A growing body of research has emerged in order to better understand unethical behavior at work. However, most theory and research has focused on identifying personal and situational characteristics that predict unethical behavior. However, in order to develop a more complete picture of the phenomenon, research also needs to examine the outcomes of unethical behavior at work. In this research, I adopt research and theory from criminal justice in order to better understand how employees react to unethical behavior at work. In particular, I differentiate between two types of unethical behavior, namely premeditated and impulsive unethical behavior. Based on the criminal justice literature, I define impulsive unethical behaviors as unethical actions where the thought to act did not arise prior to the immediate situation, whereas premeditated unethical behaviors represent unethical actions where the thought to act occurred prior to the immediate situation. I argue that premeditated acts will result in more severe reactions than acts that are impulsive in nature. Specifically, I sought to examine observers' perceived unethicality and recommended punishment towards the two types of unethical behavior. Integrating attribution theory, I also explored three dimensions of attributions (i.e., controllability, stability, and intentionality) as mediating mechanisms. Then, utilizing ethical dissonance theory as an explanatory framework, I examined both wrongdoers' and observers' history of engaging unethical acts as potential moderators of the mediated effects. Finally, methods were presented for two studies. The first study utilized a field sample of adult workers, and the second study utilized a sample of university students. Based on the results from the two studies, I found evidence that the type of unethical behavior that a wrongdoer engages in matters in terms of how they will be evaluated. I also found that observers see premeditated behavior as more intentional, which drives their evaluations. Finally, both observers' and wrongdoers' past history impact my hypothesized model at different points along the causal chain. I hope my results help instigate a shift in the behavioral ethics literature; one that begins to integrate research from the criminal justice literature and one that shifts focus away from examining every possible predictor of unethical behavior at work to what happens following the act itself.

The ability to correctly judge moral character—an individual’s disposition to think, feel, and behave ethically—is critical considering the negative consequences of misjudgment (e.g., being betrayed or swindled). However, it is currently unknown whether people can reliably detect strangers’ moral character, nor is it known how to best elicit relevant information from strangers to determine their moral character. This research is designed to remedy this dearth in our understanding of moral character judgments, particularly in settings where we need to make prompt evaluations of strangers based on limited information that we obtained from them. The biggest challenge in assessing another person’s moral character is that it is extremely socially desirable, and therefore highly susceptible to distorted self-perceptions and impression management. To address this problem, I propose and test a new person-perception theory: the hidden information distribution and evaluation (HIDE) model. In chapter 1, I develop the HIDE model, which posits that there are aspects of information that individuals do not correctly know about themselves (which I call the hiddenself), as well as aspects of information individuals misrepresent to others (which I call the hiding-self). This model articulates when and why judges (i.e., evaluators) not personally acquainted with targets of evaluation (e.g., job applicants) can reliably detect these targets’ moral character and predict their future unethical behavior. In particular, I propose that the impromptu thinking and language usage that arises when a person answers specially designed interview questions reveal information about his/her hidden-self and hiding-self, enabling a group of judges to make valid judgments about his/her moral character. Additionally, the HIDE model predicts that judges’ evaluations using this written interview method will be more valid than evaluations provided by targets’ acquaintances. This is because social relationships can lead people to form biased impressions of targets they are acquainted with, so that they are unable to see the targets’ hidden selves as clearly as judges who do not know the targets. In chapter 2, I test the HIDE model’s prediction that groups of judges can reliably predict targets’ unethical behavior by evaluating their moral character using the written interview method. In studies 1 and 2, large groups of judges were crowd-sourced online. I show that their average moral character evaluations successfully predicts targets’ frequency of unethical behaviors in the laboratory (study 1) and the workplace (study 2). Study 3 extends these findings by determining the minimum number of judges (six) required to make moral character evaluations that predict unethical behavior. In chapter 3, I test the HIDE model’s prediction that judges’ evaluations based on the written interview method can capture unique information about targets’ hidden-self. Three empirical studies (studies 4, 5, and 6) show that these evaluations indeed capture unique variance in targets’ moral character that is missed by both self-reports and ratings provided by targets’ acquaintances. Consequently, these evaluations are more predictive of targets’ unethical behavior than the ratings provided by either the targets themselves or their acquaintances. In chapter 4, I investigate the HIDE model’s prediction that judges’ evaluations using the written interview method can capture unique information about targets’ hiding-self. This occurs because responses to the interview questions reveal implicit aspects of moral character that targets cannot control or fake, even when they want to. In study 7, I manipulated whether targets had an incentive to answer the interview questions in a positively biased manner. I show that judges’ evaluations of targets (based on the interview questions) are actually more predictive of their unethical behavior when targets were motivated to respond in a positively biased manner. Finally, in chapter 5, I carried out text analyses to explore how human judges utilize linguistic cues in written responses to form impressions of moral character, and how these cues predict targets’ unethical behavior. The goal of this chapter is to identify linguistic cues that human judges fail to correctly detect or utilize, and thus to identify shared biases in human perceptions of ethicality. Building on these exploratory text analyses, I discuss the future directions of this research program, especially the potential value of combining human judgments and machine algorithms to boost the accuracy of unethical behavior forecasts.

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In organizations, it is inevitable that some business activities might seem unfair to subordinates. Social accounts—the explanations managers give their subordinates for those decisions—are known to be a useful tool for managing subordinates’ fairness concerns. Over three decades of research, we learn that social accounts are effectiveness in improving subordinates’ fairness perceptions and reducing their negative reactions. Yet, we have only limited understanding about how social accounts affect the perceptions and behaviors of managers—those who construct and give them. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the extent to which constructing accounts affects account-givers’ perceptions and behaviors. Drawing on research in social account and behavioral ethics, a model was developed to test the positive effect of constructing accounts on unethical behavior (direct effect) through moral disengagement and guilt (indirect effect). In respect to account types, it was hypothesized that constructing justifications would lead to higher moral disengagement, less guilt, and more unethical behavior, compared with constructing excuses. Account feedback was hypothesized to moderate the indirect effects of justifications and excuses on unethical behaviors such that account acceptance would strengthen moral disengagement and weaken guilt, and in turn, increase unethical behavior. Two experimental designed studies were conducted to test these hypotheses. In Study 1, utilizing a sample of 128 management students, constructing accounts was found to have a positive effect on unethical behavior (i.e., nepotism) with guilt but not moral disengagement explaining some of the variances in this relation. In contrast to my hypotheses, constructing excuses was found to increase guilt more than constructing justifications. Using a sample of 136 management students, Study 2 generally replicated the results found in Study 1: constructing accounts was found to increase unethical behavior (i.e., dishonesty) through guilt, with excuses having a greater effect. This dissertation concludes with a discussion on contributions, practical implications, limitations, and the direction for future research on social accounts and behavioral ethics. / Ph. D.

<p>In this thesis I present and discuss the phenomenon of ethical fading, and its association with biased assessment of a fair action. Ethical fading is an intuitive, self-deceptive, unconscious mechanism by which even morally competent agents are lead to disregard the ethical consequences of a particular choice. In engaging in this psychological mechanism, I argue, agents are also presupposing a biased assessment of entitlement. This biased assessment of fairness is intentionally dubious, and to be found in decision frames and reinforced by contexts. In the final part of the work I present an applied ethics case to show how ethical fading may be a quite prevalent pattern of behavior.</p>

In this thesis I present and discuss the phenomenon of ethical fading, and its association with biased assessment of a fair action. Ethical fading is an intuitive, self-deceptive, unconscious mechanism by which even morally competent agents are lead to disregard the ethical consequences of a particular choice. In engaging in this psychological mechanism, I argue, agents are also presupposing a biased assessment of entitlement. This biased assessment of fairness is intentionally dubious, and to be found in decision frames and reinforced by contexts. In the final part of the work I present an applied ethics case to show how ethical fading may be a quite prevalent pattern of behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore individuals’ experiences of unethical leadership by examining it from an employee perspective. The concept of ethical leadership, organizational ethical culture, and unethical behavior guide this study together with the components of vicarious learning, and role ethically. The research question is based on three main areas, unethical leadership, unethical behavior, and ethical culture, and it follows: What are employees’experiences of unethical leadership and what does those experiences reveal about the leaders’behaviors and the organizational ethical culture? The method was through a qualitative questionnaire conducted online and through a multiple case study six informants’ experiences were explored. The findings show that all the informants perceived their leaders as not being ethical and fair, being bad roles models, and not being an example of good ethical behavior. Conclusions are that the influence of unethical leadership creates negative experiences in the informants and those experiences were presented in a range of different emotions and behaviors.

Ethical principles applied in organizations can broaden individual and corporate priorities beyond profit and shareholder enrichment. Ethical factors may influence leaders to make sound decisions to protect the organization from unethical behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine if a correlation exists between the independent variables of leadership and decision making, and the dependent variable of ethical behavior. Drucker's theory of management served as the theoretical framework. Data collection involved 2 survey instruments, the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire and the Moral Potency Questionnaire from 98 participants from retail businesses in the southwestern United States. The model as a whole was able to significantly predict ethical behavior (F(2, 95) = 12.79, p < .01), R-² = .21. However, none of the individual predictors was significant. The existence of multicollinearity between the 2-predictor variables offers a plausible explanation for this phenomenon. Therefore, these results should be viewed with caution. Implications for positive social change include examining behaviors and leadership capabilities in individuals, communities, organizations, and institutions. The findings may contribute to social change by providing leaders with information to improve strategies when making decisions involving ethical behavior in the workplace.

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Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-10-16T15:41:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Manuela Gomes de Oliveira dos Santos_.pdf: 2211763 bytes, checksum: 4980fcede35738a7f430bb9745d2b321 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-16T15:41:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Manuela Gomes de Oliveira dos Santos_.pdf: 2211763 bytes, checksum: 4980fcede35738a7f430bb9745d2b321 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-09 / Nenhuma / É frequente a divulgação de atos de corrupção, suborno e fraudes envolvendo políticos e governo. Entretanto, os atos de desonestidade também estão presentes no dia a dia das relações entre empresas privadas com funcionários que estão em cargos que possuem o poder de tomada de decisão. Dificilmente uma pessoa não tenha conhecido um colega de trabalho que já tenha alterado relatórios, ocultado informações no seu trabalho ou inflado despesas de viagem e tenha se considerado extremamente moral. Com o intuito de investigar o comportamento antiético, este trabalho focou na relação entre o agente de compras e fornecedor organizacional, por entender que o agente de compras possui em sua rotina de trabalho oportunidade de ter um benefício financeiro pessoal em detrimento a empresa. Essa dissertação testou a influência do ambiente transgressor na tomada de decisão de ética, o emprego do priming ético como um estímulo capaz de engajar a tomada de decisão ética e o padrão moral do indivíduo como forma de influenciar o efeito do priming ético. Foram desenvolvidos três estudos experimentais em laboratório. O resultado prova que o ambiente transgressor influência sobre a tomada de decisão ética e que o priming ético estimula o indivíduo a tomar decisões éticas. O resultado desse trabalho contribui fortemente para área de Comportamento Ético e Comportamento Operacional, encorajando as organizações ao uso do priming Ético, além de códigos de éticas e sanções. / The disclosure of acts of corruption, bribery and fraud involving politicians and the government has become frequent. However, acts of dishonesty are also present in day-to-day relations among private companies with employees who hold positions having decision-making power. Hardly ever would one find a person who has not known coworkers who had already altered reports, hidden information at work or inflated travel expenses and even so considered themselves extremely moral. Aiming at investigating unethical behavior, this study focused on the relationship between organizational buyer and supplier, given the fact it understands that the organizational buyer has an opportunity in his/her work routine to have personal financial benefit to the detriment of the company. This dissertation tested the influence of the transgressive environment on ethical decision-making, the use of ethical priming as a stimulus capable of engaging ethical decision-making, and the individual moral standards as a way of influencing the ethical priming effect. Three experimental studies were developed. Result proves that a transgressive environment influences ethical decision-making and that ethical priming encourages the individual to make ethical decisions. Our findings strongly contribute to the areas of Ethical Behavior and Operational Behavior, encouraging organizations to use ethical priming, as well as codes of ethics and sanctions.