A research on the influence of gender diversity in the top management team on unethical business behavior

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UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

A research on the influence of gender diversity in the

top management team on unethical business behavior

Master Thesis, Msc. International Business & Management

June, 20th 2014

Ninghui Huang S2518988

Room 242 Building 9, Renmin Park Dormitory Nanning, Guangxi, China

530023 Tel.: +310633108277 E-mail: n.huang@student.rug.nl or

hnhbbw@hotmail.com

Words: 10,283 (incl. cover page, references and appendices)

Supervisor:

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ABSTRACT

This research was designed to test a potential relationship between gender diversity in the top management team and the firm’s tendency to engage in unethical business behavior. It was hypothesized that the low male diversity team has the higher level of propensity to engage in unethical business behavior than the high gender diversity team, while the high gender diversity team is more prone to engage in unethical business behavior than the low female diversity team. The hypotheses were tested by a scenario study which the gender diversity was manipulated and respondents were asked to indicate their tendency to make an unethical business decision (choosing a low cost manufacturer who provided harmful material). The significant supported results that the low male diversity team is more unethical than both the high gender diversity team and the low female diversity team were provided. Nonetheless, the hypothesis that the low female diversity team will be less likely to engage in unethical behavior than the high gender diversity team was rejected. Possible explanations for the results, implications as well as future suggestions were discussed.

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Corporate unethical business behavior has become the focus of public attention over the recent years (Daboub et al, 1995). Many large companies have engaged in terribly unethical business practices, resulting in large economic losses to the public (Ross, 1980; Thornburgh, 1991). For example, Toyota made a huge and unethical failure in 2010 when they betrayed their promise by ignoring safety concerns and delaying recall investigations just in order to save a little money. Another well-known example is Apple. You may not imagine that such a highly popular and glamorous product is made by one of the biggest manufacturer Foxconn where underage labor practices exist, causing children to be forced to work in a dangerous working environment. And this is why Apple has its continuous high profits. Besides, there are millions of medium or small businesses that engage in unethical practices, which may be unknown to the public. Consequently, not only theoretical scholars, but also the public media, governments, and individual organizations have expressed their serious concerns to the issue of unethical business behavior. They consent that unethical business behavior deserves further attention and investigation (Daboub et al, 1995).

The upper echelon perspective points out that the top management team, being a critical part of a company, plays an important role in decision-making processes, which will affect the firm performance to a large extent (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). As such, consensus may be emerging that corporate wrongdoing is more often the result of actions or inactions, deliberate or inadvertent, by the top managers of the organization (Daboub et al, 1995), since the top management team is empowered to make the essential organizational decisions. In other words, if a company engages in unethical business behavior, top managers are likely to be blamed because of their unethical behavior would have a great influence on important organizational decisions.

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How does gender diversity in the top management team influence the propensity of a company to engage in unethical business behavior?

This paper will be organized as follows. At the beginning, I will review literature about the role of the top management team and gender diversity in the top management team. The concepts of the top management team and gender diversity will be given, and their relationship with unethical behavior will be discussed. At the end of this part the hypothesis will be presented. The next part is methodology part. In this part I will introduce briefly how I conduct the scenario study in order to collect data and test the hypothesis. Then I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the found results. Finally, limitations of the current study and suggestions for the future study will be put forward.

II. Literature review

1. Corporate unethical behavior and the top management team

Unethical behavior

Over the recent years, thousands of business scandals have been frequently exposed via the news media, giving an impression of unethical business behavior to the whole public. For example, dumping pollutants into the river, releasing toxins into the airs, refusing to pay for employees or pay a lower salary than standard level, refusing to provide employees with a favorable working environment, engaging in price fixing to force smaller competitors out of business, and using bait and switch or false advertising tactics to attract and mislead customers to buy the product or service. Although unethical behavior is not a totally new concept and it is definitely an unfortunate phenomenon, its definition remains ambiguous because the causations are quite complex (Buckley, et al., 1998).

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“bad” or “wrong” in a particular setting. Moreover, in the study of Buckley, Wiese and Harvey (1998), a basic approach was proposed to define ethical decision making in organizations. It suggested that consequential ethics focuses on the goals and/or consequences of a decision or action. Utilitarianism, as a popular approach to consequentialism, asserts that an action is “right” if it “produces the greater balance of pleasure/utility over pain/costs” (Getz, 1990). Because the benefits of consumers derived from a company’s product must be weighed against the cost of the consumer’s use of the product to the society at large, thus the relation of individual benefits to the societal costs complicates the ethical determinations of many business decisions (Buckley et al., 1998). Therefore, it is always difficult to make a conclusive definition of unethical behavior, because of the complexity of the unethical behavior and because of the different theoretical perspectives of researchers.

In this paper I define an unethical behavior as an action that falls outside what is considered morally right or legal to the larger society. Since my focus is on unethical behavior among businesses, I extend that the unethical business behavior will bring some negative outcomes to the organizations and result in large losses to the public (Ross, 1980; Thornburgh, 1991).

Predictors of corporate unethical behavior

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Competition can also be a critical explanatory variable for unethical business behavior (Cai et al., 2005). Rarely do people look at the dark side of competition because it tends to be regarded as a good thing which keeps prices low and quality high so that benefits consumers. However, intense competition may lead to excessive focus on short-term benefits, which are promoters of unethical behavior (Williams, 2012). As such, competition is not always good for consumers and the whole society, instead, it may trigger unethical business behavior.

Additionally, factors that are external or internal to the organization have been discussed by some researchers (Holcomb & Sethi, 1992; Szwajkowski, 1985). External antecedent factors include industry and environmental characteristics. It is said that firms in certain industries are more likely to commit illegal acts (Baucus & Near, 1991; Simpson, 1986), and firms in certain industries have similar rates of illegal activity (Cressey, 1976). Furthermore, empirical evidence suggests that in less munificent environments, companies have an increased propensity to engage in illegal activities (Staw & Szwajkowski, 1975).

On the other hand, for the internal antecedent factors, size, organizational slack and performance, corporate strategy, structure and control system and organizational history are involved. First, researchers have found a positive relationship between firm size and the propensity to engage in illegal activity. Larger firms are more criminogenic (Simpson, 1986). Second, it is generally believed that poor performance may result in an organizational illegal behavior (Baucus &Near, 1992; Clinard & Yeager, 1980). Third, an unrelated diversification strategy may increase the likelihood of illegal activity. Forth, as the breadth of control increases, the probability that the managers will engage in illegal behavior grows (Daboub et al, 1995). Finally, an organization’s history of wrongdoing is in itself a predictor of future wrongdoing (Daboub et al, 1995).

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To sum up, management researchers have placed great emphasis on investigating the antecedents of unethical business behavior. All these previous studies convince that unethical behavior should not be neglected. This thesis will elaborate on the important role of the top management team as a predictor of unethical business behavior.

Why TMT

The top management team is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of organization management, top managers have the responsibilities of strategic decision-making and managing the day-to-day operations of a company (Menz, 2012). This team “collectively assumes the role of the COO in managing internal operations and helps the CEO formulate strategy and manage external relations” (Ancona & Nadler, 1989). The top management team is a truly interdependent, interacting team. Namely, team members have a sense of identity, they perceive themselves as a unit. They are interdependent because they depend upon each other to produce their output (Ancona & Nadler, 1989).

On account of the crucial status of the top management team within a firm, scholars have proposed many different opinions about the influence of the top management team on the firm’s performance. One of the most famous theories is the upper echelons theory. The central idea of upper echelons perspective, proposed by Hambrick and Mason (1984), is that “executives act on the basis of their highly personalized interpretations of the situations and options they face”. In other words, executives inject their personalities, values and experiences into their behaviors. Those behaviors are consequently shaping strategy or influencing the actions of others, hence organizations can be regarded as reflections of their top managers (Hambrick, 2007). Thus, a company’s performance and behavior, to a great extent, are regarded as a function of its top management team which makes most of the firm’s important strategic and organizational decisions (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Carpenter et al., 2004).

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that usually establishes the norms and reward system, which shape the ethical conduct of subordinates. Gross (1978) concluded that “persons who will engage in crime on behalf of the organization will most likely be the officers of the organization, its top people”. Therefore, the consensus appears to be that the major responsibility for corporate wrongdoing mostly rests on the management team (Monks & Minow, 1991). Top managers actively direct or participate in illegal activities (Kriesberg, 1976). As the top management team has great influence on essential organizational decisions when top managers are unethical, it seems reasonable to consider the top management team as a key factor in explaining corporate unethical behavior (Daboub et al., 1995).

Characteristics of the team

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unethical behaviors may have a decisive impact on the whole top management team’s unethical behavior.

2. Gender diversity in TMT and unethical business behavior

The concept of gender differences

It has been generally believed that male and female are distinctively different from physiology to psychology, bringing about different human behavior (Betz, Connell & Shepard, 1989). According to sex role stereotypes, male and female have diverse characteristics and learning experiences (Buckley, et al., 1998). For instance, on the basis of the stereotype, males are more likely to be “forceful, assertive, aggressive, persistent, and decisive”, nevertheless females tend to be more “passive, submissive, dependent, emotional, and indecisive” (Buckley, et al., 1998). Although these stereotypes are difficult to demonstrate, they do affect social perceptions (Heilman & Martell, 1986; Powell, 1990). Studies show that the different characteristics between male and female managers bring about different values and attitudes toward the managerial role, resulting in different performance in the workplace (Keys, 1985; Statham, 1987; Shann, 1983; Brenner and Tomkiewicz, 1979).

Gender differences and unethical behavior

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regulations (Buckley et al., 1998). On the contrary, masculine characteristics comprise independence of thought and action (Buckley et al., 1998). Males are expected to be “aggressive and independent” (Eisen, 1972; Mussen, Rutherford, Harris, & Keasey, 1970; Ward, 1986; Ward &Beck, 1989). In other researches, Tittle and Rowe (1973) and Leming (1980) found that males are less easily influenced by the threat of sanction than are females. Female’s fear of sanction can be attributed to female role socialization, “in that the women feared a reduction in status and damage to their reputation for engaging in dishonest behavior” (Buckley et al., 1998). Thus, the differences between men and women may cause different level of possibility to engage in unethical behavior and can help us explain and analyze what unethical decisions made by top management team.

So far, most of the above contents are standing in the individual position to talk about gender difference and its influence on individual ethical performance. According to the characteristics of a team, the individual gender differences can be considered as the origin of gender diversity in the top management team. Different proportion of male to female in the top management team refers to different level of gender diversity in the team. Moreover, it is said that the individual unethical behaviors can be attributed to the gender differences. Therefore, different level of gender diversity in the top management team may be an important indicator for investigating the firm’s unethical business behavior.

Previous study about gender diversity in TMT

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non-mandatory targets (Curtis et al., 2012). These facts indicate that women are able to perform better than men in some areas which were traditionally male-dominated; the most typical example is the top management team (Dezso & Ross, 2008). Thus, the gender diversity in the top management team is of great importance for studying many issues related to the firm’s performance.

Looking back to the early literature, controversial views about the relationship between gender diversity in the top management team and firm performance have been raised by different researchers. Some researchers report a negative relationship between gender diversity in the top management team and firm performance. They conclude that top management teams with diverse gender are more difficult and expensive to coordinate and control than homogeneous teams and the extra costs will hamper firm performance (Ancona and Caldwell, 1992; Murray, 1989). Furthermore, some additional arguments against top management team gender diversity exist, stating that a more heterogeneous team may be more time-consuming and may be less effective than a more homogeneous team, especially when the firm is operating in a highly competitive market where the ability to react quickly to the external environment is critical. It may be harder for the heterogeneous team to find a balance between conflicted opinions, resulting in the relatively low efficient decision-making processes (Smith et al., 2006).

Yet, a number of studies have found a positive association between top management team gender diversity and firm performance, indicating that gender diversity may enhance the breath of perspectives, cognitive resources, and overall problem-solving capacity of the team (Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Hambrick et al., 1996; Smith et al., 1994). Women managers may have different experiences from their working life and non-working life compared to men. They may have a better understanding than men in some of the segments of the market place of the firm, and this may improve the creativity and quality of the decision making process of the board (Singh and Vinnicombe, 2004). In short, scholars have paid lots of attention on the effects of gender differences in the top management team on firm performance, but seldom has linked gender diversity in the top management team to the firm’s unethical behavior.

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effective in a competitive environment, which is an important driven factor of unethical business behavior (Gneezy, Nierdle, and Rustichini, 2003; Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007). The traits associated with female’s characteristics reduce the probability of women engaging in fierce competition, resulting in lower propensity to behave unethically (Buckley et al., 1998). So, generally speaking, males are believed to be more prone to behave unethically than female. Therefore, I propose the first hypothesis within low gender diversity teams:

Hypothesis 1: The propensity to engage in unethical business behavior of the top management team with only male managers (low male diversity) will be higher than that of the top management team with only female managers (low female diversity).

When looking into high gender diversity team, there are half male managers and half female managers. The number of male managers who are supposed to be more unethical in the high gender diversity team is less than the number of male managers in the low male diversity team, so I suggest that the probability of engaging in unethical business behavior for the high gender diversity team will be lower than the low male diversity team. On the other way around, there are more female managers who are supposed to be more ethical in the low female diversity team than the high gender diversity team, so the possibility of engaging in unethical behavior for the high gender diversity team will be higher than the possibility that for the low female diversity team. Therefore, I propose the second hypothesis between high and low gender diversity teams:

Hypothesis 2: The propensity to engage in unethical business behavior of the top management team with half male and half female managers (high level of gender diversity):

2a: will be lower than the propensity to engage in unethical behavior of the top management team with only male managers (low male diversity).

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III. Methodology

1. General Information about Participants and Design

In order to collect the required data, I developed a scenario study. Different scenarios were created and were embedded in an online survey. I used the Qualtrics software to do the online surveys and to gather data because it was easy to distribute the survey link through internet. The generated survey link was randomly sent to 90 participants in total. Out of these 90 participants, 81 finished the survey. Specifically, 40 male respondents (49%) and 41 female respondents (51%) filled in the surveys. The average age was 23.5 years with the youngest participant 20 years old and the oldest one 34 years old (SD=2.23). Respondents were composed of 57 students, 27 employees and 2 neither students nor employees.

2. Procedure

After clicking the link to the survey, the respondents were first presented with a short introduction which asked them to finish the survey for a master student’s thesis development. A simple explanation of the procedure was also presented to give them some guidance. Then, a background question was asked, concerning participant’s gender: male or female. According to the gender of respondents, different scenarios were displayed to the participant. More specifically, male respondents received either the scenario with the low diversity male condition, consisting of solely male managers in the top management team or the high diversity condition with equal male and female representation in the top management team. Female respondents received either the low diversity female condition, consisting of all female managers in the top management team or the high diversity condition with an equal division of male and females manager in the top management team.

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working with all female team members. While for the high diversity condition, participants were informed that the gender composition of the top management team is half male and half female. Participants were told that team members have the decision-making rights for the company’s important issues. They work intensively with each other and a lot of interpersonal interaction happens on the daily meeting. So far, they have been cooperating with each other very well. At the moment, the company was about to introduce a new generation of smart phones to the market. As such, respondents were provided with an opportunity to decide which telephone manufacturer to corporate with. Two candidates were under consideration. Manufacturer X provided harmful material but can save money, while manufacturer Y provided eco-friendly material with high cost. After the scenario, respondents were required to indicate their tendency to choose the low cost manufacturer X. Next, the respondents were asked to answer the questions concerning their ambitions of profit maximization, their opinions about company’s reputation and their attitudes towards environment conservation. Lastly, the survey ended up with a thanking note for the participants.

3.Measurements and manipulations

1)Unethical business behavior

The dependent variable was measured with one question: “Now, you are going to choose a manufacturer to corporate with, what are you going to do? ”. The possible answers were on a six point likert scale, ranging from 1 “ I will definitely not choose manufacturer X” to 6 “I will definitely choose manufacturer X”.

2)Manipulations

The participants were asked to indicate their gender at the beginning of the surveys. I coded male with 1 and female with 2. The low diversity male scenario was coded 1, the low female scenario was coded 2 and the high diversity scenario was coded 0.

4. Data Analysis and Results

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respondents. We can see that the highest unethical tendency (level 6) exists in the high gender diversity condition, while the lowest unethical tendency (level 2) happens in the low female diversity team. In the low male diversity team, respondents tend to have a narrow range of unethical tendency from level 4 to level 5, remaining in a relatively high level.

--- Insert Figure 1 about here ---

Next, in order to test the hypotheses, I used one-way ANOVA analysis as the main statistical methods. First of all, Table 1 shows the overall descriptives: means and standard deviations. Subsequently, to identify whether the different conditions of gender diversity in the top management team have an impact on the participant’s tendency to engage in unethical business behavior, one-way ANOVA analysis was carried out. The results are presented in Table 2, which indicates that different level of gender diversity can be seen as a predictor of the propensity to engage in unethical business behavior (F(2,78)=2.51, p=0.09), the result is marginally significant. This means that there is a difference between the conditions with regard to one’s inclination to engage in unethical behavior. But the results of one-way ANOVA analysis do not specifically show the significance between the conditions, so I conducted T-tests to gain further insight in the results.

--- Insert Table 1 and Table 2 about here ---

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teams, providing support for the claim that male (M=3.47, SD= 1.12) are more inclined to engage in unethical behavior than female (M=2.75, SD=0.97). Therefore, hypothesis 1 was supported.

--- Insert Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 about here ---

IV. Discussion, implications and future direction

The notion that the top management team influence the firm’s ethical outcomes is a popular one. In line with the upper echelon perspective, the top management team is very likely to be blamed regarding its important decision making position in the firm (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). A great number of research has been done on the importance of the top management team in the firm (e.g. Hambrick &Manson, 1984; Child, 1972) and has made a relationship between the top management team and the firm ethical performance (e.g. Daboub et al., 1995; Kriesberg,1976; Gross, 1978; Monks & Minow, 1991). Meanwhile, the influence of gender difference on different individual behavior is also emphasized by many studies (e.g. Betz, Connell & Shepard, 1989; Buckley, et al., 1998; Keys, 1985; Statham, 1987; Shann, 1983; Brenner and Tomkiewicz, 1979). Some of scholars have done the researches in a narrower scope and conferred that male and female may have different propensity to engage in unethical behavior (e.g. Crane & Matten, 2010; Ford & Richardson, 1994; Eisen, 1972; Mussen, Rutherford, Harris, & Keasey, 1970; Ward, 1986; Ward &Beck, 1989). In short, scholars have paid lots of attention on the effects of gender diversity in the top management team on firm performance, however, to my knowledge seldom study has investigated that the firm’s unethical manner could be associated with the gender diversity in the top management team. Indeed, building a bridge between gender diversity in the top management team and firm’s unethical business behavior could fill up the existing research gap and introduce theoretical and practical suggestion for further study.

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suggesting that the gender diversity in the top management team will influence the firm’s likelihood to engage in unethical business behavior. The main objective of this thesis is to answer the research question “ How does gender diversity in the top management team influence the propensity of a company to engage in unethical business behavior?”. The following quantitative analyses in the form of one-way ANOVA provided significant support for hypothesis 1, while the results marginally supported hypothesis 2a and rejected hypothesis 2b. In the rest of this chapter I will discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations and suggestions for further research.

1. Theoretical Implications

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others, and then making a more ethical choice. In all, the characteristics related to masculine and feminine are sensible explanations for the supported result that male managers are more prone to engage in unethical behavior than female managers. These results consolidate the opinion that people with different gender may have different ethical performance and can be considered as valuable additions to the existing literatures on gender diversity and unethical business behavior. The importance of gender diversity in the top management team should be emphasized in the future research.

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unethical business behavior. Other factors such as age, education background, personal experience should be taken into consideration.

Another reason why the high gender diversity team is not more unethical than the low female diversity team can be explained by the bounded ethicality theory (Chugh, Bazeman & Banaji, 2005). Kahneman and Tverksy (1979) proposed that the cognitive ability and available resources of decision makers are limited. Decision makers are easily affected by perceived bias during they identifying problems, resulting in deviation from the the optimal way of rational decision making (Kahneman & Tverksy, 1979). Based on the perspectives of Kahneman and Tverksy, some researchers point out that many unethical behavior and decision making actually have reflected people’s lack of rationality and deliberate consideration, sometimes people just make a decision intuitively or emotionally (Haidt, 2001; Reynolds, 2006; Sonenshein, 2007). So, bounded ethicality gives an indication that people may unintentionally engage in unethical behavior which goes against their own moral standards (Banaji, Bazerman & Chugh, 2003; Banaji & Bhaskar, 2000). As it was elaborated in the literature review, studies reported that women are more ethical than men (Ford & Richardson, 1994). However, according to bounded ethicality perspective, women are also likely to engage in unethical behavior. They may behave unethically without realizing that they are doing something against their moral standards. Thus, bounded ethicality could explain the unexpected result that the low female diversity team was not necessarily less apt to engage in unethical business behavior. Future research should realize that even though women are supposed to be less unethical, but it is not a hundred percent event that the top management team with only female managers will perform more ethical.

2. Practical Implications

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behavior than females gives some implications for recruiting and monitoring top managers in the firm. The gender-blind rule may not be applicable for recruiting and monitoring top managers. Different tests based on different gender should be used during selecting and sorting potential candidates. The purpose of these tests is to avoid the adverse selection problem and to put the qualified person into the right position in the top management team. Moreover, results of the current study imply that the top management team with only male managers has inferior ethical performance than the high gender diversity team. So, company should try to employ both male and female managers in the top management team rather than having a low gender diversity team. In a few words, in order to effectively manage the top management team and to control unethical business behavior, the influence of gender diversity in the top management team should not be ignored. Moreover, company should consider how to find a balance between the number of male managers and the number of female managers in the top management team.

3. Limitations and Future Research

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Finally, the survey was conducted in English while the questionnaires were sent to some participants who were not native speakers. This may also influence the respondents’ level of involvement into the scenario because of the unfamiliarity to the foreign language.

Another possible limitation is that the current study uses a small and homogeneous sample, only 81 participants finished the survey. Most of the participants are students at an average age of 23.5 years old. They might not be able to objectively put themselves into the manipulated roles because of their absence of the real working experience. Therefore, in order to collect more accurate data and gain more reliable results, it will be more relevant to carry out a study with more respondents who have real professional working experience.

Additionally, the measurement of the dependent variable of the current study is considered insufficient. It was only measured by one question about whether the respondents will choose the low cost manufacturer X. This question might inevitably give some hints of the purpose of this study to the respondents, making respondents avoid choosing the unethical answer. Therefore, in the future study, researchers should be cautious about formulating questions which measure the dependent variable. Try to use more questions to measure the dependent variable and conceal the actual purpose of the research as much as possible in order to make the respondents experience a high level of involvement in the scenario.

4. Conclusion

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APPENDIX A

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Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for different conditions on unethical behavior

Conditions M SD N

High diversity 2.88 1.152 42

Low male diversity 3.47 1.124 19

Low female diversity 2.75 0.967 20

Total 2.99 1.124 81

Table 2: One-way ANOVA of gender diversity and unethical behavior

Source df MS F P*

Between groups 2 3.048 2.505 0.088

Within groups 78 1.217

Total 80

Significance if *p<0.05

Table 3: One-way ANOVA of Low male diversity vs high gender diversity

Source df MS F P*

Between groups 1 4.596 3.515 0.066

Total 60

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Table 4: One-way ANOVA of Low female diversity vs high gender diversity Source df MS F P* Between groups 1 0.232 0.193 0.662 Within groups 60 1.203 Total 61 Significance if *p<0.05

Table 5: One-way ANOVA of Low male diversity vs low female diversity

Source df MS F P*

Between groups 1 5.103 4.663 0.037

Total 38

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APPENDIX B

Scenario 1

You are working in a famous multinational communication and information technology corporation. The company has been very successful and its success is largely attributed its mobile communication product; the smart phone. However, the smart phone market is experiencing an increasingly fierce competition. Different companies are trying to reduce cost as much as possible.

You are one of the managers in the company’s top management team, which consists of four male/female managers (including you). This means that there is no diversity within the top management team on a gender level: all the members are male/female. You are aware of this low diversity and know that you have to collaborate with only other male/female top management team members. You are highly empowered and are responsible for the important firm decisions. There is a high level of interaction among team members, you work

intensively together and have frequent meetings in which you discuss and decide on several business issues. So far, you work very well with your female/male top management members.

Recently the company is planning to introduce a new generation of smart phones to the market. Two manufacturers are considered candidates. Manufacturer X, who is able to produce phones with low-cost materials, which are potentially harmful to people's health and the environment. Potential health and environmental disadvantages will not be significant in the short term. The other manufacturer, Y, uses eco-friendly materials, but the costs are much higher. As such, the company's profit will be much higher when opting for manufacturer X.

Scenario 2

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You are one of the managers in the company’s top management team, which consists of two male managers and two female managers (including you). This means that there is a high diversity within the top management team on the gender level: half of the top management team is male, half of the top management team is female. You are aware of this high diversity and know that you have to collaborate with both your male and female top management team members. You are highly empowered and are responsible for the important firm decisions. There is a high level of interaction among team members, you work intensively together. So far, you work very well with both the male and female top management team members.

Recently the company is planning to introduce a new generation of smart phones to the market. Two manufacturers are considered candidates. Manufacturer X, who is able to produce phones with low-cost materials, which are proved to be harmful to people's health and the environment. But the disadvantages of using the cheaper material are not significant in the short term. The other manufacturer, Y, uses eco-friendly materials, but the cost is much higher. As such, the company's profit will be high if it chooses manufacturer X.

Questions:

1. Now, you are going to choose a manufacturer to corporate with, what are you going to do?

1. I will definitely not choose manufacturer X 2. I will not choose manufacturer X

3. I will probably not choose manufacturer X 4. I will probably choose manufacturer X 5. I will choose manufacturer X

6. I will definitely choose manufacturer X

2. What is your gender? a) male

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3. High profit is the only criterion to evaluate a successful company.

1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree

3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

4. I prefer profit maximization even though it may result in some bad outcomes.

5. Strongly agree

5. I think a good reputation is the most important for a company.

5. Strongly agree

6. I am a person who cares about the eco-environment.

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4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

7. I think the environmentalists often make some exaggerated statements.

5. Strongly agree

8. When you make a decision you always think about its negative influences on the company in long term.

5. Strongly agree

9. What is your age?

10. Are you a student or an employee? 1. I am a student

A research on the influence of gender diversity in the top management team on unethical business behavior