative conclusion on tbe importance of
personal values for etbical decision making can
be that the impact of these factors seems to be
quite modest, and depends a lot on moderating
factors such as tbe decision scenarios tested, the
cultural environment and tbe nature of the
sample.
Tbe socio-demographic characteristics gender and

age have been often incorporated in various

studies on ethical behaviour. For example,
Fritzsche (1988) found that gender is a significant factor: male marketing managers are less

89

likely to pay a bribe than their female counterparts. However, he found tbat men are more
likely to ask for a bribe than women. Cbonko
and Hunt (1985) found that female marketers are
more likely to perceive ethical problems than
male marketers, and also Singhapakdi et al.
(1996a) found that women have a more ethical
attitude. However, in a study of Sikula and Costa
(1994) the idea that women are more ethical than
men is not supported by the empirical data.
Their sample consists of college students and
tbeir explanation for tbe absence of differences is
that today's youth do not differ in respect of
ethical values. Also Hegarty and Sims (1978) and
Singhapakdi and Vitell (1991) and Tsalikis et al.
(1990) found no relationship between gender and
ethical behaviour or perception of ethical
problems.
,
As far as age is concerned, many studies cannot
test this factor since they are based on student
samples, but for instance Singhapakdi et al.
(1996a) found tbat age bas a positive influence
on ethical perceptions.
Organisational Commitment can be defined as
the global attitude that employees have toward
their organisation, and that can be measured by
means of tbe Organisational Commitment
Questionnaire (OCQ) (McCaul et al., 1995),
The organisational commitment could be
regarded as an inter-organisational factor, since it
describes how an important group of stakeholders
perceives the organisation. However, tbe commitment of a person towards his or her employer
is a personal attitudinal component and can
therefore be regarded as a personal characteristic.
This characteristic may have an important
influence on ethical decision processes and attitudes. For example, employees witb a high
organisational commitment working for a
company witb ethical organisational goals can
behave more ethical in comparison to employees
working for the same company but with a lower
organisational commitment.
Various authors bave stressed the importance
of intra-organisational factors in etbical decision
making. Ferrell and Gresham (1985) and Hunt
and Vitell (1993), for instance, consider the
professional environment as a major factor in
ethical decisions. Singhapakdi and Vitell (1993)

90

Irene Roozen et al.

even found tbat they are more important than

personal values. Professional factors are defined
as formal and informal codes and code enforcement. Singhapakdi et al. (1996a) study one aspect
of this professional environment in a services
context, i,e, professional values, and come to the
conclusion tbat their importance is confirmed.
And also Lozano and Sanquet (1999) stress the
importance of professional values as part of
organisational culture.
To a certain extent professional values can also
be represented by organisatiottat goals and tbe value
that is attached to them. Fritzsche (1991), for
instance, recognises tbe importance of goals for
ethical decision making. Not only the organisational goals of a firm can infiuence the ethical
decision process, groups and individuals - botb
internal and external to the firm {stakeholders) can
also affect the decision process of managers and
employees. In the model of Fritzsche (1991) they
are also indicated as a part of the organisational
culture and environment.

Research questions
The main objective of this paper is to investigate a number of determining factors of the
etbical dimensions of decision processes of
employees of different organisations. The specific
contribution of the paper lies in a number of
aspects. First of all, a sample of business people
is used. Tbis improves tbe external validity of the
study. Secondly, the impact of a number of
determining factors of ethical decision making
are assessed in the same study: personal values,
organisational commitment, demographic variables, organisational goals and stakeholders.
Finally, conjoint analysis is used to measure
ethical behavioural intentions. Tbis analytical
technique can be considered as a more sophisticated alternative for the traditional scenario
technique.
The principal research question of tbe paper
can be translated into the following more specific
research questions:
1. What aspects of ethical behaviour in the
decision process do employees consider as

more or less important, and is there a difference in behavioural intention depending

upon the company or within certain industries?
The technique of the conjoint measurement allows to get an idea of tbe relative
importance of attributes of ethical decisions. Furthermore, the effect of the type
of industry on etbical decision making can
be assessed.
2. What is the infiuence of instrumental and
terminal personal values on the attitude of
employees regarding ethical and non-ethical
decision processes?
The Rokeacb-scale is used to assess the
importance of personal values for ethical
decision making. Based on previous
research it can be expected that the effect
of personal values on behavioural intention
is ratber limited, and that the effect of some
instrumental values is more significant than
tbe effect of terminal values.
3. What is the influence of the organisational
culture - organisational goals, stakeholders
on the attitude of employees regarding
ethical decision processes?
It can be expected tbat the more tbe
organisation attaches importance to general
welfare objectives, and the more it takes
non-business stakeholders into account, the
more ethical tbe behavioural intentions of
employees will be. It can be expected that,
the higher the organisational commitment,
the higher tbe correlation between tbe
"ethical score" of employees and tbe
importance attached to non-business goals
and stakeholders will be.
4. Wbat is the influence of socio-demographic
characteristics, such as gender, age, income,
work experience or company characteristics?
Previous research suggests tbat women
and older people have higher ethical standards that men and youngsters. It can also
be expected that the longer the career of a
person, the more be or she identifies with
tbe traditional business priorities, the more
cynical be may become, and the less ethical
concern he/she may have.

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The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

TABLE I
Description of the sample

Research method
The study was conducted in 1999. Data were
collected from alumni of the faculty of Applied
Economics of the University of Antwerp
(Belgium) through a mail survey. The questionnaire was distributed to 2550 respondents. In
total, 427 questionnaires were correctly completed. In Table I a description of the sample is
given.
Tbe dependent and independent variables are
measured as follows. To measure the ethical
judgement of the employees (the dependent
variable), the conjoint analysis method was used.
Tbe starting point of this method is to decide
upon a number of relevant attributes, in this case
decisional factors with an ethical dimension. To
find the most relevant attributes, an exploratory
study was carried out in a group of 15 people
working at the university. They were given a list
of attributes (potentially salient ethical problems),
based on Toffler (1986), Murphy (1995) and
Kavali et al. (1999), and were asked to indicate
their top three of most important issues. On the
basis of the total jury of 15 the following top
three of ethical attributes to be included in the
analysis was decided upon:
Profit orientedness: two levels are measured
(1) profit is an absolute priority for the firm
(less ethical) and (2) profit is a "normal"
priority (more ethical),
Customer relationships: non-commercial
considerations are very, less or not important (e.g. do not force potential customers,
no sexist argumentation in advertising, no
advertising aimed at children, complete
product information, be honest about the
quality of a product . . .).
Discrimination by e.g. ethnicity, gender, age
should be forbidden in the company when
recruiting or promoting people; important
information of the company has to be
public for the employees and work conditions of tbe employees bave to be safe.
These aspects are used as examples of good
"ethical" human resource management
policy, the opposite of these examples
(neutral, and not important) are used as

Characteristic

Percentages
{N = All)

Gender

Male
Female

72.6
21.8

Age

21 <30
30 < 40
40<55
55+

31.5
38.0
21.2
9.3

< 2100 EURO

2100 < 3100 EURO
3100 < 3600 EURO
3600 < 4600 EURO
4600 < 6000 EURO
6000 + EURO

15.1
28.1
16.7
11.2
12.8
9.4

Total net income

(net income +
fringe benefits
e.g. expenses
for car.
restaurant, etc.)

Work experience
in the job 0-2 years
2.5-5 years
5,5-10 years
10 + years
0-2 years
in the
company
2,5-5 years
5.5-10 years
10 + years
- in the
0-2 years
industry
2.5-5 years
5.510 years
10 + years
Industry

Size of the
company

54,5
22.5
12.0
12,0
35.0
23.0
19.0
23.0
24.2
22.7
21.8
31.3

Public services and

education
Manufacturing industry
Bank and insurance
companies
Distribution and
transport
Service industries
Others

12.0
22.8
17.7

1-9 employees
10-99 employees
100-499
500-999
' '
1000-4999
5000 +

23.4
21.5
13.8
12.9
22.9

13,9
15.1
18.4

5.5

92

Irene Roozen et al.

indications of "non-ethical" personnel

management policy.
As becomes clear from the description, the first
attribute is measured at two levels, and tbe other
two attributes at three levels. On this basis a total
of 18 scenarios or decision profiles can be
composed, with varying degree of ethical
content. To organise data collection more efficiently, tbe conjoint measurnient can be carried
out on tbe basis of 9 profiles, carefully and unbiasedly selected out of tbe original 18. The
subjects (employees) are confronted with the
different profiles of alleged ethical or less ethical
behaviour in the decision process of organisations. They are asked to rate the different profiles
on the basis of their support. A rating "0" indicates total disagreement wnth the decision process
described and, "10" full agreement. Tbe output
of the conjoint measurement process are so-called
"part-worth utiHties": an indication of the
importance that people attach to each level of
each attribute. The "ethical score" of each profile
can be calculated as tbe sum of the part-worth
utilities of all the characteristics of this profile.
The advantage of the conjoint procedure
compared with a more traditional scenario
approach is the randomness of the way in which

the profiles are composed and presented, which

makes it harder for respondents to rationalise or
give socially acceptable scores. The relative
importance of each attribute and the part-worth
utility of each level of the attribute will provide
an answer to research question 1.
In Table II two examples of the 9 profiles,
wbich were presented to the respondents, are
given.
In addition, the following independent variables are measured: instrumental and terminal
personal values, organisational commitment, the
perceived influence of different groups of stakeholders, tbe perceived organisational goals, the
size of the company (number of employees), the
type of industry and some characteristics of the
employee (gender, age, work experience and
income).
To measure an individual's value profile,
Rokeach bas respondents rank order 18 terminal'
and 18 instrumental values'^ separately. Respondents were asked to score each item of the
Rokeach scale on its perceived importance, by
means of a 5 point Likert type scale, "0" not at
all important, . . . , "4" very important). The
Likert scale measurement was chosen since the
non-parametric nature of the rank ordered data
restricts the type of analyses. Literature has shown

TABLE II
Examples of profiles used for measuring the ethical aspects of a decision process of an employee
Example of an "ethical" profile of the decision process:
- "Pursuit of profit' is important for the company but not a priority.
- The company does not take "non-commercial considerations" into account when approaching customers
(e.g. do not force potential customers, no sexist argumentation in advertising, no advertising aimed at
children, complete product information, be honest about the quahty of a product. . . .)
- The company takes one or more of the following principles in the personnel management pohcy into
account: does not take factors such as ethnicity, gender, age, . . . into account when recruiting or when
promoting people, no information about the company will be kept secret for the employees, the work
conditions of the employees are very safe . . .
Example of an "non-ethical" profile of the decision process:
- "Pursuit of profit" is an absolute priority for the company,
- The company takes a lot ot "non-commercial considerations" into account when approaching customers.
- The company does not take one of more of the following principals in the personnel management policy
into account: does not take factors such as ethnicity, gender, age, . . . into account when recruiting or
when promoting people, no information about the company will be kept secret for the employees, the
work conditions of the employees are very safe . . .

93

The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

that similar results are normally generated by tbe

two methods (Munson and Mclntyre, 1979;
Finegan, 1994).
The characteristic "organisational commitment" (OCQ) can be defined as the relative
strength of an individual's identification with and
involvement in a particular organisation. The
scale of Mowday et al. (1979) consisting of 15
items is often used in the hterature for measuring
O C Q (see for an overview Mathieu and Zajac,
1990). The scale consists of three related factors
of O C Q : (1) a strong belief in the acceptance of
tbe organisation's goals and values, (2) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the
organisation, and (3) a strong desire to maintain
membership in the organisation. In empirical
research the scale is interpreted as one factor
(Mowday et al., 1979, Mathieu and Zajac, 1990).
A list of organisational goals and stakeholders was
composed on the basis of standard management
textbooks.

Research results
Research question V. The relative importance of
different ethical attributes and the difference in
ethical decision making between employees of
different organisations.

Conjoint analysis provides the possibility to

estimate tbe influence of the different levels of
each attribute on the respondent's preference for
particular combinations of ethical or non-ethical
behaviour in the decision process. In Figure 1 the
average utility levels (part-worth scores) for the
different levels of each attribute are given.
The average score for the most "ethical"
profile has a total utility of 7.43. This profile
consists of a decision process in wbich the
"pursuit of profit" is important for a company
but not a priority, the company does not take
"non-commercial considerations" into account
when approaching customers and tbe company
has an "ethical" human resource management

Take non-commercial considerations

into account when approaching
customers

Pursuit of profit
1.50 n

1.00
0.50
0.00
-0,50
-1,00
-1.50
-2.00

0.78

0.27

-0,27
0.00

I
Priority

Important

Yes

Take 'ethical' management poiicy into

account
1.50
1.000.500.00

1.02
0,49

0.50 ^
-1.00
-1.50
-2.00

-1.51

No

Yes

Figure 1. Average utility scores for the different attributes.

94

Irene Roozen et al.

policy. The average score of the most "nonethical" profile has a total utility of 2.21.
On the basis of the average importance rates,
the importance of the different etbical aspects of
tbe decision process in the total score can be
assessed. These rates are computed by taking the
utihty range for the particular attribute, and
dividing it by tbe sum of all the utility ranges
for the different profiles of the investigated
behaviour. The most important "ethical" aspect
in the decision process is the human resource
management pohcy with an importance rate of
42%. The second important attribute is noncommercial considerations with an average
importance rate of 38% and "pursuit of profit"
is considered as tbe least important attribute witb
an average importance rate of 20%. In Table III
the total average utihty score of the most ethical
profile of employees in different industries are
given.
Employees working for public services or
education give the highest average score on the
most ethical profile, wbich means that they have
relatively high preferences for "ethical" aspects in
the decision processes. Employees working in
banking or insurance, on the other hand, give
tbe lowest scores on "ethical" aspects in the
decision processes {tbe two scores differ significantly, p = 0.084). Tbis research result is as
expected, given the more direct competitive
nature of these activities, and presumably the
greater attention devoted to ethical issues in nonprofit and educational organisations.

Question 2. The influence of instrumental and

terminal personal valttes on the attittide of
employees.

As indicated earlier, the influence of personal

values on the ethical decision process is measured
by means of the Rokeach (1973) scale, using a 5
point Likert type scale. To determine the influence of personal values, the ratings on each of
the personal value items separately were divided
into three categories i.e. "neutral", "important"
and "very important". On the basis of ANOVAanalyses the significance of tbe differences
between the three groups of the total utility score
of the most ethical profile is investigated. In
Table IV the significant differences for tbe
personal values and their total average ethical
utility scores for the different personal values are
given
Only for tbe terminal value "ambition" a
significant difference between "ethical" and
"non-ethical" employees is found. The
employees who found ambition very important
have a significantly lower score (6.82) on the
"etbical" profile than the employees who are
"neutral" (7.89). This result confirms the findings
of Finegan (1994) and leads to the conclusion
that ambitious employees find ethical aspects in
tbe decision processes less important. For the
instrumental values five significant differences
between ethical and non-ethical employees are
found. Table IV shows that ethical employees
found "equality" significantly more and "a
comfortable life", "sense of accomplishment",

TABLE III
Total average utility score on the "most ethical profile" of employees of the different industries
Average utility score on "ethical" profile
Total sample
Industry

7.43 (2.26*)
Public services and education
Manufacturing industry
Bank and insurance companies
Distribution and transport
Service industries
Others

* Standard deviation of the average utility scores.

7.79
7.67
7.02
7.57
7.38
7.35

(2.00)
(2.03)
(2,38)
(1.81)
(2.41)
(2.59)

The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

95

TABLE IV
Significant differences between the personal values and the ethical behaviour of employees
Personal values

Neutral

Important

Very important

-value

Terminal value
Ambitious

7.89

7.22

6.82

0.007

8.5S

7.2S
7.41
7.41
7.30

7.41
7.19
8,15
7.44
7.00

0,003
0.011
0.009
0.078
0.039

Instrumental value
A comfortable life
A sense of accomplishment
Equality
Family security
National security

8.39
7.11
8.34
7.86

"family security" and "national security" less

important. These results suggest that ethical
employees are perhaps more idealistic and less
interested in personal successes or interests. The
finding of both Fritzsche (1995) en Finegan
(1994) that tbe instrumental variable "honesty"
is an important factor in ethical judgements, is
not confirmed. Overall, the conclusion of
Finegan (1994) tbat instrumental values have a
greater impact on ethical judgements than
terminal ones is confirmed here.

Question 3. Tfie influence of the perceived

importance of organisational goals and stakeholders
and the impact oj organisational commitment.

Eleven different organisational goals are

measured: organisational efficiency; high productivity; profit maximisation; effectiveness; an
organisation's reputation; morale; leadership
within the industry; welfare of the employees;
growth of the company; social welfare and
stability of the company. The results indicate that
employees working for a company aiming at
"profit maximisation" (in their perception) have
a significantly lower score on the most ethical
profile {p = 0.017). Employees working for a
company in which "social welfare of employees"
is an important goal have a significantly higher
score than the other employees (p ~ 0.016). The
importance of other organisational goals does not
significantly differ between the different ethical
categories of employees.

7.34

The results are in line with expectations,

provided the assumption tbat employees fit well
into or adapt well to tbe different priorities of
the organisations, and take over the level of
etbical priorities ot their organisations. An alternative explanation could be that employees
project their own value system on what they feel
the priorities of their organisation should be.
The infiuence of organisational commitment
on ethical behaviour is, as expected, not significant. "Ethical" as well as "non-ethical"
employees have the same average score on tbe
OCQ. However, organisational commitment
proved to be an important moderating variable
in the relationship between the organisational
goals and the etbical attitude. Employees working
for a company aiming at "profit maximisation"
(in their perception) and with a high score on
the scale O C Q behave less ethical than
employees working for the same company but
with a low score on tbe scale O C Q {p = 0.10).
In Table V the results of this analysis are given.
Employees witb a high score on the scale OCQ,
working for a "less ethical company" (profit is an
organisational goal) also behave significantly
"less" ethical than employees with a low O C Q
score. Tbe opposite results are found for
employees with a higb score on the scale OCQ,
working for an "ethical company" (profit is no
organisational goal). Their behaviour is significantly more ethical than employees with a low
O C Q score. Apparently, the higher the organisational commitment, the more employees
identify with organisational goals, or the more

96

Irene Roozen et al
TABLE V
O C Q as moderator variable
High O C Q

Low O C Q

org.goal
"profit
maximisation'

org.goal
"profit, max."
less important

org.goal
"profit maximisation"
important

org.goal
"profit, max."
less important

6.95

8.03

7.55

7.48

Expected total utility score

for ethical behaviour
Total utility score for
ethical behaviour
F-value

2.819 [p = 0.094)

the organisational goals are in conflict with

personal principles, the lower the organisational
commitment.
Employees were also asked to score the influence of interal and external stakeholders. On the
basis of an exploratory principal components
analysis three groups of stakeholders are found:
1. Government, local community, environmental organisations, the society as a whole,
trade-unions, media, and other public
organisations;
2. Customers, employees, suppliers;
3. Financial organisations and shareholders.
One could expect that tbere is a relation between
the perceived influence of different groups of
stakeholders and the ethical attitude. For instance,
if tbe perceived influence of tbe first group of
stakeholders is great, a more ethical attitude may
be expected. However, no significant relation
between the importance of stakeholder categories
and ethical judgements are found. This is an
unexpected result that requires additional confirmation.

Question 4. The influence of socio-demographic and

career-related factors on ethical attitudes.

The results of this study indicate that there is no

significant influence of gender on the etbical
attitude {p = 0.13). Tbis confirms the findings
of Hegarty and Sims (1978), Singhapakdi and

Vitell (1991) and Sikula and Costa (1994). The

results indicate that age bas a negative effect on
the ethical attitude. Respondents older tban 40
have a significantly lower score on ethical attitude
than respondents younger than 40 (p = 0.017).
This result is contrary to the findings of
Singhapakdi et al. (1996a).
Apparantly, peole tend to become less ethically
concerned with age. But perhaps this is a
spurious effect, that hides a more fundamental
phenomenon. Further analysis reveals that the
work experience of an employee has a negative
effect on his/her ethical attitude. Work experience, measured as the number of years in the
present function, does not have a significant
influence on the ethical perception (correlation
coefficient -0.07, p = 0.187), but the work
experience in the company and tbe work experience in the industry do have a significantly
negative correlation with the ethical attitude
towards decision processes (correlation coefficient
-0.123,;? = 0.020 and-0.100, ; ; - 0.061 respectively). This result suggests that employees who
are used to the "reality of business" are becoming
less etbical and perhaps less idealistic than the
younger inexperienced employees. Moreover, the
position in tbe company, i,e, the numbers of
people who have to report to the respondent, has
a significantly negative correlation with etbical
attitude (correlation coefficient -0.108, p =
0.048). Employees wbo have more responsibilities in a company take less ethical aspects in their
decision processes into account. Furthermore, the

The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees

results indicate that employees with a higher

income bave a significantly lower score on the
ethical attitude than employees with a lower
income (correlation coefficient -0.117, p =
0.034). The latter results are once again a confirmation of tbe negative influence of the
experience of employees on their ethical behaviour. This suggests that employees become more
and more non-ethical in their decision process
as they become more experienced, i.e. older,
with higher income, more work experience and
more responsibilities.
Finally, the infiuence of company size is
investigated. The results show that it does not
significantly influence the ethical attitude of
employees (correlation coefficient -0.011, p =
0.842).

Suitimary and conclusions

Employees seem to consider the human resource
management and customer relations policies as
more important ethical attributes than the
importance attached to profits. An ethical human
resource management includes, among others,
the fact that organisations do not take factors
such as ethnicity, gender and age into account
when recruiting or when promoting people, no
information about the organisation is kept secret
for the employees, and work conditions are very
safe. Etbical behaviour in customer relations
means that organisations do not force potential
customers, no sexist argumentation is used in
advertising, no advertising towards children is
used, complete product information is given as
well as honest information about the quality of
a product. The fact that an organisation has
"pursuit of profit" as an absolute priority or not,
does not play an important role in the evaluation of decision processes of the organisation by
employees. The ethical attitude of employees
depends upon the company they work in.
Employees working for the public sector or in
education institutions take more ethical aspects
into account than employees working in the
private sector.
Only a few personal values seem to significantly influence tbe ethical behaviour of

97

employees. "Equality" bas a positive influence

and "ambition", "a comfortable life", "sense of
accomplishment",
"family
security" and
"national security" have a negative influence,
which may suggest that ethical employees are
more idealistic and less interested in personal
success. The impact of the terminal value
"ambition" on ethical attitudes is confirmed.
The perceived importance of some organisational goals has a significant impact on the ethical
attitude. If profit maximisation is perceived to
be important, the ethical attitude is more
negative. If tbe social welfare of employees is
more important, the ethical attitude is more
positive. The perceived importance of stakeholders does not seem to influence ethical
judgement. Employees seem to adjust to the
priorities of the organisations they work in,
provided their organisational commitment is
bigb.
Although some of the earlier research results
are confirmed, and some new insights on the
relative importance of personal values and
organisational priorities are obtained, the most
striking result is tbat the factor that most prominently influences ethical attitudes is, wbat could
be called, the stage in the career of the employee:
older people with higher incomes, a lot of work
experience and a lot of responsibihties have a less
ethical attitude.
Future research could elaborate on tbis last
conclusion, should also focus on the importance
of stakeholder groups, and could try to reach
differentiated conclusions for different types of
etbical dilemmas or scenarios.

Notes
' Terminal values: a comfortable hfe; an exciting life;
a sense of accomplishment; a world at peace; a world
of beauty; equality; family security; freedom; happiness; inner harmony; mature love; national security;
pleasure; salvation; self-respect; social recognition;
true friendship; wisdom.
^ Instrumental values: ambitious; broadminded;
capable; cheerful; clean; courageous; forgiving;
helpful; honest; imaginative; independent; intellectual;
logical; loving; ohedient; polite; responsible; selfcontrolled.

98

Irene Roozen et al.

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Patrick De Pelsmacker
University of Antwerp,
FactiUy of Applied Economics,
Middethcimlaan i,
2020 Antwerp,
Belgit4m,
E-mail: depelsm@ruca.ua.ac.be