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Examining Ethicality Judgements of Theft Behavior: The Role of Moral Relativism

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether situational factors predict ethicality judgments of theft behavior, and whether the effect of situational factors is moderated by moral relativism.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained across two laboratory experiments using undergraduate business students attending a Canadian university (n = 372). Student participants viewed a videotaped vignette of an employee informed that he had been caught stealing sales commission. In the vignettes, we manipulated two situational factors: whether or not (a) the theft has monetary consequences for the organization, and (b) similar theft is commonplace within the organization.

Findings

In Experiment 1, both situational factors interacted with moral relativism in the prediction of ratings of unethical conduct. In Experiment 2, using a within-participant research design, we achieved an interaction between the organizational consequences manipulation and moral relativism, although we obtained a considerably stronger effect size for the interaction compared to the first experiment.

Implications

We discuss implications of our findings and suggest avenues for future research. In particular, we consider the possibility that managers may not share a common frame-of-reference when considering the ethicality of theft. This could affect whether and the extent to which theft behavior is reprimanded.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to research on employee theft, and also adds incrementally to our understanding of how both situational factors and moral relativism jointly influence perceptions of theft behavior.

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Notes

  1. Although not hypothesized, we also explored the possibility of a 3-way interaction between the two situational variables and relativism as predictors of the ethicality ratings. However, the interaction was not statistically significant (p > .05).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada

    Lorne M. Sulsky & Heather A. MacDonald

  2. School of Administrative Studies, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Joel Marcus

Authors
  1. Lorne M. Sulsky
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  2. Joel Marcus
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  3. Heather A. MacDonald
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lorne M. Sulsky.

Appendix

Appendix

Sample Videotaped Vignette Script (No Organizational Consequences and Theft is Commonplace)

Hi there Alex, nice to see you today. Did you have fun getting to work this morning? I know the traffic has been a mess since they started all that road construction. I guess the good news is at least we won’t be like stunt drivers trying to avoid all of those potholes! Anyway, I am glad you are here. As you know, the purpose for this brief meeting is to do the 6 month annual performance feedback session. I will give you some general feedback. Once I am done giving you the feedback, you will have a chance to ask any questions and we can discuss any of the specifics in greater detail if you like. Once we are done and assuming you are satisfied, you will then sign off on the appraisal form. Any questions?

Employee: Sounds good. Manager: Alright then, let’s being then.

Manager: Your customer satisfaction ratings have been high with reports of good service. Your customers have filled out several feedback surveys saying that you are always friendly and communicate well. They also indicate that they will continue to return to this company because of the excellent service they received from you. You have shown some initiative securing new accounts for us and have done fairly well helping others meet their sales targets. You have also been consistently meeting sales targets. Your end-of-month reports are always clear, concise and well-organized.

Employee: Thank you very much. I enjoy working here and always strive to do my best for this company.

Manager: Before we discuss any questions you may have, I need to apprise you of something. Unfortunately, I recently learned that you inflated your self-reported sales figures to increase your sales commission. This came to light because we noticed some irregularities in the master spread sheet where we track sales activity. Two sales entries were entered in 2 different rows by Sally in IT using different invoice numbers. One of the invoice numbers does not link to an actual sale, however. I asked her about this, and she confirmed you instructed her to enter the 2 separate sales entries with these invoice numbers. She also was certain that she did not make any errors, and that you were very clear in your request. Therefore, it is clear to me you padded your sales figures – is this the case?

Employee: Yes, I am afraid I made a big mistake

What you may not know, however, is that according to Sally, one of your co-workers was accidentally given credit for one of your sales, so in fact with the padding you are not actually asking for more commission than you actually deserve. I should also note that you probably know that other sales personnel routinely pad their sales statistics – I suspect because the dollar value of the commissions is so low.

Employee: Yes I do know this but I assure you it won’t happen again.

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Sulsky, L.M., Marcus, J. & MacDonald, H.A. Examining Ethicality Judgements of Theft Behavior: The Role of Moral Relativism. J Bus Psychol 31, 383–398 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-015-9418-5

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