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Employee dishonesty is problematic for businesses in general, particularly for retailers. The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse selected factors associated with the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour among retail employees. Specifically, the role of three negative work outcomes – insufficient pay, boredom, and perceived injustice – is investigated, as well as the effect of individual values and espoused organisational values.

The sample consisted of 784 retail employees from six retail organisations located in Estonia and Latvia. A survey questionnaire that used manipulated scenarios of work outcomes and organisational values was administered.

The study concludes that perceived injustice produces more dishonesty than other negative work outcomes (insufficient pay and boredom), whereas boredom was a surprisingly strong trigger for the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour. Individual ethical values determined the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour as hypothesised while sensation-seeking values did not. Espoused organisational values had no significant effect on the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour.

The results imply that the breach of distributional and procedural justice simultaneously associates most with employee dishonesty, and retail employee selection is the key to curbing dishonest behaviour in the workplace.

The paper makes a contribution to behavioural ethics literature by studying dishonest employee behaviour in the post-communist context while addressing various forms of dishonest behaviour, in addition to stealing. Also, the effect of espoused organisational values has been scarcely studied before.

An employee who is eligible to make a complaint for unfair dismissal has to prove that he has been dismissed by the employer if the employer contests that the employee has in fact been dismissed. If the dismissal is not contested, all the employee has to do is to show that he has been dismissed. This constitutes the first stage of the proceedings in an industrial tribunal.

The major forms of employee dishonesty include: top management fraud, worker’s compensation fraud, and employee’s lying and theft. This article will focus on discussing these different types of dishonest behaviours, their underlying dynamics, possible solutions and preventive measures. Moreover, some typical cases in the United States like World Com fraud, workers’ compensation fraud, and some lying and stealing behaviours will be discussed. Finally, this article may help understand the importance for top management to be an ethical role model, and the importance of creating an honest and satisfactory working environment.

To determine the factors associated with arbitration awards in unfair dismissal complaints under Australian federal legislation and to assess whether employees benefit from arbitration.

This research involves an empirical analysis of 342 decisions in 17 industries by arbitrators in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission over the four year period 1997‐2000. Logistic and ordinary least squares regression are used to analyse the data.

The findings of this study indicate that 50.6 per cent of arbitration decisions were in favour of employees and only 10.8 per cent of complainants were reinstated. Independent variables which are significantly associated with each of the three dependent variables are identified.

The results of this study enable researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the arbitration process and recognise independent variables that are associated with the arbitrator's decision in unfair dismissal cases.

Employers lose half the unfair dismissal cases that go to arbitration. To reduce legal and associated costs, employers may need to look at ways of creating a more harmonious workplace. Employees do not benefit much from arbitration and have little chance of reclaiming their jobs. Reaching a settlement through mediation may be a better option.

This is the first study to assess arbitration decisions in Australia. By developing a conceptual model based on arbitration outcomes and structuring the analysis on this model, the paper presents a logical understanding of the factors that drive arbitration decisions and remedies.

Anomia describes the individual’s lack of integration in social life. The construct has been linked to various types of activities and concepts but no research appears to have been undertaken linking it to deviant behaviour inmarketing. In this preliminary study the literature on anomia and deviant behaviour, specifically attitude toward fraudulent behaviour among retail employees and academic misconduct among students, are examined. Hypotheses are formulated, measurement instruments are identified and two surveys are carried out, one among employees of a large retail chain and another among business undergraduate students. The psychometric properties of the instruments are confirmed and relationships are investigated using regression equations. The implications for theory are considered, limitations are noted and directions for future research are indicated.

Purpose — (Dis)honesty as a quality of our actions can be assessed at different levels. Often these levels have not been differentiated. Semantically we cannot talk about a dishonest society or dishonest organizations — dishonesty can only be attributed to individual actions. We can approach a dishonest act through its essence (deontology), consequences (utilitarianism), and also through the person committing the act (virtue ethics), but most often organizational spheres are too complex objects of study to face ethical dilemmas without the influences that their context can bring. Therefore, the purpose of the chapter is to look at dishonesty as an unethical act through the lenses of behavioral ethics, since behavioral ethics is able to grasp the framing effects of ethical situations while combining the main elements of the previously mentioned traditional ethical theories.Design/methodology/approach — In the current chapter it will be differentiated between traditional ethical theories and acknowledged that depending on the level of analysis (individual, organization, or the society level) with their distinctly different ontological backgrounds, we will have different groundings for making any kind of axiological statements about the dishonesty of an action.Findings — In order to give ethical statements about (dis)honesty in organizations, we cannot neglect the influences brought by context. Organizations with endless social interactions both locally and globally usually have no universal basis for making axiological statements.Originality/value — The originality of this chapter is twofold: firstly to cover the importance of making sense of what ethical approaches we take as a grounding when we make ethical judgments in organizational context, and secondly to analyze whether and how the question of dishonesty differs when we switch between the most traditional ethical approaches. The chapter proposes a new framework how ethical decision-making should be assessed depending on the level of social interactions and how dishonesty is associated with gaining social approval.

Dismissal for dishonesty is a particularly difficult problem for employers in distribution. What level of proof is necessary? What is the relation between unfair dismissal proceedings and proceedings for theft or fraud in the criminal courts? What are the essential procedural steps in a dismissal? These are some of the questions answered in this article.

Employers like to feel that their staff are loyal and trustworthy and may therefore overlook the need for insurance against loss incurred through employees' fraud. In the past such practice could be put down mostly to individuals, but these days what the author describes as “the criminal element” is moving in. Fidelity insurance, described here, is one way for the employer to combat such theft.

Purpose — This chapter is aimed at testing the strength of three different drivers to engage in dishonest behavior at work — financial gain, response to injustice, and escape from boredom — and shedding light to the power of individual and organizational values to hold down the effect of these drivers.Design/methodology/approach — We analyze the data of 167 service employees from a large retail organization, who responded to questionnaires which manipulated drivers and organizational values.Findings — As a result we find that the financial and injustice drivers are effectively triggering several dishonest behaviors, whereas — contrary to the expectations — boredom at work does not threaten employers with employee engagement in dishonest behavior. We do find weak moderating effect of individual values in reacting to the drivers for some forms of dishonest behaviors, but the role of organizational values was marginal.Originality/value — In this chapter dishonest behavior is divided into nine specific dishonest acts involving management and customers as the stakeholders whose interests are at stake. We attempt to associate these behaviors with particular drivers. We also look at the moderators in this process: individual and organizational values. To date, espoused values of the organization is an underexplored organizational instrument compared to other situational variables, for instance, the existence of codes of ethics.

Traditional agency theory assumes monitoring is good for the principal, but we investigate an unintended effect: diminishment of the agent’s preference for honesty. We hypothesize greater dishonest behavior in a monitored environment than in a non-monitored environment, when the agent has the opportunity to cheat outside the scope of monitoring. Relevant theories to explain such behavior are behavioral agency theory, where trust and reciprocity are thought to alter contractual outcomes, and the fraud-triangle theory, where the ability to rationalize deviant acts affects behavior. We utilize participants who have been acclimated to either a monitored or an unmonitored condition in an immediately preceding experiment and seamlessly continue that treatment. Within each of these conditions, participants perform a simple task with a performance-based monetary reward. Half self-report and can safely cheat, while the other half are verified; the difference between verified and self-reported scores is a proxy for dishonest reporting. As hypothesized, unmonitored individuals reciprocate with honest behavior, while monitored individuals tend toward dishonest behavior when the opportunity arises. Implications for fraud prevention are discussed.