UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
“On the top is where I want to be!”: A research on
the influence of hierarchical position in an
organization on unethical interpersonal
behavior and the impact of gender
Master Thesis, MSc. Human Resource Management
June, 21
st2013
Teodora Yohan Devletyan
S2364549
144 Vasil Aprilov blvd, ap. 13
Plovdiv 4003
Bulgaria
Tel.: +359883359119
E-mail:
t.devletyan@student.rug.nl
or
teodora.devletian@hotmail.com
Words: 10, 756 (incl. cover page, references and appendices)
Supervisor:
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ABSTRACT
This research was designed to test a possible relation between a hierarchical position in an organization and the tendency to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior. It was hypothesized that the higher an individual’s hierarchical position, the higher the probability to resort to such behavior. It was further hypothesized that gender would moderate this relation in a way in which the effect is more pronounced for men in comparison to women. The hypotheses were tested through a scenario in which the hierarchical position was manipulated and respondents were asked to indicate their tendency to engage in an unethical act (gossiping about a colleague in order to advance professionally). A support for the direct effect of hierarchical position on interpersonal unethical behavior and the interaction effect of gender were not provided. However, a strongly significant direct effect of gender on interpersonal unethical behavior was discovered. Possible explanations for the results are discussed as well as practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.
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Table of Table of Contents:
I.
Introduction ... 1
II.
Literature Review ... 4
1. Interpersonal Unethical Behavior ... 4
2. Hierarchical Position in an Organization ... 6
3. Gender ... 8
III.
Method ... 10
1. General Information about Participants and Design... 10
2. Procedure ... 10
3. Measurements and Manipulations ... 11
IV.
Results ... 12
V.
Discussion ... 13
1. Theoretical Implications ... 14
2. Practical Implications ... 17
3. Limitations and Future Research ... 18
4. Conclusion ... 19
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I.
Introduction:
“Climbing the stairs” of the hierarchy in an organization is a tough road. The higher an individual goes, the greater the opportunities. Not only does one’s higher hierarchical position in an organization include supervision of subordinates, but it also provides terms such as power and influence (Mahoney, 1979). Privileges like those affect people by making them more susceptible to engage in unethical conduct. For example, in their research Piff, Stancato, Coté, Mendoza-Denton and Keltner (2012) prove empirically through seven different studies that, in contrast to low class individuals, upper class individuals are more likely to participate in unethical actions such as violating the law while driving, cheating in order to win a prize, or lying in negotiations. This illustrates that individuals at a higher position are apt to resort to unethical behavior. Due to such a tendency it is possible to assume that along the way of reaching a higher status those individuals have already gone beyond ethical boundaries and they will not hesitate to do it again in order to maintain that achieved hierarchical position. Moreover, it is displayed that the desire to succeed in reaching and keeping such a position as well as the satisfying and exciting feeling of being better than others due to power and influence may result in strong rivalry. Spreading incorrect information about colleagues or bullying them by using mean comments and verbal aggression in general are only a few examples of that fierce competition. In the mentioned study by Piff et al. (2012) the authors attribute the unethical behavior of individuals with a higher status to greed. Is it possible that the “dirty” competition along the way to a higher position and the preservation of what once has been accomplished is due to greed for power, and is it possible that such greed for a high hierarchical position leads to an increased probability of engaging in unethical behavior?
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by peers are even stronger when the ones engaging are the ones at higher positions who are supposed to be the role models. Therefore, if a newcomer witnesses such behavior he or she can easily assume that this is in fact the norm (O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2012) because leaders, who lie, for instance, tend to have followers who replicate such unethical behavior (Sims, 2000). Thus, in the context of individuals’ tendencies to copy behavior, the possibility of multiplying and tremendously spreading unethical behavior within the organization puts a serious threat on it and may have extremely deleterious effects later on. Consequently, the topic of unethical behavior is of great importance and because of its far reaching potential scope deserves serious attention.
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Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the existence of differences between types of unethical behavior. As such, the current study will contribute by changing the accent to another type of unethical behavior – the interpersonal one (Robinson & Bennet, 1995) whose manifestations are extremely broad varying from incivility to verbal aggression and from bulling to gossiping, just to mention a few. Only when those types of unethical behavior are sufficiently researched, a more comprehensible conclusion about the existence of unethical behavior towards colleagues up in the hierarchy can be drawn. In that way, it can be possible to develop methods in order to prevent such behavior in the future. Although the implications of interpersonal unethical behavior seem to be neglected, high costs under no doubt do exist and can be noticed. Salin (2003), for example, mentions that bullying has been proved to be a reason for higher turnover, absenteeism and lower productivity.
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How does the hierarchical position in an organization influence the probability of engaging in interpersonal unethical behavior and how is this relation moderated by gender?
In the next chapters of this research, first a literature review on the topic will be presented. Then, the used method (a scenario) will be described followed by a result section explaining the conducted analyses. The research will end with a discussion section, in which possible explanations for the results are provided as well as practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.
II. Literature Review
1. Interpersonal Unethical Behavior
Unethical behavior is a general concept including various types of behavior and has been intensely researched in the past. For example, one of the most famous and used typologies in research literature is the one created by Robinson and Bennet (1995). They differentiate between interpersonal and organizational unethical behavior. Thereby, they emphasize that interpersonal unethical behavior such as aggression and harassment are as worthy of investigation as those types of unethical behavior that are targeted at organizations, like stealing or purposely slowing production. Although it is proven that a strong correlation exists, the two types of unethical behavior are still assessed as “separate behavioral families” (Berry, Ones, & Sackett, 2007: 410). Despite recent studies about interpersonal unethical behavior (e.g. Folmer & De Cremer, 2012; Venkataramani & Reeshad, 2007), the research attention is still scarce in comparison to organizational unethical behavior (e. g. Moore et al., 2012; Trevino, Butterfield & McCabe, 1998).
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Bullying, for instance, which is defined as “long-term aggression directed toward a person who is not able to defend him/herself, leading to victimization of that individual” (Björkqvist, Österman & Hjeit-Bäck, 1994: 175) has proven to lead not only to turnover and absenteeism, but also to lower job satisfaction and even physical illness (Salin, 2003). Evidence exists that victims suffering from work harassment demonstrate symptoms associated with the “so-called post-traumatic stress disorder” (Leymann as cited in Björkqvist, Österman & Hjeit-Bäck, 1994: 174). Furthermore, in the same study, it is pointed out that such unethical interpersonal behavior, prolonged in time, manifests serious symptoms in employees quite fast on average (as soon as fifteen months). Additionally, it is possible to suggest that bullying is not that easy to identify because of the many forms it can take. It can be exerted not only through direct actions (verbal aggression and humiliating in public) but also through more subtle ones (spreading of rumors and being excluded from social groups) (Einarsen et al. as cited in Hauge, Skogstad & Einarsen, 2010). Bullying is only one type of unethical interpersonal behavior. Incivility can also be mentioned as a type of interpersonal unethical behavior. It is defined as a violation of respect (Montgomery, Kane & Vance, 2004). Although incivility is not considered an actual crime, its potential to escalate and lead to a desire in the individual to respond in the same way (Kim & Smith as cited in Montgomery, Kane & Vance, 2004) is what makes it worth researching. Furthermore, Robinson and Bennet (1995) in their study prove that verbal or physical aggression can be considered types of interpersonal unethical behavior as well. Behaviors such as gossiping and meddling in other people’s work are also examples of interpersonal unethical behavior (Sackett & DeVore, 2001). Although studies, discussing a potential positive side of gossiping, exist (Dowd & Davidhizar, 1997; Smith, 2013), gossiping is still considered a type of interpersonal unethical behavior (Sackett & DeVore, 2001) with strong negative effects on the individual. In fact, gossiping seems to be among one of the most widely discussed types of interpersonal unethical behavior (Clegg & van Iterson, 2009; Houmanfar & Johnson, 2008; Kurland & Pelled, 2000; Michelson, van Iterson & Waddigton, 2010) which may be due to its wide spreading and fewer difficulties in gathering information about it in comparison to other types of interpersonal unethical behavior. By definition gossiping goes behind the back of individuals and is regarded as “detrimental to work morale and productivity” (Michelson, van Iterson & Waddigton, 2010: 372).
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physical illness (Salin, 2003). Furthermore, an employee who cares about ethical values but is constantly pressured to behave in a dishonest way will suffer psychologically which can result in emotional exhaustion (Kammeyer-Mueller, Simon & Rich, 2012). Another reason why the analysis of interpersonal unethical behavior is important is the fact that provided that such behavior is widespread within the organization, it can easily replicate and extend. Current employees as well as newcomers will consider this behavior a model which is widely accepted.
The above mentioned replicating and spreading of interpersonal unethical behavior can also be considered among the prerequisites of why people engage in such behavior. For instance, a crucial moment is the fact that employees may feel motivated to resort to such behavior in order to keep up their position and not fall behind (O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2012). The individuals’ fear of losing in a competition just because they are in the disadvantage of following the morale, maintaining good relations with colleagues, for instance, and most importantly playing “fair play”, is a powerful stimulus to make them consider the countless possibilities which “level[ing] the playing field” (O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2012: 118) opens for them.
2. Hierarchical Position in an Organization
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reducing morale identity. Furthermore, they speak of “social isolation” among the high status individuals from the lower ones which leads to reduced self-regulation in decision-making (p.414). The higher the status differentiation, the higher the tendency to engage in unethical behavior. Individuals at higher positions see their contributions to the organization as more worthy than the individuals lower in the hierarchy which they use to justify their unethical action such as, for example, taking a higher bonus (Galperin et al., 2010). Moreover, Björkqvist et al. (1994) mention in their empirical study of university employees that when asked about witnessing harassment, 32% of the respondents confirmed seeing such behavior and that the individuals who were in higher positions engaged more often in harassing colleagues in lower positions than the other way around. The authors also discovered that harassment in general was a result of “envy and competition about jobs and status“(p.179). Furthermore, Weber (1947) points out that powerful individuals i.e. the ones possessing financial as well as social resources, experience awareness that they can act according to their preferences without any impact or severe social consequences. Those powerful and possessing recourses individuals are more likely to act in an inappropriate way to gain reward and tend to engage in acts which disregard morale and effects on others (Keltner, Anderson & Gruenfeld, 2003). This way of thinking can also be applied to higher hierarchical positions in organizations. Managers at high levels are the ones who have power and resources. People lower in the hierarchy do not possess those resources.
As it was mentioned in the introduction, there is some research suggesting that satisfaction and morale rise the higher one goes in the hierarchy (Fournet, Distefano & Pryer, 1966; Trevino et al., 2008). However, the enormous financial losses suffered recently in big companies led to the damaging of higher executives’ reputations (Stevens, 2004). They also seriously opened the question whether the assumption that employees higher in the hierarchy possess such a better perception of organizational ethics is in fact accurate. However, even if the assumption proves to be true, those research works look more from an organization’s perspective. They do not take into account the more interpersonal aspect. Thus, information whether those managers behave unethically towards the others is to a certain extent omitted.
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Consequently, the proposition of Galperin et al. (2010) seems to be quite logical. They suggest that employees higher in the hierarchy “become insensitive to the needs of out-groups [and] are more likely to harm others through their unethical behavior because the emotional mechanism of empathy and sympathy that might otherwise lead them to show concern for those who will be adversely affected by their behavior are either weak or not existent” (Galperin et al., 2010: 416). So, having in mind the fact that people who are at a higher position possess more power and resources (Piff et al., 2012), and that these power and resources reduce people’s sense of empathy and cause them to go beyond ethical boundaries to maintain such a high position, it is expected the hierarchical position to be positively related to one’s inclination to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior. Therefore, this leads to the first hypothesis of this research:
Hypothesis 1: The higher an individual’s hierarchical position, the higher the probability for a person to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior.
3. Gender
Although it is expected that one’s higher hierarchical position in an organization leads to an increased probability of engaging in interpersonal unethical behavior, this may not be the case for every individual. Men and women in their both formal and informal interpersonal interactions are inevitably influenced by a “stereotypic way of thinking and behaving” (Shukla & Tripathy, 1994: 1280). Consequently, it is very plausible that the connection between one’s higher hierarchical position and one’s tendency to resort to interpersonal behavior is moderated by one’s gender.
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Singh, 1990) and in general consider exerting impact on others far less gratifying (Meeker & Weitzel-O’Neill, 1977). Thus, it can be argued that the traits associated with selflessness, empathy and appreciation of the role of interdependence in performing tasks, reduce the probability of women engaging in fierce competition due to their communion nature. Moreover, it may give an indication that women execute higher levels of ethical behavior in comparison to men. In fact, O’Fallon & Butterfield (as cited in Cojuharenco et al., 2012: 450) claim: ‘‘there are often no differences found between males and females, but when differences are found, females are more ethical than males”. Furthermore, research by Weeks, et al. (1999) suggests that women tend to have a stricter attitude than men. For example, an experiment showed that women possess a stronger aversion to lying in order to win a small monetary prize (Childs, 2012). The same conclusion was drawn from a research on deception (Dreber & Johannesson, 2007). Maybe one of the most vital gender differences relevant to the topic is competition. As mentioned earlier, men are innately predisposed to be more competitive (Wieland & Sarin, 2011). It is even suggested that women are less effective in competitive environments (Gneezy, Niederle & Rustichini, 2003).
Thus, taking into consideration that a higher position in an organization is expected to enhance the likelihood of an individual resorting to anything to keep his or her spot even if the price is unethical behavior, it is argued that this effect may be more pronounced for men than women. Decidedly, women’s aversion to unethical conduct combined with men’s competitive nature may cause men to experience a stronger necessity to reach or maintain that high hierarchical position within the organization. As mentioned earlier, men value ambition and recognition more in comparison to women who appreciate more the maintaining of good relations because of their communion nature. Thus, men’s preferences for such values in combination with the possible prize of being a person at a higher position with more resources and a high status may make them far more fiercely competitive than women. This competition can easily give the “final push” for crossing the ethical borders. Additionally, despite the fact that on average women and men are equally ethical, still males have occasionally proved to be less ethical. Therefore, this leads to the second hypothesis:
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Thus, following from the two hypotheses, the proposed conceptual model of this research is:
III. Method
1. General Information about Participants and Design
In order to gather the required data, two scenarios were created. The generated survey included a 2 (individual’s hierarchical position in an organization: low vs. high) x 2 (gender of the participant: men vs. female) design. Participants were randomly assigned to one out of the two conditions. The questionnaire was created online and the used program for gathering data was Qualtrics. The reason for choosing an online survey was the easier access to participants through the social network – Facebook. After the questionnaire was created, the generated link was sent to 100 participants in total (50 men and 50 women). The participation in the survey was on a voluntary basis. Out of those 100 participants, 88 filled in the survey - 47 women (53%) and 41 (47%) men. The average age was 24.3 years with the youngest participant – 20 years old and the oldest one – 33 years old (SD = 2.60).
2. Procedure
After clicking on the link to the survey, the participants were presented with a short introduction mentioning a master thesis project as a reason for conducting the survey and an explanation of the procedure. Then, two background questions were asked concerning gender and age. Following, participants were provided with an organizational context in which the scenarios were embedded. In both cases the participants were asked to imagine themselves working in a company which was very successful and which attributed to a great extent its success to its strict “no dating of a colleague” policy. Then, the text introduced the
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manipulation story. In it, participants in the low hierarchical position were led to believe that they were the ordinary office assistant in the product development department who was very low in the hierarchy and with no influence on the decision-making process. In the high hierarchical position condition participants were placed in the role of the chief of the product development department who was very high in the hierarchy and with great influence on the decision-making process. In both scenarios the participants were offered for a promotion with only one competitor for the same spot. The respondents were presented with an opportunity to tell a rumor to the Hiring Committee about their direct competitor for a promotion who was dating another colleague. After the scenarios the participants were required to indicate their tendency to either engage in this act or refrain from it. In an attempt to reduce the number of answers to this ethical dilemma influenced by the social desirability bias and really catch the possibility of resorting to interpersonal unethical behavior, gossiping in particular, the respondents were reassured that their action would not result in a dismissal of the competitor but only tilt the scales of the decision to their advantage.
Next, the respondents were asked questions concerning their level of competitiveness and questions concerning their interest in maintaining good relations within a group. After the scenario, questions were asked to check for the effectiveness of the manipulation of one’s position within the organization. The survey closed with a thanking note for the participants.
3. Measurements and Manipulations
1) Interpersonal unethical behavior – the dependent variable was measured with only
one question: “Now, you are at your meeting with the Hiring Committee (HC). What are you
going to do? Are you going to tell the Hiring Committee (HC) the information about your competitor dating another colleague?”. The possible answers were on a 6 – point scale from
“I will definitely not tell the rumor to the HC” to “I will definitely tell the rumor to the HC”.
2) Gender – the participants were asked to indicate their gender. Then the moderator
variable was created by coding the two genders. Male was given value of 1 and female of 2.
3) Manipulation check hierarchical position – A manipulation check was performed by
asking two questions concerning the scenario which the participant had read. The two questions were “In the scenario I just read I had the role of the chief of the product
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in the product development department”. The participants were given the opportunity to
answer on a 5 – point scale from 1: “completely disagree” to 5: “completely agree”. Due to the fact that the questions were reversely coded (one cannot score 5 on both questions), one of the questions was recoded. Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.80. Then a sum variable from those two questions was created.
IV. Results
Manipulation Check Hierarchical Position
The manipulation check showed in terms of a one-way analysis of variance that a condition of a high hierarchical position and a low hierarchical position was created (F (1.86) = 102.71, p < 0.01). Participants at the low hierarchical position thought more strongly that they are in fact at that position (M = 3.89, SD = 0.87) in comparison to participants at the high hierarchical position (M = 2.03, SD = 0.84). Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations and Table 2 presents the results of the one-way analysis of variance.
--- INSERT TABLE 1 AND TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE ---
Two-Way Analysis of Variance
In order to test Hypothesis 1: “The higher an individual’s hierarchical position, the
higher the probability for a person to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior” and Hypothesis 2: “The higher an individual’s hierarchical position, the higher the probability for a person to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior and this effect is moderated by gender so that the effect is more pronounced for men as opposed to women.” a two-way analysis of
variance was conducted. The descriptive statistics for each of the conditions of the hierarchical position and the gender are presented in Table 3. The results from the two-way analysis of variance are presented in Table 4.
--- INSERT TABLE 3 AND 4 ABOUT HERE ---
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people in a high hierarchical position are not more unethical (M = 2.06, SD = 1.08) than people in a low hierarchical position (M = 1.90, SD = 0.96). Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was rejected. Furthermore, the two-way analysis of variance also provided evidence that gender does not have an interaction effect on the relationship between a hierarchical position and unethical interpersonal behavior (F (1.84) = 1.49, p = 0.23). When having a high hierarchical position, men are not more inclined to act unethically (M = 2.50, SD = 1.23) than women (M
= 1.69, SD = 0.79). Also, when having a low hierarchical position, there is no difference
between men (M = 2.05, SD = 1.13) and women (M = 1.76, SD = 0.77) when it comes to unethical behavior. Consequently, Hypothesis 2 was rejected as well.
However, the two-way analysis of variance indicated a strong direct effect of gender on the dependent variable – interpersonal unethical behavior (F (1.84) = 6.73, p < 0.01) – providing support for the claim that men are more inclined to engage in such behavior (M =
2.29, SD = 1.19) than women (M = 1.72, SD = 0.77).
V. Discussion
The aim of this paper was to answer the research question “How does the hierarchical
position in an organization influence the probability of engaging in interpersonal unethical behavior and how is this relation moderated by gender?”. It was hypothesized that people
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not manage to provoke a strong desire to take advantage of the rumor in order to win the job promotion. The following quantitative analysis in the form of a two-way analysis of variance did not provide support for the hypotheses. The high hierarchical position did not predict the propensity to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior. Furthermore, the moderating effect of gender was also rejected. However, a strong direct effect on the dependent variable was identified suggesting a higher probability for men to resort to interpersonal unethical behavior in order to advance in their career in a direct competition with a colleague. In the rest of the chapter theoretical implications, practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research will be discussed.
1. Theoretical Implications
The lack of results in support of the two hypotheses can be attributed to the fact that the model is actually far more complicated. Different moderating effects on the predicting of unethical interpersonal behavior by hierarchical position such as, for example, ethnic background, culture and personality traits may exist. The profound implications of culture, for instance, for management research as well as for practice are well-known due to its influence on “ethical decision-making and behavior”, (Tan & Chaw, 2008: 197). Consequently, in a future research such a factor should be taken into account. Tan & Chaw (2008), for example, mentioned that Chinese-American respondents exhibited more anxiety to leave up to their cultural traditions and therefore avoid confrontations. Furthermore, Ma (2010) in his research about ethically questionable negotiations in Canada and China found support for both his hypotheses that in the Canadian society male negotiators are more inclined to engage in such ethically questionable negotiations in comparison to women and that in China the gender differences are either little or not existent at all because of women’s extremely increased in recent decades equal status. So in terms of this research it is possible that gender may not alone trigger a potential effect on the relation between a hierarchical position and interpersonal unethical behavior. Other factors such as culture can have impact as well and should be taken into account in future research in order for such an effect to be detected.
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self-incriminating activities. Therefore, the authors argue that this self-preventing condition is a sufficient ground to claim that people at a higher status can be exposed to a higher level of normative pressure. Additionally, it should be taken into account the fact the leadership roles they occupy are far more visible which may lead them to refrain from engaging in antisocial behavior. “Being that much in the spotlight” may actually be the reason why those higher in the hierarchy give maybe the wrong impression of being more unethical and corrupted by power. In fact, Aquino and Douglas (2003) go even further by suggesting that in comparison to low status employees, the high status ones are “more sensitive to workplace norms”, (p. 205), which could be a base to claim that in the ethical way they treat their workplace, they treat their co-workers as well.
Another reason why the higher hierarchical position failed to predict interpersonal unethical behavior can be that actually individuals at a lower position are the ones who are more apt to resort to such behavior. Aquino and Douglas (2003) found in their research that individuals with a lower status show higher potency to engage in antisocial behavior when facing identity threats in comparison to individuals with a higher status. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that people engage in competition not only to reach a higher status but also to avoid lower status (Daly & Wilson, 1988). In other words when their already low status which is part of their identity is threatened to be even more undermined, people tend to act in an even more competitive way. The authors also discovered that those individuals exhibit greater revengeful tendencies. All those characteristic traits concerning identity threats and vindictive propensities indicate a possible opposite relation between the hierarchical position and interpersonal unethical behavior. Thus, further research is necessary in order to identify with more certainty whether the hierarchical position in fact predicts interpersonal unethical behavior and whether individuals at a higher or at a lower one are more inclined to engage in it.
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respectively due to the previously explained in the literature review male traits associated with competition and female ones associated with empathy and taking care of others (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2008; Shukla & Tripathy, 1994; Wieland & Sarin, 2011;).1 Thus, additional research should be carried out.
Still, what was quite curious and surprising was the finding that a strong direct effect exists between gender and the dependent variable interpersonal unethical behavior in a way suggesting that men are more unethical than women. According to literature, actually, there is no concrete opinion on the topic claiming that often women and men are equally ethical but when differences do exist, women are more ethical (O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2012). Thus, this research and finding strongly support the claim that women stand higher on “the ethical scale than men” (Kidwell, et al., 1987; Weeks et al., 1999).
What is quite fascinating is the fact that this effect is shown in a scenario using gossiping as the type of interpersonal unethical behavior because women are usually associated more with that kind of behavior (Leaper & Holliday, 1995). However, the reasons why men engaged in this interpersonal unethical behavior and women did not can be traced back to several factors. First of all, as already mentioned, women are thought to possess better understanding of empathy and higher “nurturing tendencies” (Shukla & Tripathy, 1994: 1281), associated with their communion nature, and men are more predisposed to turn competition into a fierce one (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2008; Wieland & Sarin, 2011). Hence, it is very plausible that the promotion competition in the scenario “struck the match” of the innate male competitive nature resulting in resorting to violating ethics. Second, White (1992) in his article mentions that men possess a “separate self” unlike women who possess “connected self”. He attributes this difference to the unethical behavior of men in the research of marketing professionals by Akaah (1989). White explains that the chosen course of “morally questionable” (p. 55) behavior is justified by men because of their conviction that it is legal and can improve the performance of the company. The same logic can be applied to the conducted current research. It is possible to suggest that men do not perceive their telling
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the rumor to the Hiring Committee as interpersonal unethical behavior but as their right and opportunity to succeed in the competition. On the other hand, due to their “connected” self (White, 1992), empathy and stress on interdependence (Cojuharenco, et al., 2012) women can be argued to sympathize to some extent with their competitor and therefore not consider telling the rumor.
Nevertheless, the discovered direct effect between gender and interpersonal unethical behavior may have a different explanation as well. The existence of the so-called social desirability response bias, which refers to the propensity of individuals to report more socially desirable traits and behaviors and report less undesirable traits and behaviors (Zerbe & Paulhus, 1987), is a well-known hindrance in empirical research about self-reporting ethical behavior. In that sense what if women are more prone to answer in a socially desirable way? In fact, Chung and Monroe, (2003) claim that women are more likely to be affected by societal norms in order to create a positive impression which consequently results in a stronger tendency for women to answer in a socially desirable fashion. Furthermore, Dalton and Ortegren (2011) in their research of a sample of scenarios from other studies, discovering gender differences in ethical decision-making and putting women higher on the ethical scale, found out that out of 27 scenarios in 21 the social desirability response bias mediated the relationship between gender and ethical responses. The authors concluded that “gender differences in self-reported ethical behavior are largely diminished once social desirability is included as a control variable” (p. 85). Therefore, it is possible that the discovered direct effect of gender on interpersonal unethical behavior in the current research is due to women’s higher potency to answer in a socially desirable way. Hence, further research on the topic is required.
2. Practical Implications:
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monitoring of behavior throughout the whole hierarchical ladder can build higher levels of trust and respect among colleagues which is crucial for maintaining a pleasant and friendly working environment. Such an environment is a prerequisite for successful teamwork and higher job performance.
The discovered direct effect of gender on unethical interpersonal behavior also has practical implications. During the recruitment as well as during the general monitoring of the work of employees in an organization, managers should take into account gender differences when conducting integrity tests. The purpose of those tests is to assess personalities with the notion that personality has an impact on dishonest behavior (Henemann III, Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). So it is important that integrity tests do not ignore the existent differences in gender. Based on the results of such tests different measures can be taken such as integrity training, for example.
3. Limitations and Future Research
As every piece of research the current one also suffers from several limitations. First of all, as mentioned earlier, the studies investigating self-reported ethics can suffer from social desirability response bias (Zerbe & Paulhus, 1987). This limitation has always the potential to negatively influence the manipulation and skew the results because although the respondents are assured that the survey is anonymous, they do have the tendency to refrain from choosing the unethical answer. In the case of this research it is possible that this negative effect on the data is even more profound because the survey was sent through the social media “Facebook” only to familiar people whom it will be very difficult to convince that they will remain anonymous.
Among the limitations is also that the current study uses a rather small and homogenous sample of 88 people. Almost all participants are still students at an average age of 24.3 who lack actual working experience and probably cannot objectively put themselves in the manipulated roles. Therefore, in order for the reliability of the conducted analysis in this research to be increased, it will be more relevant to carry out a study with a higher number of participants who are real professionals from various working spheres.
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unethical interpersonal behavior. Therefore, in a future study researchers should be very cautious when formulating the question which measures the dependent variable, try to conceal as much as possible about the actual point of the research and if probable, maybe ask more than one question about it in order to have a better chance of provoking the respondent to engage in interpersonal unethical behavior.
Another possible limitation may be that the respondents might have considered a promotion not a sufficient incentive to resort to unethical interpersonal behavior. Nevertheless, this does not completely leave out the possibility that such a direct effect indeed exists. It is possible that under different circumstances, for example, jeopardy of losing the achieved position and resources or even making the promotion itself more attractive, significant results can be found.
The fact that the survey was conducted in English despite the higher level of participants’ knowledge of the language should also be taken into account because with several possible exceptions neither of the respondents was a native speaker. It should also be considered the fact that it is quite probable that the respondents, who were all Europeans, did not fully associate with the case of “no-dating of a colleague policy” and refrained from using gossiping in order to advance professionally. It is common knowledge that those kinds of policies are more popular in American companies. This is because those organizations are highly afraid of potential sexual harassments lawsuits initiated by their employees due, to a great extent, to the culture of the used Common Law System opposed to the European Continental Civil Law. Hence, in a future research the same model can be run with a different type of unethical interpersonal behavior which may increase the potency of engaging in that behavior as well as reduce the social desirability bias.
Conclusion:
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IV
APPENDIX A
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for the Manipulation Check of Hierarchical Position
Dependent variable: Manipulation check sum variable (the mean of the two manipulation check questions)
Hierarchical position M SD N
Low hierarchical position 3.89 0.87 40
high hierarchical position 2.03 0.84 48
Total 2.86 1.26 88
Table 2: One-Way Analysis of Variance of the Manipulation Check of Hierarchical Position:
Dependent variable: Manipulation check sum variable (the mean of the two manipulation check questions)
Source df MS F p*
Hierarchical position 1 75.18 102.71 0.01
Error 86 0.73
V
Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for each of the Conditions of Hierarchical Position and Gender
Gender Hierarchical position M SD N
Male Low hierarchical position 2.05 1.13 19 High hierarchical position 2.50 1.23 22
Total 2.29 1.19 41
Female Low hierarchical position 1.76 0.77 21 high hierarchical position 1.69 0.79 26
Total 1.72 0.77 47
Total Low hierarchical position 1.90 0.96 40 high hierarchical position 2.06 1.08 48
Total 1.99 1.02 88
Table 4: Two-Way Analysis of Variance
Source df MS F p*
Hierarchical position 1 0.78 0.80 0.34
Hierarchical position x Gender 1 1.45 1.49 0.23
Gender 1 6.55 6.73 0.01
Error 84 0.97
VI
APPENDIX B
Scenario 1
You are working in an international telecommunication company. The company has been very successful and one of the factors it attributes its success to is its strictly “no-dating of a colleague” policy. It is considered that a possible relationship with a colleague leads not only to distraction but also to lower quality of the team work provided that relation is ended. You are the ordinary office assistant in the product development department of the company. Your position is very low within the organizational hierarchy and in general you do not have any influence on the decision-making process. You learned that there is a possibility to be promoted to the next step which is a supervisor and you really want that promotion. Two candidates are considered by the Hiring Committee – you and the office assistant in the marketing department. Up until now, you have been working very well together. However, rumor has it that your competitor is having an affair with a colleague. You know that if this information goes public, it will not result in a dismissal for the employee, but it will strongly tilt the scales to your advantage.
Scenario 2
VII
Questions: 4. What is your age?
5. What is your gender?
a) male b) female
6. Now, you are at your meeting with the Hiring Committee (HC). What are you going to
do? Are you going to tell the Hiring Committee the information about your competitor dating another colleague?
1. I will definitely not tell the rumor to the HC 2. I will not tell the rumor to the HC
3. I will probably not tell the rumor to the HC 4. I will probably tell the rumor to the HC 5. I will tell the rumor to the HC
6. I will definitely tell the rumor to the HC
7. I really want that promotion:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
5. In general I am a very competitive person:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
6. I enjoy competing against an opponent:
VIII 3. Neither Agree nor Disagree
4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
7. I prefer winning no matter the cost:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
8. It is usually not important to me to be the best:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
9. Maintaining good relations with my colleagues is extremely important for me:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
5. Strongly Agree
10. In the scenario I just read I have the role of the chief of the product development
department:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
IX
11. In the scenario I just read I have the role of an office assistant in the product
development:
1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree 4. Agree
