Past working behaviour moderated by gender influence the
ethical perception.
Master Thesis, MSc, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
July, 1st2013
L.F. Leung Student number: 1577468
Middenweg 19, 9745BL, Groningen, the Netherlands Phone: +31621848117
E-mail: S1577468@student.rug.nl
Supervisor: Drs. S.N. Ponsioen
Abstract
The aim of the current thesis was to research the relationship between the unethical behaviour on perception. In addition, the moderating effect of gender on that
Introduction
Numerous scandals in organizations ranging from the accounting scandal of Enron in the corporate world to the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal in American Football and the sexual abuses in catholic churches by ministers have caused a
widespread interest in ethical and unethical behaviour in organizations. Consequently, stakeholders like stockholders, communities and governments have placed an
increasing emphasis on organizations to manage their employees to behave as ethically as possible. Also employers are concerned with the honesty; dependability, integrity and trustworthiness of their employees. Due to these public pressures, employers are forced to be more concerned with the honesty, dependability, integrity and trustworthiness of their employees in order to prevent future scandals. To prevent any tendency toward unethical behaviour by their employees, employers are
increasingly turning to integrity tests and past references for personnel selection (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1998). It is important to detect any signs of unethical behaviour in personnel selection and reject those applicants before they can be damaging for the organization in the future.
Due to the responses to unethical behaviour and the large emphasis on prevention of such unethical behaviour, the present thesis will examine how people respond to unethical behaviours of others after they committed an unethical act. More specific, this paper will examine the ethical perception people hold about other people who committed unethical behaviour.
Although ethical perceptions about others maybe influenced by their
easier for an individual to maintain the stereotype than to change it (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996). As such, gender stereotypes may cause different evaluations of unethical behaviour, depending on gender. Therefore, the current thesis will examine how the ethical perception is moderated by existing stereotypes that are concerned with gender.
This current paper perceives gender as a moderator that influences one’s response and perception to past unethical behaviour of others. Gender is a part of the human condition and the current belief is that there is a notion of equality and equity within the social system. However, a number of feminist philosophers and ethicists have questioned the gender neutrality and believe that there are gender stereotypes (Conradi et al., 2003) and also concluded that gender does not determine ethics but it plays a role in ethics and gender role expectations (Amzat & Grandi, 2001). So, the gender perspective provides significant incentives for ethical theory that searches for possible conceptual imbalances or blind spots in ethical reflections. So, gender might be a significant category in ethical theory as women are often on the negative side of the perception in gender relations after a committed unethical act or past acts due to gender stereotypes and prejudice, which also affects the justice in the consideration of ethical judgments. Importantly, the behaviour an individual chooses to engage in is influenced by the past actions. So, it may appear counterintuitive that observing other people’s moral behaviour, one would expect that their moral actions will cause behaviour consistent with those actions. The implicit prejudice causes the perceptions of similar behaviour to be perceived differently between men and women. Therefore, different perceptions of the same behaviour can lead to discrimination. Moreover, people will perceive others more extremely when their behaviours violate the gender stereotypes (Amazat & Grandi, 2001; Cejka & Eagly, 1999; Sikula & Costa, 1994; Valentine et al. 2008).
the past. Moreover, it showed women are judged more closely on their ethical behaviour than their male counter parts. Therefore, the aim of the current paper will be replicating the previous finding. Moreover, to prove that the results of the previous paper are an existing phenomenon and prove it was not a fluke.
In the upcoming sections this paper will discuss the concepts of the study in the literature review. In this section a theoretical framework will be introduced that links the main variables of the research: past (un)ethical behaviour, gender
stereotypes and the ethical perception. The hypothesis is developed from this theoretical framework. Furthermore, the research design as well as the
methodological intent regarding sampling and testing will be defined. This will be continued by a discussion on the findings, methodological limitations and
Theoretical Framework
In this section the relevant variables of this study will be defined. It will start by elaborating on the issue of unethical behaviour, leading to perceptions of observed unethical behaviours. It will continue by the importance of gender difference and the role of gender stereotypes. Finally, the hypothesis will be elaborated and formulated.
Unethical behaviour
According to Jones (1991), unethical behaviour is any action that is either illegal or morally unacceptable to the larger community. For instance, it consists of violations of ethical norms or legal standards such as stealing, cheating, and lying. People in general value possessing an ethical self-image and want to see themselves as moral actors. However, every individual can occasionally engage in unethical behaviour (Jordan, Mullen & Murnighan, 2011).
Research (Collins, 2006) has shown that measures of self-interest influences the prospect that an individual will conduct unethical behaviour caused by self-interest. According to Lewin et al. (1944), there are numerous of motivation theories and research specifying the reasons that motivates individuals to conduct unethical acts. The majority of these acts are depending on positive personal outcome after conducting these unethical acts. Due to the development of the expectancy theory, the general belief is that individuals are motivated by expected outcomes of their
unethical acts (Collins, 2006). For instance, job security, job promotion, increase of reputation and pay raise are expected outcomes that assumed to conduct acts of self-interest.
Research suggests that the environment in which individuals operate might also affect their tendency to engage in unethical acts. Organizational factors like, for instance, rewards systems, codes of conduct, norms, and culture have revealed to be of influence on ethical behaviour in organizations (Gino & Pierce, 2009). As a result, authorities have formed rules and laws and various organizations have developed corporate social responsibility outlines to discourage unethical behaviour (Gilo & Guttel, 2009). These clear outlines include the company policy that is read and signed by every employee. Furthermore, the repercussions are clearly stated.
This fraud costs US firms $600 billion a year that is 6 percent of the US GDP. Furthermore, fraud has been growing nearly 50 percent since 1996. Moreover, organizations with poor ethics in the workplace show 50 percent decline in economic value added (EVA) and market value added (MVA) compared with those
organizations with clear codes of ethics. Finally, in a survey conducted by the National Business Ethics in 2000, 52 percent of the employees saw unethical behaviour occasionally and 25 percent saw it frequently in the past year. Ethical judgment
As mentioned in the introduction, the ethical scandals have reconfirmed the importance of ethical behaviour. This results in the attention to ethical decision-making, because ethical behaviour is the result of ethical judgement and ethical decision-making (Bohner & Wanke, 2010, Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004).
Ethical judgement refers to a person’s determination and evaluation of whether an ethical situation is right or wrong. This ethical judgment construct is considered to be a cluster of evaluations that occur in response to an ethical problem experienced in the workplace. According to Rest’s framework, ethical decision-making is based on four components; identifying the ethical nature of an act, decision-making an ethical judgment, establishing ethical intent and engaging in an ethical action. According to Gino & Bazerman (2009), ethical judgement is based on an induction mechanism, where individuals observe every new act and evaluate it with similar past acts that were acceptable and ethical. This induction mechanism is a process of routinization, which states that when an act becomes a routine it is often acceptable and ordinary, like any past acceptable acts (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004). So, past behaviour has a significant influence on any future ethical judgement where ethical decision-making is based on.
Behavioural ethics researchers have found links between employee’s justice perceptions and employee’s ethical conduct (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2006). This justice perception refers to the employee’s perception of fairness on
wrongs predominantly through a sense of others behaviours and the expectations that others hold for them.
Perception
How an individual responds to unethical behaviour depends on the perception that the individual holds against the specific person and the specific unethical act (Near & Niceli, 1986). The perception depends on how the information of an unethical act comes to mind and how the impact of this information is used in the judgment of the perception. When constructing a judgment people rarely retrieve all the potentially relevant information; instead, they are likely to base their judgment on a subset of that information. Whether a particular piece of information will be retrieved and used depends on how accessible it is in memory, which is how easily it comes to mind. Accessibility in turn depends on how frequently it is accessed and how it is organised in memory. Therefore, if information comes to mind that is identical to the information that is already stored in memory it will reflect stability. This in turn can lead to assimilation effects, which means that individuals will respond with the same judgement on certain acts that are similar to acts they have perceived in the past (Bohner & Wanke, 2010).
Observation of behaviours is significant to the current research, especially the past behaviour because it influences the perceptions of certain individuals, which is used to judge people either positive or negative. Any behavioural act of any
make a certain judgment towards a specific person. Therefore, holding a negative judgment based upon the past perception causes us to focus on consistent
interpretations that leans on a negative attitudinal cognitive process for that specific individual.
Gender
Generally, individuals are likely to view ethics through their own experiences; they often have a tendency to attend to factors close to themselves. However, when there is no information available on a specific individual’s past behaviour,
expectations are formed based on status characteristics such as education, occupation, gender and race (Schminke, Ambrose & Miles, 2003). However, substantial evidence also indicated that men and women do not differ substantially on these dimensions (Ambrose & Schminke, 1999). As a result exploring perceptions of gender differences rather than actual gender differences are proposed as more promising (Schminke, Ambrose & Miles, 2003). So, gender differences may play a large role in how these perceptions are formed.
Gender stereotypes
The beliefs that individuals clench about men and women tend to be consensual and therefore are part of the culture. Stereotypes concerning men and women are key components of gender that is, of the cultural meanings associated with the differentiation of humans into two sexes (Eagly & Sczesny, 2008). It thus appears that people tend to think that women and men ought to differ, especially in those behaviours that are associated with gender differences (Eagly & Carli, 2003).
focused on the attention of the descriptive content of gender stereotypes and the self-fulfilling expectations it produces, gender stereotypic prescriptions are probably causing bias in evaluation of women (Heilman et al., 2004). For instance, socially sensitive and service-oriented communal traits are positively valued for women while typically behaviours associated with men that are believed to be incompatible with the behaviours deemed desirable for women. So, communal characteristics that refer to feminine behaviour are components like: affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturing, and gentle. While agentic characteristics that are referred to as a masculine behaviour are components like: assertive, controlling, and confident tendency, aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, self-sufficient, self-confident, and prone to act as a leader. Thus, tough, self-assertive and achievement-oriented, agentic behaviours are positively valued for men while prohibited for women. Therefore, if there is no prospect to distort the source of stereotypical behaviour and accepted to have occurred, this inconsistency provokes reactions that can negatively influence perceptions.Research on gender stereotyping shows that, when comparing women to men, men are seen as more competent than women while having the same achievements (Deaux, 1984). For instance, a study done by de Pater et al. (2007) examined the gender differences in the opportunity in job challenge. The results of this study discovered that senior managers are more inclined to assign challenging tasks to male workers, in spite of the equal desire for challenging work by both male and female workers. Another research reveals that people associate women to have qualities like warmth, selflessness, interactive and collaborative while the qualities of men are more associated with assertiveness, authority and command and control. These quality perception differences leads to a typical stereotype that men are better leaders than women across various cultures (Eagly & Carli, 2003). These cultural stereotypes involve two types of beliefs: expectations of individuals of these groups are actually how they should be like and how they should act. According to Eagly & Karau (2002), the belief of the behaviour difference between men and women are communal and agentic attributes.
formation of ethical intentions, with women havingcomparably higher ethical
intentions than men. Based on these findings they concluded that women appear to be more wiling to behave ethically when facing ethical problems. For instance, men and women might utilize unique decision-makingstyles when facing ethical problems, with men being more interested in moral equityissues and women being more concerned about nurturing others (van Sandtet al., 2006).
Gender roles
Social role theory of Eagly (1987) can confirm why stereotypes exist between males and females. It proposes that male and females behave adequately with their social roles. These social roles are separated along gender and the roles are related to different expectations and require certain skills different for each gender. Therefore, gender stereotyping is the belief that a set of traits are more likely to be found among one gender than the other (Schein, 1978). So, according to the social role theory men and women confirm in gender stereotypes because of the different roles they perform. Therefore, the different expectation about role behaviour causes consistency with that behaviour in order to gain approval, whereas inconsistent behaviour is often negatively sanctioned (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). This finding is significant for the current research. Thus, the conductance of an unethical act by a woman will be perceived more severely than by a man. As the conduct by a woman is clearly in violation of the common female stereotype according to the expectancy theory, and therefore the evaluation will be negative. Research shows that when a particular behaviour violates various communal female expectancies stereotypes it will have stronger negative consequences for women compared to men (Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Carli, 2003; Amzat & Grandi, 2001).
When a woman is competing against a man for a position, she may face disadvantage because she might engage in promotion. Engaging in
person violates a particular stereotype that information will lead to expectancy inconsistent perceptions of the perceived behaviour. So, when expectations are violated according to expectancy theory; people will evaluate others more extremely when their behaviours violate stereotyped expectations.
So, why do female individuals whom conducts in unethical acts are more regarded more negatively than their male counterparts? Research shows that women held more accurate ethical perceptions than men and both genders held an accurate perception of women’s ethical framework (Schminke, Ambrose & Miles, 2003). Thus the stereotype of women behaving more ethically is established. So, women that behaved unethically are perceived as less competent, prompt less respect, and recipients of discipline administered by these women are less willing to accept responsibility for their unacceptable behaviour (Atwater et al., 2001). Furthermore, research has found that both men and women are taking less personal responsibility for failure in ethicality when cooperating with a woman rather than a man (Heilman & Kram, 1978). This is consistent with the general gender stereotypes and also stereotypes tend to thrive on ambiguity (Brescoll, Dawson & Uhlmann, 2010). Furthermore, for women especially there is a glass-cliff effect where conducting an unethical mistake on the job is extremely damaging to their status more so than their male counterparts. Moreover, when women have gender-incongruent positions or occupations, conducting in any remote unethical actions causes the stereotypes to influence perceptions more strongly and negatively (Brescoll, Dawson & Uhlmann, 2010). Apparently, any unethical actions are perceived as deficient in the feminine attributes mandated by gender stereotypes and that is why women are more heavily penalized as a result.
Gender Stereotypes and Perceptions on Unethical Behaviour
So, gender has a significant impact on the perception of either gender and especially impacts the perception of past behaviour. It appears that people tend to think that women and men ought to differ, especially in those behaviours that are associated with gender differences (Eagly & Carli, 2003). Therefore, this gender inequality will impact women more negatively than men exceptionally when it concerns past ethical behaviour.
Observed unethical behaviour of past acts is stored in the memory of
acts. So, when peers are behaving inconsistent with the respective gender role they will be perceived negatively, and this counts especially women compared to men. Since women are perceived to behave more ethically than men. Furthermore, the violation of any detrimental stereotypes of women frequently results in a negative perception as women are more often penalized for their violation of stereotypical expectations than men in similar situations (Eagly & Carli, 2003).
It is important to note that any negativity towards women violating their gender role will be occurred when they are incongruent to their respective and expected female traits. Therefore, any unethical acts in the past by women are a violation of the stored expectation and are causing a decrease in favourable perception of the unethical perpetrator. This decrease of favourable perception is based upon ethical judgment that encounters past acts that were unacceptable.
Thus, the existence of gender stereotypes shows that in general women are perceived as being more ethical than men. In addition, stereotypes are so strong that behaviour that is inconsistent with the expectations will be severely sanctioned (Diekman & Eagly, 2008; Eagly, 1987). As such, when a woman behaves unethically this behaviour will be more inconsistent to how she is expected to behave than a man; causing the perception others have of her to become even more negative. Decidedly, an unethical woman is in contrast to the expectations and therefore regarded as even more negatively. Therefore, according to the expectancy violation theory (Joardar, 2011) women who behaved unethically are going to be evaluated more negatively than men who behaved in the same manner due to past behavioural acts.
As such, we hypothesize:
"Past unethical behaviour will lead to negative perceptions towards that individual.
And this effect is stronger when the individual is a woman as opposed to a man.”
An overview of the hypotheses and the mutual connections is given in figure 1.
Methods
DesignandParticipants
A total of 107 individuals (60 male, 47 female; Mage = 24.1, SDage = 1.60) participated in this scenario study. The majority of the respondents were non-students (70.5%), possessed a job and lived predominately in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the respondents’ education was divided in either bachelors (20%) or masters (80%) graduates. Participants participated voluntary in this scenario and were randomly assigned to one of the 4 conditions of the 2 (gender: man or woman) x 2 (past behaviour: ethical or unethical) design. The whole scenario study took less than 10 minutes to complete. Furthermore, participants were distributed almost equally amongst the four conditions (N = 34; 25; 27; 21).
Procedure
Measurements
Ethical Perception. The dependent variable in the current study is perception.
This variable is measured by the following single-outcome item with the following six point answering scale item: ‘would you give a positive reference?’ Participants could choose between the following options: 1) I will definitely not give a positive
reference, 2) I will not give a positive reference, 3) I will probably not give a positive reference, 4) I will probably give a positive reference, 5) I will give a positive
reference, or 6) I will definitely give a positive reference.
Past act manipulation check. As a manipulation check of past behaviour the
respondents were asked the following items: ‘In the scenario my colleague had
reimbursed the whole bill instead of only his/her own part; claimed more than he or she actually spends’. They could answer on a scale from 1 (totally agree) to 7 (totally
disagree). The scale was highly reliable (Cronbach’s α = .88).
Gender manipulation check. Participants who filled in the scenario survey
Results
Manipulation Checks
Past unethical behaviour manipulation check. A one-way ANOVA-test was
computed to check the past unethical behaviour manipulation condition. An one way ANOVA showed a successful manipulation (F (1, 105) = 17.04, p <. 001). In the ethical past act condition, participants indicated more strongly that the past behaviour was ethical (M = 4.73, SD = 2.39) than in the unethical past unethical behaviour condition (M = 2.94, SD = 2.08).
Gender manipulation check. Another ANOVA-test was performed to assess
the gender manipulation condition. In this condition, a one-way ANOVA showed a fruitful manipulation (F (1, 105) = 63.45, p <. 001). In the female gender condition, participants indicated more strongly that the colleague in the scenario was a female (M = 5.49, SD = 2.01) than in the male gender condition(M = 2.73, SD = 1.45).
Ethical Perception. An ANOVA-test was performed to test the moderating
effect of the gender difference on the relationship between past (un)ethical behaviour of someone and an individual’s ethical perception about that past behaviour. It is hypothesized that individuals are more susceptible to write a negative reference about a person when confronted with the past unethical behaviour of that person, and this effect is stronger for women than men. A 2 (past unethical behaviour condition: ethical versus unethical) x 2 (gender condition: men versus women) ANOVA on the extent to which the respondents became influenced by the past behaviour of the colleague in the scenario was performed. These results are shown in Table 1 and Table 2 in the appendix.
---Insert Table 1 and Table 2 about here
Discussion
Findings
The aim of the current thesis was to research the relationship between the unethical behaviour on perception. In addition, the moderating effect of gender on that relationship was researched as well. More specific, the expectance was that unethical behaviour would lead to negative perception and this effect is stronger for women than men. However, according to the results no significant moderating effect was found for gender. Therefore, gender does not impact the relationship between unethical behaviour and perception.
Theoretical Implications
Even though gender does not have a moderating effect there was a main effect found between ethical behaviour on perception. This main effect showed that ethical behaviour would lead to a positive perception, while an unethical behaviour would lead to a negative perception. Although unethical behaviour is a broad concept, in the current study the participants identified the unethical act without any ambiguity. This is supported by the results that the participants in the scenario would write a negative reference for their colleague when they perceived that their colleague conducted an unethical act. This confirms the expectation that an individual conducted a past unethical act will lead to a negative perception towards that individual, this is also confirmed in past research (Amazat & Grandi, 2001; Cejka & Eagly, 1999; Sikula & Costa, 1994; Valentine et al. 2008).Therefore, perception is susceptible to unethical behaviour and this will lead to a negative perception.
The fact that no significant results were found on the moderating effect of gender can be explained by that the participants do not perceive any gender
However, the current scenario study this distinction is not unveiled and for a gender role to exist a descriptive or prescriptive norm should be presented to inflict any gender stereotypes. These injunctive norms prescribe which behaviours are gender-appropriate, dictating how men and women ought to behave in various social roles and settings. So, the current scenario study could have given a clear description of the managerial role for Jack and Rose. Also, certain agentic and communal attributes should have been given in the scenario study to Jack and Rose to activate stereotypes. For instance, if Jack and Rose had a leadership role and attributes like independent, determined, power hungry, objective and assertive could have been given to evoke the stereotypes. The general disapproval of rule breaking is difficult to settle with a supposed masculine ethic of justice but it is consistent with men's being more agentic. Assertiveness, independence and related attributes can underlie an unethical attitude (Franke, Crown & Spake, 1997). The underlying logic is to view how participants perceive Jack or Rose after making errors in gendered work situations in their respective gender roles and how their expectations vary depending on the nature of the work task. A study by Pavlov et al. (2010) found no effect of stereotypes occurred on the task on which no gender differences have been documented in the absence of any gender stereotype information. Also, as Weeks et al. (1999) argued the lack of gender differences in task execution might explain the possibility that the participants might perceive women to become more like men under similar conditions. In sum, it can be proposed that gender roles will be fitted by the schema of attributes that each individual possess via gender stereotyping and when these are not presented the participants will not include them in their perception (Atwater et al., 2004).
more ethical than men. The current study shows that the participants are not indulgent towards men when they committed any past unethical act compared to women that committed unethical acts in the past. This study has shown that unethical behaviour is neither a masculine nor a feminine act therefore; participants perceive unethical behaviour as a gender-neutral act. Over time men and women learn that the opposite sex is no more unethical than themselves, therefore, stereotypical behaviours tends to decrease and individuals started to treating others as individuals regardless of gender (Kidwell, Stevens & Bethke, 1987).
Practical implications
This research has showed that the perception on organizational behaviour is gender neutral. Furthermore, it shows that negative perception arrives from past unethical behaviour regardless of gender. Moreover, when women are perceived more negative than men it is caused by other aspects. For instance, aspects like job
characteristics, managerial position and competence may be the reasons of the existence of the prejudice of women being perceived more negatively than men when they commit an unethical act. So, organizations can focus their assessments of unethical behaviour on other aspects for the underlying motivation behind the act that led to the negative perception on the employee’s behaviour.
From a practical standpoint, the results of this study suggest that perception is based on gender equity and it is only susceptible to unethical behaviour. Therefore, employees need to behave in a consistently ethical manner and having the ongoing capacity of a clear self-reflection and self-regulation to hold themselves to the organizational ethical standard to avoid negative perception.
Limitations
Another limitation of this study was the measurement of the dependent variable; the perception of the participants. Various studies (Thoroughgood, Sawyer & Hunter, 2013; Brenner, Madison & Tomkiewicz, 1989; Eagly & Carli, 2003; Atwater, Carey & Waldman, 2001; Heilman & Wallen, 2010) have studied and measured gender and unethical behaviour. However, none of them measured the concept perception and less research has examined perception of ethics (Cagle & Glasgo, 2008). However, participants may accurately perceive subtleties, gender bias and ambiguous behaviours but decide not to conceal it. Or the participants were aware that they were participating in a study concerning gender stereotyping and replied in a socially desirable manner (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010), this social desirability bias can cause participants to give the right answers biasing the results.
It is important to clarify in mind that the current findings were based on an experimental design consisting of participants reading fictional scenario. This may have failed to produce the realism needed to create the psychological impact expected in a real world setting (Landy, 2008). Without any explicit and visible aspects of the character of either Jack or Rose the participants are not able to draw conclusions when a plausible situation exists (Thoroughgood, Sawyer & Hunter, 2013). The lack of proximity and social identification suggested that participants would be less critical of the actions of Jack and Rose.
Directions for future research
Due to the insignificant results the interaction of gender on the perception as a result of one’s past (un) ethical behaviour is inconclusive. In order to resolve this future studies can include gender stereotypes in the study, also to make the gender differences more explicitly to make it easier for the participants to detect those stereotypes. Also, by giving the scenario characters more characteristics and more occupational context to give the gender stereotypes a more explicit difference
It is also important for future studies to register the gender of the participant of the scenario and be part of the research as well. As social identification suggested that participants be would be more critical of actions involving actors of their own gender (Franke, Crown & Spake, 1997). Furthermore, studies (Heilman & Wallen, 2010; Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Heilman (2001)) have suggested that men and women are penalized when they behave unethically in gender incongruity roles or positions. Moreover, it is revealed that especially women penalize women in order to protect their self-perceptions of competence. Especially when women feel threatened by these women in leading managerial roles and experience success (Parks-Stamm, Heilman & Hearns, 2008). Therefore, it is important to register the gender of the participant this would clarify the gender differences in perception and whether there are gender differences for norm violating for both men and women.
Conclusion
The current study found that there is no ambiguity in the perception of unethical behaviour among genders despite its limitations. Furthermore, this study showed that observing unethical behaviour generally evokes disapproval. Moreover, when the participants notice the unethical act they negatively perceived it regardless of gender. In sum, people may have become progressively increasing gender
egalitarian over time. Moreover, over time people start to discover that the opposite sex does not think differently about unethical conducts. Therefore, gender stereotypes may have been evolved into plain stereotypes. It is therefore important that
organizations pay attention to unethical behaviour and assess individual employees more closely on their ethical conduct. Furthermore, the organizations should create a corporate culture climate with evaluation methods with the emphasis on gender fairness. This will create an atmosphere and context that contains less adverse impact and might result attracting exceptional female applicants and fewer turnovers in an organization.
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APPENDIX Table 1
Analysis of Variance for Ethical Behaviour condition and Gender condition _____________________________________________________________________
Source df MS F p
_____________________________________________________________________
Condition Gender 1 17.66 10.18 0.000
Condition Past Act 1 6.9 3.98 0.010
Gender * Past Act 1 1.86 1.33 0.239
Error 178 1.74
_____________________________________________________________________
Table 2
Mean and standard deviation of Ethical Behaviour condition and Gender condition
_____________________________________________________________________ Condition
_____________________________________________________________________ Ethical Condition Unethical Condition
