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Ethical
Who cares about ethical practices practices at the
at workplace? A taxonomy of workplace

employees’ unethical conduct

from top management perspective 317
Jatinder Kumar Jha Received 22 July 2020
Revised 12 January 2021
XLRI Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, India, and 15 April 2021
Accepted 23 May 2021
Manjari Singh
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India

Abstract
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.
Keywords Top management team, Bottom line mentality, Unethical behaviour pro-organisation,
Unethical pro-self
Paper type Research paper

Recent corporate scams in the Indian banking industry and various other corporate scams
worldwide have highlighted the perils of conducting business in today’s competitive
environment. An increasing number of scams hint at unethical practices being followed and
question the ethical standards of the organisation and its members. Any such ethical scandals
bring several dire consequences for organisations, such as a negative impact on employees’
productivity (Paine, 1997) and “reputational capital” of organizations (Worden, 2003). In the era of
the omnipresence of social media, organisations are under acute pressure from various
stakeholders to effectively manage unethical behaviour in the workplace (Treviño et al., 2006) and International Journal of
Organizational Analysis
Vol. 31 No. 2, 2023
pp. 317-339
Authors are deeply thankful to all anonymous reviewers who gave highly valuable feedback that © Emerald Publishing Limited
1934-8835
helped them in improving our paper. DOI 10.1108/IJOA-07-2020-2321
IJOA contain its harmful consequences. To contain serious unethical conduct, organisations need first
31,2 to understand the various contexts in which employees intend to indulge in such behaviour. This
study aims to explore such contexts triggering unethical behaviour in the workplace and
suggests strategies to contain it.
Veetkazhi et al. (2020) conceptualised unethical behaviour as consciously controlled or
unconsciously driven pro-self or pro-other behaviour that violates existing societal moral norms.
318 Studies on unethical behaviour found employees search of either social/business cues (Vohs,
2015) in the organisation to address the ethical dilemma or rely on their cognitive state of mind
emerging from the particular ethical dilemma faced (Crockett, 2013; Hirsh et al., 2018). Employees
model their ethical standards based on what they see leaders and peers doing to handle ethical
dilemmas or what constitutes acceptable ethical standards for the organisation.
Recently, Babalola et al. (2020) found excessive focus on the bottom-line triggers self-interest
cognitive state amongst employees that result in unethical behaviour towards customers. In the
current boundaryless, business context, competition has forced existing business leaders to adopt
a “bottom-line mentality” that has the potential to trigger various forms of unethical behaviour;
such as unethical pro-leader behaviour (Mesdaghinia et al., 2019), co-worker undermining
(Greenbaum et al., 2012), abusive supervision (Mawritz et al., 2017), employees’ shameful reactions
(Bonner et al., 2017) and other unethical behaviour (Greenbaum et al., 2012).
Extensive literature equally emphasises the cognitive states of employees; such as ethical
positioning idealism vs relativism rules’ (Forsyth, 1980), moral attentiveness (Reynolds, 2008),
moral disengagement (Moore et al., 2012), bounded ethicality (Bazerman and Sezer, 2016), self-
interest cognition (Boucher and Kofos, 2012; Mitchell et al., 2018; Vohs, 2015), personal moral
philosophy (Karande et al., 2002) and value congruence as key factors influencing unethical
behaviour. The literature shows that unethical behaviour results from an interplay of multi-level
factors such as personal, organisational, social and various situational factors that makes it
complex to understand. Various forms of unethical conduct have been discussed in the literature,
such as pro-self and pro-organisation. All these types of unethical conduct have emerged from
unique factors or combinations of various level factors (personal, organisational, contextual, etc.).
Varying cultural context further makes it a complex phenomenon to understand and develop
strategies to address it. Research has shown top management team (TMT) has great potential to
influence the ethical climate and ethical culture of an organisation (Bellé and Cantarelli, 2017;
Trevino et al., 2003; Victor and Cullen, 1988; Wu et al., 2015) along with ethical behaviour of
supervisors and employees (Greenbaum et al., 2020). There is a trickle-down influence of the
ethical orientation of the top executive on the ethical behaviour of middle managers and
employees (Greenbaum et al., 2020; Mayer et al., 2009). In sum, TMT members set the context for
ethical conduct on the organisation as they have power, prestige and responsibility for creating a
positive work culture in the organisation. In this study, we have tried to explore the TMT’s
perspective about triggers of unethical conduct in the workplace and effective mechanisms to
address that behaviour. This study makes two significant contributions to the existing literature.
One, enriching the understanding of various forms of unethical conduct from TMT’s perspective.
Two, providing a framework to address unethical behaviour at the workplace. The second
contribution is also significant as it has been studied in the Indian context, a setting for such
studies which has not been explored in literature adequately. Brown et al. (2005) also
recommended more studies need to be conducted in various cultural contexts for deeper insights
into ethical conduct at the workplace.
Indian business context is generally considered to be high on bureaucracy (long queues
for getting approvals [Sheth, 2008]), corruption (India ranked 80 out of 180 countries in
corruption index in 2019 [Transparency.org, 2020]) and bribery (at least 55% of Indians
experienced bribery in some form in 2014 [Ramamoorthy et al., 2015]) makes it very relevant
and a unique context to explore our research question “how and why employees indulge in Ethical
unethical conduct”? practices at the
Additionally, India being a country which is high on the cultural dimension of power
distance (Hofstede, 2003), is likely that most decisions are taken at the top level (Sheth, 2008).
workplace
Being high on power distance, Indian employees tend to behave submissively in the
presence of managers and they perceive their bosses to be either autocratic or paternalistic
(as cited in Bochner and Hesketh, 1994; Khatri, 2011, 2009). This might suppress the
employees’ voice at the workplace, even if they are not comfortable with leaders’ behaviour. 319
Also, there would be a good chance of mimicking the leaders’ behaviour, whether ethical
or unethical. It becomes critical to understand how employees in this context respond to the
ethical dilemma they face. Moreover, Indian managers follow an intuitive ethical decision-
making process as they inherit a rich, spiritual and religious background (Hofstede, 2003;
Sheth, 2008). Another dimension of culture that is important in this context is that India is
high on collectivism. Based on existing studies (Jha and Singh, 2019), it can be inferred non-
compliance with the group ethical orientation would be difficult for the employees. Our
study highlights various such ethical tensions or conflicts faced by employees.
Applying the qualitative inductive approach (Giogia et al., 2013) on the data collected
from 33 TMT members in Indian organisations, our study aims to explore the following
three research questions:
(1) What is the commonly occurring unethical conduct in the workplace?
(2) Why do employees indulge in unethical conduct?
(3) How can unethical conduct be addressed in the workplace?

Ethical behaviour in the organisation: an overview

Ethics refers to a set of rules, standards, principles or codes that act as a guiding light for
members of the organisation so that they can execute morally proper behaviour (Thiroux, 2004)
and impede the plans of individuals that could harm the welfare of others despite one’s potential
benefit, (Boddy, 2011). Ethics pertains to good and evil, right and wrong and focusses on what we
ought or ought not to do (Beauchamp and Bowie, 1983). Individuals in an organisation face many
ethical dilemmas, where they feel the need for some rules or guidelines that can help them resolve
them (Sims, 2003). Values and ethics are inseparable, and values vary with varying contextual
factors (Demmke and Moilanen, 2011). Therefore, it can be construed that ethics at the workplace
vary with the changing contexts. Employees must be aware of the acceptable standards of moral
behaviour prevailing. There is a possibility of differing behaviour standards in different
organisations, i.e. what constitutes ethical behaviour in one organisation may be considered
unethical in another. Ethical standards define the boundaries of behaviour by demarcating
acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and making it clear to their employees (Gilman, 2005).
Ethical behaviour means adherence to the moral norms written in the codes of conduct, whereas
violation of these moral norms is considered unethical (Jones, 1991a, 1991b).
Unethical behaviour is related to action or seriousness of actions carried out by
employees violating the generally accepted moral and ethical norms of society (Kish-
Grephart et al., 2010). It is a kind of deviant behaviour where the fundamental interests of
stakeholders are at risk (Kaptein, 2008). Originally unethical behaviour scale was developed
by Freeman (1984) and further developed by other researchers (Donaldson and Preston,
1995; Jones and Wicks, 1999; Mitchell et al., 1997). Kaptein (2008) developed the first multi-
dimensional scale to measure unethical behaviour at the workplace and used the stakeholder
theory to define it. Stakeholder theory assumptions lay responsibility on an organisation to
IJOA protect each stakeholder’s primary interest. For instance, an organisations’ ethical
31,2 responsibility towards investors is to achieve a good return on investment; towards
customers to supply good quality products and services; towards employees to offer good
working conditions; and towards society (including governments, non-governmental
organisations and media), to act as a good citizen.
Unethical behaviour is also defined as morally unacceptable behaviour, usually
320 prohibited by laws and societal expectations (Donaldson and Dunfee, 1999). Jones (1991a,
1991b) defined it as being morally unacceptable to the larger community. Unethical
behaviour results from disregarding laws, policies, regulations and organisation norms and
leads to damaging consequences for others (Danley et al., 1996) and is considered illegal or
unethical by society (Brass et al., 1998, p. 15).

Methodology
Data collection process
Data has been collected through in-depth interviews from participants employed in nine
different organisations and working in different sectors; namely, informational technology,
manufacturing, service, telecommunications and financial services; to have a broader
understanding of the phenomenon under study. Convenience sampling technique has been
employed to select participants for the study, based on the researcher’s contacts in the
participating organisations, as access to TMT data is difficult. All 33 in-depth and face-to-
face interviews of TMT members were conducted. Responses were probed further, based on
the questions related to “why” and “how”, as per their answers. The interviews lasted from
28 to 75 min and were conducted till the saturation point was reached (Charmaz, 2006).

Participants’ profile
Of the total 33 top managers, nine were Chief Human Resource Officers, one Chief Ethics
Officer and 23 were chiefs of different functional groups such as marketing, finance and
operations from nine firms situated in eight different cities of India. Of the total 33
participants, 28 were male and five were female, who took an interest in the study.
Participants’ age ranged from 30 to 50 years, with 15 being graduates and 18 postgraduates.
All were married, except for one. All were working at senior level, their experience ranging
from nine years to 33, in the same industry. Each one observed unethical conduct at the
workplace.

Qualitative research-inductive approach

Our study intends to capture TMT members’ experience to understand the factors
influencing the ethical behaviour of individuals at the workplace. For this purpose it is
important to analyse the participants’ narratives based on their experiences, and hence, we
(Yin, 2013) recommendation for qualitative research to draw insights from participants
inputs. This methodology also helps to capture the complexity and dynamics of the
phenomenon under study (Yin, 2013). Organisations are socially constructed and
individuals who construct organisational realities are “knowledgeable agents”, which means
they can explain their thoughts, intentions and actions (Gioia et al., 2013). This study used
an inductive approach of qualitative research. The difference between an inductive
approach and a deductive approach lies in their starting point. Whilst a deductive approach
uses an overarching framework comprising themes, which is used for the analysis, an
inductive approach, on the other hand, begins with the raw participant data (Azungah,
2018). An inductive approach is preferred to avoid the possibility of pre-empting a
pre-determined result resulting from the researcher’s force-fitting (Gioia et al., 2013). It is a
recursive process involving back and forth between data and literature, to meticulously Ethical
derive core themes and concepts relevant to the research objectives (Gioia et al., 2013). practices at the
Our study explores different types of commonly observed unethical behaviour at the
workplace. Real-life experiences of individuals have been captured by giving voice to the
workplace
participants, rather than imposing prior constructs or theories on the informants.

Coding process
In this qualitative study, methodological rigour and trustworthiness have been given due
321
consideration. Techniques suggested by Lincoln and Guba (1985) for ensuring credibility
(equivalent to internal validity), transferability (external validity), dependability
(reliability) and conformability (objectivity) have been followed. Codes were cross-
checked by co-coder (colleague) and further re-interviewing some of the participants
helped in refining the codes that enhanced the credibility of results. The process provided
a detailed description of the targets’ experience about the phenomenon under study by
ensuring transferability of results. The co-coder conducted an audit to ensure the
dependability of the results. Raw data was audited and codes were discussed, adding to
the conformability of the study.
All recorded interviews were transcribed and transcriptions were read word by word to
identify codes (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Morse and Field, 1995) by highlighting the exact
words from the text that appeared to be key concepts or thoughts.
The process followed by the researcher to get the final themes from raw data is
indicative of the rigour in this study (Gioia et al., 2013; Pratt, 2008). During the initial
stage of data analysis, the researcher was switching between emerging themes and the
relevant literature to confirm whether new concepts were discovered or the findings
had precedents. The researcher maintained a balance between knowing and not
knowing the literature or existing theory because having knowledge about the existing
literature at an early stage of analysis invites confirmation bias in the study (Alvesson
and Kärreman, 2007).

Findings
Observed unethical conduct
Observed unethical conduct reported in the study has been included in Figure 1.

“Greasing” to get business

Greasing’ is emerged as one of the unethical practices in our study. Interestingly, it is not
just done to benefit the organisation; employees but also use it to benefit themselves. Unlike
rent-seeking, “greasing” happens even for small favours; say quick service from vendors,
business partners, sometimes getting some personal or organisational benefit from blue-
collared workers by paying extra money from one’s own funds. “Greasing” is one way to get
quick approval from government servants, to which the company is entitled, unlike rent-
seeking bribes. It is an informal payment, which is defined and known to everyone in the
market (Nguyen et al., 2016). We have found two types of greasing behaviour one exchange
of gifts or any favour for getting business or personal gain and second, compromising on
certain business policies and processes (transparency in vendor selection policie, and
disclosure of key information to parties who are having conflict of interest in particular
business context) for getting business.
Receiving gifts from external agencies to provide undue favour. Exchange of gifts with
suppliers and potential business partners to influence business decisions has emerged as a
very common and frequently practised unethical behaviour. Another practice followed is
IJOA 1st Order Categories 2nd Order Themes Aggregate
31,2 Dimensions
Suppliers giving gifts on special occasions with the
expectation of favors.
Taking for dinner lunch at time of tender finalization. Receiving gifts from
Exchange of expensive gifts for some business favor
external agencies to ‘Greasing’
Suppliers arranging nice lunch or dinner and expect
322 some favor such as giving them business order or price provide undue favors
to get
discount or other special consideration on the delivery. business
Violating organizational
Vendors influencing the decisions such that guidelines processes for external
for a process (for example, procurement process) are agencies
tampered.
Not following organization’s SoPs to benefit a vendor.
Dishonest practices for Unethical
Dishonest dealings to get business contracts. organization’s gain behavior
Bribing government officials etc. to get the work done.
pro-
Manipulating the business organizat-
Postpone the expenditure to next quarter and just take figures
the revenue so that profit looks good.
ional

Discrimination within the organization related to

particular individual based on gender, caste, etc.
Discrimination
Discrimination at workplace based on language, state,
religion, etc. Unethical
behavior –
Confidentiality concerns being ignored. Compromising on systemic/
Avoidance of company’s data privacy measures. confidentiality of
negligence
Important papers lying on the desk. company’s information

Sabotaging work of co-workers.

Bad mouthing colleagues to create better self-image. Adopting unfair means to
advance own career
Seniors asking their subordinates or others down the
hierarchy to do their personal or official work for them. Personal use of Unethical
Use of company vehicle for personal use organization’s resources behavior
Figure 1. pro-self
Observed unethical Submitting false claims for reimbursements. Manipulation of personal
behaviours at Forging travel or other bills expenses
workplace

offering dinner or lunch to potential business partners. It has been reported that during the
bidding process, the bidding company’s officials try to offer kickbacks, expensive gifts or
meal coupons to the bidder company’s officials to influence their decision. One of the
participants remarked as follows:
So, I have seen most of the organisations I have worked with; suppliers will try to wish you on
occasions wish you with a gift. I consider the intent behind this as unethical. People consider
those occasions as justifications for giving a gift and they expect some favours.
Violating organisational processes for external agencies. Many a time, decision makers
tamper with company policy or guidelines whilst taking decisions on vendor selection,
procurement of material and related deicions. These decisions reflect the wrong intention; Ethical
hence, are treated as unethical conduct. One of the respondents cited as follows: practices at the
We do much procurement, so I will not allow during the selection process that any vendor should workplace
talk to me or influence my decision. They have to follow the principles of the procurement
process.

323
Unethical behaviour-pro-self
We have found many employees indulging in unethical practices to pursue self-interest at
the cost of others. Existing studies show such individuals are driven by self-cognition that
comes at the cost of morality (Mitchell et al., 2018). Such employees do not care about the
organisations’ ethical standards and consider success as the desired outcome, regardless of
how it is achieved. The intense competition further exaggerates this orientation, and
individual behaviour is often driven by self-cognition. In this study, we found that
employees sabotage colleagues and organisations to further their careers. They always do a
cost-benefit analysis for taking any action and only strive to fulfil their own interest, even at
the cost of others, including the organisation.
Pro-self-unethical behaviour includes the following forms:
Adopting unfair means to advance one’s own career goals/interests. Often triggered by
feelings of insecurity, people sabotage the performance of high performers, badmouthing or
finding faults in the decisions and work of others. All this falls in the category of unfair
means to advance one’s own career goals. Individuals who lack an abundance mindset
believe in a win-lose philosophy, rather than a win-win, which forms a precursor to unfair
means. As someone said as follows:
I have witnessed people backbiting and bad-mouthing performers, especially in front of us. I
guess the reason is their insecure mindset, which pulls down others when they know they cannot
compete fairly.
Personal use of organisational resources. It has been found that officials in high positions try
to exploit the company’s resources for their own disposal. For instance, asking the team
member to book personal travel/movie tickets, bringing the child from school and asking for
help in domestic chores is common. Also, using the company vehicle for personal travel or
company telephone for making personal calls. These types of behaviour reflect an intention
to exploit the company’s resources using one’s position, which is considered unethical
behaviour. One of the respondents cited as follows:
I do not use any of the employees or services of the company for my work’ to make sure that there
is no conflict of interest.
Manipulation of personal expenses. Another widespread unethical practice being followed is
fudging of various claimed expenses. It has been found that employees claim more than
what they actually incurred during travel for attending meetings, conferences or training
sessions. Claims submitted for leave fare concession are inflated. Commonly, people travel in
the lower class and claim higher class fare. In other words, manipulating personal numbers
have emerged as another type of frequently observed behaviour.
I found many a time, bills submitted by team members are not genuine. We check the bills, like
where they stayed, how much can be spent on food and all. If found guilty, serious action has been
taken in the past.
IJOA Existing literature acknowledges the existence of “beneficial unethical acts” (Brief et al.,
31,2 1991). Some studies have found other forms of unethical behaviour directed towards
benefiting self “unethical pro-self-behaviour” (Ghosh et al., 2019) and group “pro-group
unethical behaviour” (Thau et al., 2015). Our finding is consistent with a recent study
conducted by Ghosh et al. (2019) that emphasised the existence of unethical behaviour
directed towards fulfilling self-interest and they used the phrase “beneficial unethical acts”.
324
Unethical behaviour-systemic negligence
We found sometimes employees indulged in unethical behaviour unintentionally, without
any aim for personal or organisational benefit. They have been found to do so because they
are either unaware of the firm’s ethical standards as it is not clearly stated or organisational
processes and decisions give inconsistent signals regarding ethical standards that further
confuse the employees in this regard. In some cases, they fail to assess the ethicality of the
situation as it lies beyond their conscious reasoning (Gino and Bazerman, 2009). We have
termed such unethical behaviour as unethical behaviour -negligence that arises because of
unawareness of ethical reasoning/standards or failure to cognitively understand the
situation. Existing literature suggests the inability of the individuals to assess an ethical
dilemma is considered as ethical blindness (Palazzo et al., 2012) that causes bounded
ethicality (Bazerman and Sezer, 2016; Rees et al., 2019). Sometimes individuals
unconsciously ignore few aspects of ethical decision-making under certain constraints, such
as motivational or social pressure (e.g. peers, leaders and others in organisations are too
ignorant about the ethicality of the situation). A few respondents highlighted that
sometimes they prefer to ignore evaluating the ethicality of the situation as it eats into their
productive time and resources.
Unethical behaviour-negligence has not been studied much but has equal potential like
any other to harm the organisation and its members. For example, sharing confidential
information casually with competitors or regulators or any unauthorised person can cause
substantial financial and reputational damage to the company.
We have identified specific systemic errors that trigger unethical practices, such as
discrimination, favouritism and nepotism in various human resource (HR) and business
decisions. These systemic errors cause unethical behaviour amongst employees, whether
they intend to do so or not.
Discrimination. Discrimination with employees based on language, race, gender or caste
is treated has been considered as unethical behaviour by most of our respondents.
Discrimination often occurs in the subtle nuances of organisational culture in sexist
remarks, caste-based group formation, regional and language basis for deciding what is in-
group or out-group, etc. Specifically, in the Indian context, selection and promotion based on
the regional similarity between selector and employee/potential employee are often
perceived as unfair and biased decisions. Evident discrimination in the appraisal system
manifests itself in differential pay scales and glass ceilings for women managers. If not
annihilated timely, these nuances can make a giant portrait of compromising ethics and lead
to anarchy.
Compromising on confidentiality of inside information. Sharing inside confidential
information with outsiders (customers, suppliers, competitors, etc.), especially when it can
damage reputation and business, has been described as an unethical practice. In addition,
leaving important papers unattended on the desk and disclosing company details to
someone without a competent authority’s permission is considered unethical behaviour. As
one of the respondents says,
 I have seen people leave important papers lying on the desk which are confidential and of high Ethical
importance. This information, if passed to a wrong person, may bring dire consequences for the
company.
practices at the
workplace
In sum, systemic errors/ambiguity (biased assessment of performance, selection, promotion
or related HR decision) may give the wrong signal to employees regarding ethical standards
of the organisations that keeps employees either in the state of unintentional ignorant about
ethical issues or makes them unaware of the ethical standard of the organisation. 325

Unethical behaviour-pro-organisation
Unethical pro-organisation has emerged as one of the major themes in our study. We have
seen that sometimes employees do not mind compromising on social and moral norms to
benefit the organisation. We are not surprised with this finding as existing research
suggests Indian managers equate ethical behaviour with unconditional loyalty towards the
organisation (Sheth, 2008). Theoretically, organisational identification has been a widely
acknowledged factor contributing towards unethical pro-organisational behaviour as
employees high on identification internalise the success and failure of the organisation and
are ready to do anything for its fate (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Verma and Mohapatra, 2020).
Recently Verma and Mohapatra (2020), in their study, found that employees high on
organisational identification and relativism ethical ideology prefer to indulge in unethical
pro-organisation behaviour (UPB). It has been found that employees who get favourable
treatment from the employer feel obliged to reciprocate; hence, they display such behaviour
(Umphress and Bingham, 2011).
Our study found employees violating ethical norms and using unethical practices such as
“greasing”, rent-seeking, lobbying and bribing to benefit the organisation. Sometimes,
employees display pro-group unethical behaviour that might arise again due to loyalty
towards the group or friendship, which is an Indian value (Sheth, 2008). As employees do
not mind supporting unethical leaders under the influence of pro-organisation behaviour, it
can sometimes damage the reputation and financial health of the organisation (Cialdini et al.,
2004). For instance, we have found employees lie to customers, conceal critical information
to sell a product, tamper with business documents and manipulate business figures. These
acts may trouble the organisation in the long run. Ethical leadership has to be found to
curtail this kind of behaviour (Effelsberg et al., 2014). It can be more dangerous in high
power distance culture as subordinates can learn more from their leaders displaying UPB
(Lian et al., 2020). We have found two types of unethical behaviour-pro-organisation,
namely, dishonest practices for organisations’ gain and manipulation of business figures.
Dishonest practices for organisation’s gain. At times, when making headway in projects
whilst individuals may keep the end in mind, they often ignore the means to an end. For
instance, people use kickbacks whilst securing projects, tenders and bribing government
officials as a tool to achieve tender sanctions and timely approvals.
Manipulating business figures. Manipulation of business figures is another prevalent
unethical practice followed; for example, revenue is booked in advance, but expenditure is
shown in the next quarter to bloat the current business quarter figures.

Challenges in displaying ethical conduct

Various challenges faced by individuals in displaying ethical conduct in the workplace have
been depicted in Figure 2.
IJOA 1st Order Categories 2nd Order Themes Aggregate
Dimensions
31,2 • Managers tend to take short cuts under business pressure and
taking those short cuts scores popularity points for the subordinates Unrealistic
with the manager and give associated rewards.
• Most companies put lot of stress on just increasing their ROI, business
which may pressurize leaders to manipulate the growth figures. targets
• Biggest challenge is to show inflated results and it may be business
pressure from the top management that has percolated down to the ‘Bottomline
lowest levels.
mentality’
326
• In a highly performance and goal focused and competitive
Rat race
organization, employees wanting to be extremely competitive
sometimes, consciously or unconsciously use dishonest ways.
• When everybody seems to be playing the number game, it is very
difficult to find ethical ways to do what one is supposed to do.
Lack of timely Rent
processing of seeking
• Working with government agencies is the biggest challenge and requests by behavior of
work gets delayed if their implicit or explicit demands are not met. government government
• Dealing with government officials for various permissions (e.g., officials
setting up new office) is very challenging.
officials

• By the end of the cycle when the appraisal is done it may be more Biases in
biased because of liking for a resource or any other factor that may
influence the manager while giving the rating. appraisal
Lack of
• A good performer who does not flatter the supervisor or is not
effective/
accommodating in other things is demotivated when the “right
rating” is not given. fair
perform-
ance
• When assessments are subjective there is always a scope for error.
Subjectivity in assessment
• Many times KRIs are not discussed with employees individually appraisal
and there is no robust system to capture performance.

Lack of
support of top
• There is a conflict when one wants to be ethical but the top leader management’
is not so very particular about it.
support for
• One could have all other things but if organization itself is not
clear in its strategy and incentives for ethical behavior then it ethical
becomes a barrier. conduct in the
organization

• When co-workers do not want to show ethical conduct it becomes Lack of

a problem. inclination of
• Till the time one is diplomatic and speaks nice, life is easy but colleagues
when one starts being honest and others really do not want to
accept that honesty then it becomes very difficult. towards
ethical
conduct Absence of
ethical
• Self-interest comes into picture when individual wants to hold on work
to a position of gain irrespective of the larger interest of the culture
organization. Predominance
• Situations where there are conflicts of interests really define one’s
ethical behavior and one has to separate self-interest from the of self-interest
business interest (e.g., using any of the company resources or over
business resources or relationships for one’s own purpose). organizations’
• One comes across leaders who will distort the value system interest
according to their needs.

Figure 2.
Challenges faced by • One hears about organizations which have the norm to sign code of Absence of
individuals in conduct and adhere to that otherwise strict penalty is enforced. effective
• The real challenge comes regarding decision and enforcement of punishment
displaying ethical penalty: should it be mild or harsh? Should one give warning letter
mechanism
or ask the person to leave?
conduct at the • This is similar to maintaining traffic rules where chaos occurs for unethical
workplace whenever police is not there to ensure that people follow traffic
rules.
conduct
Bottom line mentality Ethical
We found the excessive focus of organisations or its members on gaining business numbers practices at the
triggers unethical practices especially in the absence of adequate resources (time, support
from organisation, favourable work environment, etc.). Under acute pressure to achieve
workplace
business targets with limited resources employees restore to unethical practices. Many a
time in such organisations where business numbers are focussed more over means,
employees develop “outcome orientation (pure focus on numbers)” and start ignoring the
“means (ethicality of the process)” to achieve such business goals.
327
Excessive focus on business numbers provokes two cognitive states (Vohs et al., 2006) in
the employees; one enhanced work-related cognition and two, enhanced self-interest
cognition (Boucher and Kofos, 2012; Mitchell et al., 2018). Employees construe the bottom-
line mentality of managers as business-related cues and then develop work cognition to
align their behaviour towards this and focus more on performance (Little et al., 2011).
However, some employees develop self-focus cognition and become independent, ignoring
moral standards (Mitchell et al., 2018; Babalola et al., 2020).
Bottom-line orientation gives a cue about the organisation’s business expectation, and
employees tend to develop a similar transactional approach (cost-benefit analysis) in their
decision-making to further their self-interest (Gasiorowska et al., 2016; Vohs et al., 2008). A
bottom-line driven work environment encourages employees to focus on their success and
survival in the organisation (Savani et al., 2016). Thus, most employees promote self-interest
and desire for independence (Vohs et al., 2008).
In this study we found, two indicators of the bottom-line mentality of organisation, one,
setting unrealistic business targets (creating resource constraints) and second, rat race
orientation of employees (designing HR policies for promotion, assessment, incentives such
that in creates excessive competitive work environment).
Unrealistic business targets. Extreme performance-orientation of organisations, followed by
unrealistic individual’s performance targets, triggers unethical behaviour. Organisations do not
mind stretching their workforce by setting ambitious targets. Interestingly, this has become a
norm in the corporate world and the business figure is given paramount importance. Various
benefits like pay hike and incentives are linked to the performance that forces employees to
stretch their efforts to achieve the preset, high business targets. Sometimes employees use
unfair means for achieving targets; such as kickbacks, manipulating business figures and use
of undue influence to get business. Business pressure has emerged as a significant factor that
triggers unethical behaviour amongst employees. One of the respondents said as follows:
In the organisations where performance is given more importance over means, and are highly
competitive, people also become competitive and sometimes consciously or unconsciously
demonstrate unethical behaviour.
Another respondent cited as follows:
Most companies put lot of pressure just to increase the return of investment; hence, leaders
manipulate growth figures.
Rat race. In a highly performance-oriented and intensely competitive organisation, to remain
competitive, employees consciously or unconsciously use dishonest means, thus
collaborating in a misdeed. The unfair means include kickbacks under business pressure,
exchange of expensive gifts, lunch or dinner coupons to steal the deal. Kickbacks are very
common in the IT sector for getting business, bypassing the time-consuming bidding
process. Officials of participating organisations promise each other future business favours,
and without going through the bidding process, a deal is granted. Officials of various
IJOA organisations indulge in such unethical practices to bear with the pressure. One of the
31,2 officials remarked as follows:
You put your efforts, money but get nothing. There is a possibility that client might be expecting
some kickbacks for the deal.
Our study found most respondents attributed their indulgence to unethical practices to meet
328 business targets. Whilst such organisations create a work environment where only the end
matters, some of the respondents acknowledged the slight positive impact of bottom-line
mentality on their performance. They believed that it clarifies the organisations’
expectations clearly and helps them achieve them effectively. This finding is consistent with
existing studies that postulate bottom-line mentality results in ethical and unethical
behaviour at the workplace depending upon cognition state (work vs self-cognition)
triggered in individuals (Babalola et al., 2020).

Rent-seeking behaviour of government officials

In this study, “rent-seeking bribe” was a highly cited unethical behaviour by respondents.
Employees in Indian firms have indulged in bribing government officials to get approval for
various business-related activities. This unethical behaviour typically falls under pro-
organisational behaviour (like “greasing”), where, unlike pro-self-unethical behaviour that is
directed to benefit oneself. Rent-seeking behaviour includes lobbying with government
officials to get an undue advantage over competitors by taking special permission to operate
in the closed or new market that is not available for others (Hillman and Katz, 1984; Tullock,
2002). Often, organisations pay a bribe to the concerned authority for getting quick approval
or licenses and pay to restrict the entry of competitors (Ades and Tella, 1999) or financially
damage them. The political environment has a significant role to play here especially in the
Indian context. During elections, industries donate huge amounts to various political party
funds to get rent later from the government. Owing to rigid and complex government
policies related to business matters, lobbying and bribing becomes normal routine to run the
business smoothly. In 2019, India was ranked 80 out of 180 countries on the corruption
perception index (Transparency.org, 2020). A country’s corruption positively triggers rent-
seeking behaviour (Barr and Serra, 2010; Debacker et al., 2015). A recent study has found a
positive impact of rent-seeking bribes on the growth of public firms (Nguyen et al., 2020). In
the Indian context, we have seen many respondents state that their organisations believed in
“rent-seeking bribes”; at the same time, most of them echoed government official triggers for
this behaviour. Sometimes, organisations do not want to bribe, yet officials directly or
indirectly give hint to “grease” for even entitled approvals. Organisations share the gain
with bureaucratic gatekeepers who control access to these restricted licenses or resources
(Fisman and Golden, 2017).
Lack of timely processing of requests by government officials. Dealing with government
officials for various reasons such as permission for setting up a new office, dealing with
income tax officers or labour officers and other bureaucrats have emerged as a major
challenge in the Indian context that restricts running a business in an ethical manner. To
avoid the unnecessary delay in getting various approvals, organisations do not hesitate to
pay money in the form of a bribe or expensive gifts. Many a time, officials deliberately delay
the processing of requests. Organisations cannot afford a delay in implementing business
plans in a dynamic competitive business environment, and therefore, resort to unethical
practices. Gradually, it becomes a norm in business dealings, especially when the TMT does
not discourage such behaviour. One of the respondents cited as follows:
 Working with a government official is the biggest challenge in ethically doing business. Because Ethical
we do not want to go other way around (unethical way) so our work will be delayed.
practices at the
workplace
Lack of effective and fair performance assessment mechanism
Lack of an effective assessment mechanism is another roadblock in displaying ethical
behaviour.
Biases in performance appraisal. Performance appraisal has emerged as one area where 329
subordinates’ perceived subjectivity results in unethical behaviour at the workplace.
Subordinates try to please their immediate supervisor for getting good ratings. Dissatisfied
employees find unfair means to fulfil their interests as they do not trust the appraisal
system. Organisations are currently looking for ways to make the system transparent and
robust.
Subjectivity in performance appraisal. Another challenge is coming from the bell-curve
appraisal system. Employees are always dubious about this and attribute their poor rating
to supervisor bias. Similarly, a rewards system that is not appropriately managed triggers
unethical behaviour. One of the respondents cited as follows:
I have eliminated the subjectivity issue by measuring goals against time. KRIs are discussed with
employees individually, and robust systems to capture targets are in place.
Another responded remarked as follows:
It is difficult to convince an employee that he is doing his best and contributing well, but the guy
receiving rewards and recognition is slightly better. If not convinced properly, then the
dissatisfied employee will take an unethical route to fulfil his desire.

Absence of ethical work culture

The absence of ethical work culture has emerged as another important factor responsible for
unethical behaviour amongst employees who learn to behave in a certain manner based on
their experience of how other members behave in the organisation. Generally, employees
gather information about acceptable behaviour through various means, such as interaction
with fellow members, leaders, observation and learn to display those behaviours. In
organisations where top leaders do not support ethical behaviour (by rewarding or
recognising it) and display unethical behaviour, it gives the wrong message down the line.
Also, organisations where self-interest is given paramount importance indicate a lack of
ethical work culture, making it difficult for employees to display ethical behaviour. Lack of
support of top management for ethical conduct, lack of inclination of colleagues towards
ethical conduct and absence of an effective punishment mechanism for unethical conduct
pose a challenge for employees to display ethical conduct (Ferrell and Ferrell, 2014). Ethical
work culture discourages employees from behaving unethically and promotes ethical
behaviour (Treviño and Weaver, 2003). Leaders have great potential to influence employees’
ethical behaviour as they act as role models for the employee, and the opposite is also true
(Schein, 2010). In some cases, it has been found that the unethical behaviour of a leader
triggers unethical behaviour amongst those employees who are high on moral
disengagement (Fehr et al., 2020).
Our study found four elements of ethical culture, namely, lack of support from top
management, lack of inclination of colleagues towards ethical conduct, the predominance of
self-interest over organisation’s interest and lack of reinforcement mechanism (punishment
and reward) that triggers the unethical behaviour amongst employees.
IJOA Lack of support of top management for ethical conduct in the organisation. Support of top
31,2 managers for ethical conduct is vital in encouraging employees to display ethical behaviour.
Employees take cues from top managers whilst making an ethical decision. If ethical
conduct is not recognised or rewarded appropriately, employees hesitate to display that
behaviour again. Sometimes ethical decisions come at the cost of the business as follows: if
leaders are not supportive, then it is complicated for managers to take such ethical decisions.
330 Lack of inclination of colleagues towards ethical conduct. Colleagues’ behaviour
dramatically influences the ethical conduct of fellow members. Individuals with co-workers
who lack an inclination for ethical conduct feel the challenge of behaving ethically. A culture
characterised by the promotion of self-interest and unfair means to achieve goals reflects the
organisation’s absence of ethical work culture. Seeing colleagues benefit by displaying
unethical behaviour further encourages an individual to do the same. Individuals would feel
friction in displaying ethical conduct when every other person is least interested in ethical
values and behaviour. To avoid friction, one finds it easier to display unethical behaviour
rather than sticking to the ethical values of the organisation in fulfilling own duties.
One of the respondents cited as follows:
I think the major challenge of displaying ethical behaviour is when a majority in a group does not
believe in following ethical standards of the company, and sometimes it becomes a threat to
people who really want to follow ethical behaviour.
The predominance of self-interest over the organisation’s interest. There are situations where
a conflict of interests often defines one’s ethical behaviour, and one has to separate self-
interest from business interest. One must realise the fiduciary duty placed by the
stakeholders when an individual enters business dealings. Often, leaders or top managers
face this position when they stand at a crossroads between self-interest and the
organisation’s more considerable interest. At this junction, their value system elicits a
response from them and it is the weaker value systems that would flounder whilst those that
can transcend the hitherto establish highest good.
Absence of effective punishment mechanism for unethical conduct. An organisation’s
response to unethical behaviour indicates its stance against such behaviour. Strict (e.g.
sacking the concerned person, heavy penalty) and quick action against the employees found
guilty conveys a powerful message to the rest; thus controlling future unethical behaviour.
Not only is the punishment significant but also how quickly it is imposed and how
transparent is the process are also important parameters. Some organisations publish the
unethical behaviour of their employees in the company magazine or HR bulletin. This
creates awareness about the ethical standards of the company. However, in the absence of
any severe consequences, employees would indulge in unethical practices. An organisation
having no such mechanism of reporting unethical practices indicates its feeble stand, thus
reflecting an absence of ethical work culture. One of the respondents cited as follows:
Only challenge that really comes in is what should be the consequences. Should it be mild or
should it be harsh? Should you give a warning letter, should you ask the person to leave?

Discussion
Lernaean hydra underlying employees’ unethical conduct: an emerging framework
The taxonomy suggesting ways to address unethical behaviour (Table 1) has emerged from
our findings. We found majorly the following five broad categories of unethical behaviour:
pro-self, lack of autonomy, pro-organisation, systemic and negligence. These forms of
unethical conduct specified in Table 1 are not mutually exclusive.
Category Description Examples Preventive measures
Ethical
practices at the
Unethical behaviour Predominantly motivated Nepotism; wastage/ Strict enforcement of workplace
pro-self to attain personal gains misuse of company’s code of conduct and
even through deliberate resources; interpreting disciplinary
actions that may involve rules as per self-interest processes
unethical conduct
Unethical behaviour Unethical conduct is due Coercion, threat or Proper mechanisms 331
due to influence of someone suggestion by boss/ for employee
to lack of autonomy they are forced to obey or senior to subordinate to feedback and
follow use unethical means to grievances
finish the task
Unethical behaviour Rationalising unethical Ignoring existing rules Mentoring
pro-organisation conduct based on end and policies to get
results for the business; offering gifts to
organisation clients or government
officials
Unethical behaviour – Unethical conduct Tacitly supporting Institutionalizing
systemic becomes the norm unethical actions of team ethics at the
members or peers because workplace
it is considered the routine Table 1.
way of doing work
Lernaean hydra
Unethical behaviour – Not careful or concerned Not making effort to know Sensitisation
negligence about the ethical the rules and then exercises on ethical underlying
standards and their unintentionally breaking conduct employees’ unethical
actions meeting these those rules conduct-an emergent
standards framework

We have used the metaphor of Larnaean Hydra [1] (a monster having multiple heads in
Greek mythology) to control the categories of unethical conduct. To kill the monster,
one must cut off all his heads, as cutting just one will give rise to two more heads.
Similarly, organisations need to focus on controlling all types of unethical conduct
rather than focussing on just one or two to destroy unethical behaviour in the
workplace.

Unethical behaviour pro-self

Employees falling under this category are predominantly motivated by personal gains
without much concern about the ethical standards of their actions. Examples of such actions
are personal use of the organisation’s resources, false claims for reimbursement, seeking
bribes, sabotaging others’ work. Sometimes, in the pursuit of self-interest, they accidentally
end up benefiting the organisation as well.
Nevertheless, their motive remains the same, i.e. “fulfilling self-needs over others”.
Our premise is supported by the consequential ethical theory called egoism theory
(Rachels and Rachel, 1993; Ho, 2007). This theory acknowledges the fulfillment of
self-interest. After finding an appropriate channel, long suppressed employees would
prefer to raise their voice against unethical conduct at the workplace. Organisations
need to encourage these people to speak up about the wrongdoings happening in the
organisation. An organisation also needs to provide an appropriate channel for
employees to share their views and concerns about ethical standards violations.
IJOA Unethical behaviour pro-organisation
31,2 Organisations need to carefully tackle UPB as employees always justify their unethical
conduct, highlighting their effort to fulfil their goals. Outcome-based judgement of ethical
situation over means may mislead the organisation in addressing ethical issues at the
workplace. Increasing rationalised acts contributes to a deteriorating work culture where
unfair means are acceptable for bringing in business. Overemphasis on business numbers
332 and profit maximisation without clarifying the means of doing business, may trigger
unethical conduct at the workplace. We found that specifying “means of doing businesses”
through ethical codes and other policies would help the organisation control unethical
conduct. Kant’s deontological perspective (Ho, 2007) emphasises doing the right thing for
the right reason. Sometimes, deciding on good and evil is difficult as employees are in the
grey area without clear demarcation between good and wrong conduct. Therefore,
organisations can have ethical codes, ethics training, mentoring by senior leaders and
workshops, highlighting various ethical issues to help employees understand ethical codes
that may guide them for making a better ethical judgement.

Unethical behaviour systemic

This category of unethical conduct majorly emerges from a systemic error such as biases in
performance assessment, discrimination in work allocation, unfair reward system and
absence of reinforcement mechanism for promoting ethical conduct. We found in this study;
employees consider various decisions, policies and practices of their organisation as a
reference to judge its ethical orientation. Discrimination of any sort or biases in various
decisions, especially HR decisions (selection, promotion, transfer, performance assessment),
provides a wrong social cue to the employees regarding judging the ethical standard of the
organisation. Additionally, reinforcement mechanism to promote ethical conduct and
punish unethical act influences employees’ judgement regarding the ethical standard of their
organisation. During the study, participants shared their experience, saying, suffocated and
contaminated work environments either will make you unethical or you will leave the
organisation. Employees sometimes learn unethical behaviour from peers, boss and
sometimes TMT members considering it as acceptable behaviour. Trevino and Youngblood
(1990) proposed the “bad apples in bad barrels” approach to highlight the bad influence of
unethical conduct of peers on colleagues in the organisation. Being part of certain social
groups within the organisation, individuals conform to norms and behaviour by displaying
behaviour as expected by that particular group. Gradually, over time, after consistent
display of unethical behaviour, an individual starts identifying with that social group
(Tajfel, 1982). This is how the social identity of its members instigates them to add more
members to the group as it is essential for its survival and influence. Negligence on the part
of the organisation in punishing the unethical act leads to institutionalising unethical
behaviour at the workplace.
This ethical issue cannot be addressed merely by having ethical codes in place but
requires more severe steps. We suggest the inclusion of line managers and TMT members in
setting and promoting ethical standards. Top managers need to take awareness sessions
where they can share expectations of the organisation regarding ethical conduct.
Additionally, ethical standards can be institutionalised by making ethical conduct one of the
parameters in the employees’ overall performance appraisals, regular ethics training with
measurement of its impact and by giving responsibility to line managers to have ethics
awareness sessions.
Unethical behaviour negligence Ethical
Employees falling under this category are not fully aware of the ethical standards of the practices at the
company. Their unethical conduct may result from their negligence; for example, leaving
important documents lying on the table, sharing secrets of the company with competitors
workplace
and unintentionally sharing confidential information. Even if the unethical act is done
unintentionally, it has equally dire consequences for the organisation.
Individuals need to have moral awareness or else they cannot act morally at the
workplace (Rest, 1986; Jones, 1991a, 1991b) and end up indulging in unethical conduct 333
(Jones, 1991a, 1991b; Street et al., 2001).
An organisation needs to develop clearly stated and comprehensive ethics codes to
capture the broad range of possible ethical issues employees face at the workplace. The code
should be generic enough to give employees the freedom to make their ethical judgement;
however, it should be specific to guide the behaviour. The ethical code must be based on
certain ethical principles or else it cannot translate the company’s ethical standards into
guiding rules.

Implications of the study

The study contributes in three significant ways to the theory and practice of unethical
behaviour at the workplace. Firstly, it highlights the root causes of unethical behaviour (pro-
self, lack of autonomy, pro-organisational, systemic and negligence) in the Indian context.
Extant literature on antecedents and outcomes of unethical behaviour has inconsistent findings
(O’Fallon and Butterfield, 2012). Moreover, Martin et al. (2014) had highlighted the need for
more studies to enrich the understanding of unethical behaviour pro-organisation. There are
multiple factors (as we discussed in the paper; personal, organisational, social, cultural,
business contextual and situational) that influence unethical conduct in an organisation.
Therefore, categorising unethical conduct is an attempt to specify under which situation or
context, what particular type of unethical conduct may exist. It enriches the understanding and
predictability of such behaviour at the workplace that would help the organisation in
addressing it. The sub-dimension of different types of unethical behaviour have been specified
and root causes of such behaviour have been highlighted. This framework provide template for
the organisations to get deeper understanding of prevailing unethical practices and helps them
to develop a road map to promote ethical behaviour at workplace.
Secondly, our findings highlight, the importance of cultural dimensions in understanding
unethical practices at the workplace. This study specifically highlights the role played by
high power distance and collectivism in accentuating ethical tension for employees. Living
in a country high on power distance employees in Indian organisations may rely on
employees having a higher status in the organisation to address ethical dilemmas. In a
country which is high on collectivism, employees prefer to conform to the group norms. This
may lead to concealing colleagues’ unethical practices, thus making it difficult for
organisations to monitor such practices.
Thirdly, our findings highlight the inter-relatedness of various forms of unethical
behaviour. The business line mentality of the organisation has the potential to trigger two
types of unethical behaviour as follows: pro-self and pro-organisation. The organisations
need a holistic approach to address unethical behaviour and peace meal mechanism has as
little impact as cutting one of the heads of Lernaean Hydra.

Limitation of the study and directions for future research

This study has highlighted the influence of only two cultural dimensions (power distance,
collectivism) on un (ethical) conduct of the employees. Future studies may look into other
IJOA dimensions of culture. Our framework can be further extended by incorporating unethical
31,2 practices from different perspectives, more sub dimensions may get added through further
exploration of unethical practices in various contexts.
Our findings indicated the inter-relatedness amongst various types of unethical conduct.
This inter-relatedness needs to be systematically studied to get deeper insights into causal
linkages with antecedents of unethical conduct.
334 Finally, changing business context (gig economy) has led to the development of various
forms of work arrangements such as fixed-term employment, freelancing, remote working,
working from home and uberisation of jobs (employment with application-based
aggregators). These unconventional employment (short-term employment, multiple
employers, connected through web-based technology with the employer, etc.) have created a
different relationship between employee-employer and owing to unique exchange
relationship, the influence of organisations in shaping the ethical orientations of employees
would be different from conventional employee-employer relationship.

Note
1. Retrieved from https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Monsters/Lernaean_Hydra/lernaean_hydra.
html on 24 October 2018.

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Corresponding author
Jatinder Kumar Jha can be contacted at: jatinderkj@xlri.ac.in

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