Who cares about ethical practices at workplace? A taxonomy of employees’ unethical conduct from top management perspective

Purpose The purpose of the study is to explore the various kind of prevailing unethical practices at workplace along with identification of factors triggering such unethical practices. Growing incidences of indulgence of employees in unethical acts in various organisation and negative consequences associated with it for the organisation such as erosion of reputation because of advance digital media coverage, shareholder value and others made compulsive to study the root cause of unethical behaviour at the workplace. Design/methodology/approach This study extracts meaning from the experiences of top managers working in nine Indian organisations to understand the challenges faced by individuals at the workplace using the Gioia methodology. A total of 33 top management team (TMT) members were interviewed in detail to capture their experience in regard to various challenges that impose a threat to ethical conduct in the organisation. Findings The authors identified four categories of unethical behaviour, namely, pro-self, lack of autonomy, pro-organisation, systemic and negligence. Further, the authors have developed a taxonomy suggesting strategies to control unethical conduct at the workplace. Besides, the current study unravels the triggers behind different categories of unethical conduct, such as bottom-line mentality, rent-seeking behaviour of government officials, fluid ethical study culture and others. Originality/value Various types of unethical behaviour have been identified and frameworks to address such unethical practices are suggested in the paper. TMTs views have been captured to understand the root cause of unethical practices and strategies for addressing them have been discussed in the paper.

Urban Activists from the Perspective of Anti-Corruption: A Framing Approach

This work proposes to investigate anti-corruption by examining how corruption and the strategies to counteract it are framed by urban activists. I argue that the increasing importance of urban initiatives in strengthening citizenship and keeping local authorities accountable in Russia deserves the attention not only of social movements scholars but also those studying corruption. In fact, more institutionalized organizations, whose goal is the promotion of anti-corruption and democratic principles, struggle to position themselves as mediators between civil society and the authorities due to the lack of trust from citizens and government laws that limit their activities. In this context, informal grassroots initiatives, as in the case of Kaliningrad analysed below, are particularly important, as they can become 'laboratories' where citizenship is strengthened and implemented, and knowledge is produced. Applying a framing perspective, this study shows how corruption is perceived and framed by activists not only as the abuse of power for private gain, but also as immoral behaviour. Here the lack of competence and the lack of respect towards citizens are also framed as corrupt behaviour. The strategies and activities to make the authorities more accountable, such as increasing transparency and citizen engagement in the policy-making process, are directly linked with the way corruption is framed. In fact, activists legitimize their activities as a professionalized and qualified response to the incompetent approach of authorities and their unethical behaviour, emphasizing the educational role they play.

IZVOĐENjE DOKAZA VJEŠTAČENjEM U PARNIČNOM POSTUPKU: ostvaruju li se načela vladavine prava?

The paper deals with the issues of control of court experts in civil proceedings by the court as well as the question of how much the civil court really manages the expertise. The analysis of the judicatures points to practical problems arising from expertise in civil proceedings, in parallel detecting the reasons for such problems in expert proceedings both in the Republic of Croatia and in the European Union. Individual characteristic cases from practice are the subject of qualitative research because the intention of the analysis was twofold. On the one hand, identify concrete examples of unethical behaviour, and on the other hand, use the method of abstraction and indicative method of establishing facts to point out to systematic gaps that may pose a risk of unethical behaviour in the justice sector, regardless of existing mechanisms to strengthen judicial integrity. For the purpose of the analysis, telephone interviews were conducted among judges, lawyers and court experts. The conducted interviews of targeted respondents serve to further verify the credibility of the results of this analysis. The collected data indicate practical problems in the implementation of certain legal solutions. The perspective of the interviewed interlocutors is based on the knowledge and experience gained in practice, which is certainly an important factor in assessing the improvement, but also the degree of optimization of the existing legal framework of the subject-matter complex of problems.

Influence of an individual’s unethical behaviour on peers’ vicarious learning in organisations: the role of moral anger

Purpose Because unethical behaviour pervades in organisations, how to inhibit the interpersonal influence of unethical behaviour has become increasingly important. This study aims to integrate the deontic justice theory and affective events theory to examine the relationship between an individual’s unethical behaviour and his or her peers’ vicarious learning by highlighting the mediating effect of peers’ moral anger and the moderating effect of task interdependence on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two waves from 254 employees of a large manufacturing company in the People’s Republic of China. Findings The hypothesised moderated mediation model was supported. Specifically, as expected, peers’ moral anger mediated the negative relationship between an individual’s unethical behaviour and peers’ vicarious learning. Task interdependence moderated the direct relationship between the individual’s unethical behaviour and his or her peers’ moral anger and the indirect relationship between an individual’s unethical behaviour and his or her peers’ vicarious learning via the peers’ moral anger such that these relationships were stronger when the level of task interdependence was higher. Originality/value This study argues that the deontic justice theory is a supplement for the social learning theory in explaining the interpersonal influence of unethical behaviour. Drawing on the deontic justice theory, this study demonstrates that an individual’s unethical behaviours are unlikely to be rewarded or accepted, and by integrating the theories of deontic justice and affective events, offers a rationale for the emotional mechanism that underlies the interpersonal influence of unethical behaviour.

Culture, politics and being more equal than others in COVID-19: some psychological anthropology perspectives

The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we view the world, human behaviour, and societal structures and institutions. The emerging subdiscipline of psychological anthropology is well placed to provide a perspective on the way individuals and communities are affected by and respond to the pandemic, as well as the fallout from government responses and prevention strategies. Moreover, this viewpoint enables insights into the workings of societal structures and agents of power in the context of a health crisis that is worsened by poverty, inequality, and structural violence. How communities respond and adapt to the ‘new normal’ are critical to holding governing structures accountable in situations where poor leadership, mismanagement, and unethical behaviour have been evident.

Disrupting masculinities within leadership: Problems of embodiment, ethics, identity and power

This study provides a concise summary of the book Leadership, Gender and Ethics: Embodied Reason in challenging Masculinities, New York and London: Routledge, 2021. It examines the masculinity of leadership and how through an embodied form of reasoning, it might be challenged or disrupted. A central argument of the book is that masculine leadership elevates rationality in ways that marginalise the body and feelings and often has the effect of sanctioning unethical behaviour. In exploring this thesis, the book provides an analysis of the comparatively neglected issues of identity/anxiety, power/resistance, diversity/gender and the body/masculinities surrounding the concept and practice of leadership.

Fraud Deterrence Institutions Reduce Intrinsic Honesty

Deterrence institutions are widely used in modern societies to discourage rule violations but whether they have an impact beyond their immediate scope of application is usually ignored. Using a quasi-experiment with naturally occurring variation in inspections we found evidence of spillover effects across contexts. We identified fraudsters and non-fraudsters on public transport who were or not exposed to ticket inspections by the transport company. We then measured the intrinsic honesty of the same persons in a new, unrelated context where they could misappropriate money. Instead of having an expected educative effect across contexts, the exposure to deterrence practices increased unethical behaviour of fraudsters but also, strikingly, of non-fraudsters, especially when inspection teams were larger. Learning about the prevailing norm is the most likely channel of this spillover effect.