Unethical Behavior Research Paper

First of all, let talk about the definition of the term “Unethical Behavior”. Unethical behavior in management is the action that does not conform to the moral standards in management, failing to do what is right in every situation. So what are the reasons that lead to manager’s unethical behavior ? The answers are complex because the nature of moral problems in management has changed over the last few years, as a result of increasing in competitive global environment. However , there are some determinants that directly influence to ethical manner, such as : personal ethics, decision-making processes, organization culture, unrealistic performance expectations, leadership and societal culture.

1. Personal ethics

According to Hosmer (2010),

They are things that we wish to have in life and expect others may want out of life too.

• Personal norms are behavior’s expectations. They reflect the actual acts and expect of what others will do in given situations.

• Personal beliefs are thought’s expectations. They are the assumptions we make about ourselves, about others and about how we expect things to be. They are what we think is really true and what therefore expect as likely consequences that will follow from our behavior.

• Personal values are the ways we have learnt to think things ought to be or people ought to behave.

There is a number of sources, such as : family, school, religion, media,…that influences our behaviors, called the personal ethical code. It guides our behaviors not only in daily life but also in business setting (Hill, 2012).

2. Decision-making processes

The reason why there are unethical behaviors this process is that managers always caculate the business benefits and apply them into business decision in place of considering “Is there any unethical action/decision occuring ?”. They make decision automatically and do not think or consider the steps they should go

A leader is the one that has a great influence in beliefs, norms and attitudes of an organization. Or in another way, we can say that a leader is the person who impacts organization culture, set the example for others to follow. So, if the leader violate any ethical standards in business, the employees will somehow follow the leader actions. They might do what the leader do, like behave, make decisions unethically in business.

6. Societal culture

Another factor that may drive people and organizations into unethical behaviours is Societal Culture. As Hill (2012) stated, “a study of 2,700 firms in 24 countries found that there were significant differences among the ethical policies of firms” which are located in different nations over the world. A another interesting fact concluded from that research is companies headquartered in countries where there are strong individualism and high uncertainty avoidance dominate will be more likely to be aware ethical pratices than countries where masculinity and power distance are common social