Cross‐national assessment of the effects of income level, socialization process, and social conditions on employees’ ethics

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12262
• Date: 01 April 2020
• Published date: 01 April 2020

Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:333–347. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer 

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© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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The increasing demand for social responsibility and ethicality since

the 1970s has prompted or ganizations to fo cus more on the mor al

dimension of thei r operations ( Vallance, 1995). Organiza tions have

begun to devise po licies and acti vities to inculcate moral prin ciples

among their members. Assurance of compliance and promotion of

ethical behav ior have led to the inclusion of an ethic s committee in

the organizat ional struc ture, in additio n to the implement ation of

corporate code s of ethics and formal training p rograms (Badar acco

& Webb, 1995; Cressey & Moore, 1983; Mur phy, 1989; Stöber,

Kotzian, & Weißenb erger, 2019; Vitell & Singhapakdi, 20 08; Weaver

& Treviño, 2001; Weiss, 1994). Furthe rmore, the related r esearch has

advanced the co mprehension of ethics a nd the management of ethi-

cal dilemmas. Through ethical models discussed by researchers (e.g.,

Culiberg & Mihelič, 2016; Ferrell & Fraed rich, 1997; Forsyth , 1980;

Michalos, 1995; Wines & Na pier, 1992), guidelines for organi zational

processes and decision-making have been developed. Despite these

efforts , organizational mal practices such as bri bery, tax evasion, and

fraud prolife rate. The need fo r increased mor al consciousnes s has

provided higher incentive for practitioners and researchers to con-

tinually investigate factors influencing one's ethics.

Research on busi ness ethics has co nsiderably int ensified in the

past decade f or providing increased knowle dge to more effectively

predict ethi cal attitude s, decisions, a nd behaviors (Cr aft, 2013;

Lehnert, Cr aft, Singh, & Park, 2016; Rua, Lawter, & Andreassi, 2017).

Despite extensive ethics research, two motivations remain for con-

ducting this s tudy. First, mos t of the related res earch has chiefly

considered managers’ ethicality. As institutions experience ethical

challenges, organizations must safeguard employees’ ethical val-

ues as well as manage rs’ ethical val ues. Employees p erform task s

according to thei r job functions b ut without managerial or super vi-

sory authority (Wright, 1997). Compared with managers, employees

have average educat ional attain ment and lower comp ensation, as

they hold lower leve l positions and gen erally under take less com-

plicated dutie s (Anderse n & Van de Werfhorst , 2010; Chen, 2014;

Received: 30 Au gust 2018 

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  Revised: 30 Novem ber 2019 

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  Accepted: 12 Decem ber 2019

DOI: 10.1111/beer.12262

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 ||

School of Mana gement, National Taiwa n

Universit y of Science and Technolog y, Taipei

City, Taiwan (R.O.C .)



Kristine Velasquez Tuliao, Business

Administration, National Taiwan University

of Science and Techn ology, No. 43, Sec. 4 ,

Keelung Rd., Da'an D ist, Taipei City 106,

Taiwan (R.O.C.).

Email: kvtuliao@mail.ntust.edu.tw



Employees often exp erience ethical dilemmas throughou t their service in an organi-

zation. This stud y utilized a multilevel st andpoint to address e mployees’ differen ces

in ethical reasoni ng. Hierarchical linear mo deling was used to analyze respons es from

40,485 full-time emp loyees across 54 countries. Drawing f rom Durkheim's concepts

of the homo duplex, s ocialization process , and social conditions , this study found

a positive relationship b etween employees’ i ncome level and unethic al reasoning.

Furthermore, the results indicate that modern social regulation, technological ad-

vancement, economic development, and economic change moderate the relation-

ship between incom e and ethical judgm ent. The study fi ndings contribute to th e

Durkheimian mod el by validating the effects of indi vidual- and country-level factors

on employees’ ethica lity. Considering that th e results contradi ct Durkheim's initia l

propositions, anot her concept and theor y are proposed , which may complement

Durkheim's argume nts. Practic al implications for o rganizations and so ciety are fur-

ther discussed to reinfo rce employees’ ethics.