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Focusing on ethical issues when making organizational decisions should encourage a variety of positive outcomes for companies and their employees. The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree to which data-based ethical decision making, lateral relations and organizational commitment are interrelated in organizations.

Data were collected from business professionals employed at multiple locations of a financial services firm operating in the USA. Mediation analysis (based on structural equation modeling) was used to test the proposed relationships.

Results indicated that employees’ perceptions of data-based ethical decision making were positively related to perceived lateral relations, and that perceived lateral relations were positively related to organizational commitment.

Given that information was collected using only a self-report questionnaire, common method bias could be an issue. In addition, the study’s cross-sectional design limits conclusions about causality. Another limitation involves the study’s homogenous sample, which decreases the generalizability of the findings. Finally, variable responses could have been impacted by individual frames of reference and other perceptual differences.

Results suggest that information flow enhancements should support or be consistent with horizontal information flow enhancements, and that together these factors should increase employee commitment.

Given the dearth of existing research, this interdisciplinary investigation is important because it fills gaps in the management literature. This study is also important because the results could inform decisions regarding the use of data analysis in ethical decisions and lateral forms of organizational structuring to improve work attitudes.

In response to the call for deeper investigation of abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013), the purpose of this paper is to examine perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility (an individual’s perception of his/her ability to obtain new employment) to better understand contextual and individual factors that potentially influence the degree of harmful supervisory behaviors experienced by employees.

Responses from 749 survey participants were analyzed to determine the impact of perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility on perceptions of abusive supervisory conduct. A bootstrapping-based mediation analysis (Hayes, 2012) was used to test for mediation by the variables of interest.

The authors found that perceived supervisor competence is associated with weakened perceptions of abusive supervision, and that this relationship is partially mediated by respondents’ perceived occupational mobility.

The data are cross-sectional and were collected with a self-report questionnaire and compiled utilizing student-enumerators. The sample was also regional in scope and lacked information that would indicate if respondents were also supervisors.

These results imply that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater individual employee perceived mobility. Human resource (HR) professionals can implement practices to decrease the likelihood of abusive supervisory conduct by ensuring that supervisors are competent in their jobs, facilitating a coaching/mentoring process between supervisors and subordinates and establishing/maintaining an effective developmental performance feedback process for supervisors.

Since perceived supervisor competence is one element of reducing abusive conduct, while also enhancing subordinate perceived mobility, selection and training efforts should focus on hiring and preparing individuals to be effective work supervisors. Enhancing worker capabilities and marketability may result in greater perceived occupational mobility and reduced perceptions of abuse by supervisors.

These results lend support to the argument that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater perceived mobility among employees. Organizations may benefit through lowered employee turnover, employees may enjoy more harmonious, supportive relationships with their supervisors and HR staff may benefit by having competent supervisors who do not generate employee complaints and intentions to quit.

The impact of manager gender on subordinates’ perceived job responsibility and intention to look for work was explored using a national sample of 1,825 supervisors employed in a variety of industries. After accounting for several covariates, results indicated that supervisors who had a female manager perceived lower job responsibility than did those who had a male manager. Results also showed that supervisors who had a female manager had higher intentions to look for work than did those who had a male manager. The causes and managerial implications of these findings are explored.

Using a national sample of 7,733 young working adults, the relationship between supervisor gender and perceived job design was explored. Results indicated that a supervisor’s gender did indeed influence subordinates’ perceptions of their job, and the differences were attributed to the different leadership styles men and women frequently use in the workplace. Overall, subordinates who had female supervisors perceived greater interpersonal aspects in their jobs, while subordinates who had male supervisors perceived greater structure in their jobs.

Ethical issues and moral reasoning are important in the tax policy context because shared moral values create good societies (Paul et al., 2006). This study of the equitable relief subset of the innocent spouse rules is a good example of Congressional and IRS policy that has been substantially reformed twice (and continues to be reassessed) to create tax law that effectively treats innocent spouses equitably (Fleischman & Shen, 1999). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree to which subjects' moral reasoning, using the first two steps of Rest's (1986) ethical reasoning model, is related to perceived moral intensity (Jones, 1991) in several tax-based equitable relief situations. Integrative social contracts theory provides the study's theoretical lens.

Subjects evaluated a mailed-questionnaire containing two separate equitable relief scenarios about a spouse who was unaware of her husband's tax evasion – one scenario included verbal abuse and the other scenario contained no such abuse. The survey also contained a variety of ethics and attitudinal measures used to measure the study's focal variables. The results support the a priori hypotheses that moral intensity is positively related to recognition of an ethical issue, judgment that the ethical scenario is unethical, and judgment to grant equitable relief. In addition, the scenario containing emotional abuse was associated with increased levels of moral intensity as compared to the scenario that did not contain abuse. The paper concludes with a discussion of both professional and public policy implications.

There is reason to believe that an ethically minded approach to hiring and the development of an ethical context should be associated with incremental decreases in employees’ perceptions of ethical conflict. It is also likely that the selection of ethical employees, and the reduced ethical conflict that follows, are positively related to employees’ positive work attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to test these relationships.

Using a self-report questionnaire, information was collected from 187 employees working for a medium-sized financial services organization with offices located primarily in the Midwestern USA.

Results of structural equation modeling indicated that employees’ perceptions of ethics-related selection were negatively related to perceived ethical conflict, and that reduced ethical conflict and enhanced ethics-related selection were associated with an increased positive work attitude, which was comprised of job satisfaction, an intention to stay, and organizational commitment.

The results cannot prove causal association between the constructs, and the use of one focal firm limits generalizability.

Organizational leaders and HR professionals should develop ethics-based hiring practices to reduce ethical conflict and strengthen a company's ethical context.

This investigation is relevant because strong relationships among ethics-related hiring, ethical conflict, and positive work attitudes would suggest that companies must use ethical selection criteria and maintain an ethical culture/climate that meets or exceeds employees’ expectations about ethics. Furthermore, this study adds to the relatively few published works exploring the relationship between ethical conflict and work attitudes.

Previous research indicates that women often perform more ethically on the job than do men. However, the results have been mixed, suggesting that further inquiry is needed. The purpose of this paper is to explore this important topic in a large healthcare organization. A field study sought to identify gender differences in ethical judgment, ethical intention, and organization‐based altruism in a healthcare organization, thereby providing some insight into the individual differences that influence ethical reasoning in the healthcare industry.

The investigation was based on survey data returned from a large sample of faculty and staff employed by a multiple‐campus health science center. Multivariate and univariate statistical modeling was used to evaluate the relationship between gender and ethical reasoning/conduct.

The findings suggest that women are generally more ethical than men. Being a woman was related to increased ethical judgment, being a woman and older was associated with increased ethical intention, and being a woman and a supervisor was related to higher altruism.

The results suggest that women should play a key role in the ethical role modeling of newly hired employees, as well as the development and management of organizational ethical values and codes of conduct. Healthcare organizations might also consider encouraging women to accept supervisory roles and become opinion leaders to foster organizational ethicality.

The findings add weight to the evidence that women are indeed more ethical than men in a variety of work roles, but greater insight into the complexities of these gender differences is also provided.

This study aims to gauge business school student perceptions of the academic conduct of college professors, to determine students' ethical evaluations of certain potential faculty behaviors. The relationships between perceived faculty misconduct and several student demographic characteristics including sex and academic classification were also investigated.

A large sample of undergraduate students attending one of two diverse universities responded to an anonymous survey. Responses were analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistical methods.

Behaviors such as giving lower grades because of opposing opinions in the classroom and sharing an undergraduate student's private information with colleagues were rated the most harshly by student respondents. The 55 items that we used to measure professors' academic misconduct distilled into two basic dimensions: “inappropriate sexual situations” involving students and coworkers and “inappropriate familiarity with students.” Student sex and academic classification were related to one or both of these dimensions.

The study did not address whether faculty misconduct might be seen as incompetent by the students rather than unethical. The survey also did not ascertain if or how often the student respondents had observed the behaviors that they judged as unethical or ethical.

Faculty who wish to be more effective teachers and role models should realize their behaviors are being scrutinized and evaluated by students who make ethical judgments about teacher conduct.

The study makes an important contribution by distilling 55 established items on ethical behaviors into two durable ethics scales regarding faculty‐student relationships: “inappropriate sexual situations” and “inappropriate familiarity with students.” These scales can be applied in future research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employee's perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) relate to their perceptions of an organization's orientation toward continuous process improvement orientation (CPIO). In addition, this research considers how employee perceptions of CSR and CPIO relate to work attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Using structural equations analysis, the paper examines survey data obtained from employees of a USA-based financial services firm to test hypotheses regarding employee's perceptions of corporate engagement in CSR and continuous process improvement, as well as their work attitudes.

Employee perceptions of CSR and of CPIO are strongly related. Both CSR and CPIO have similar, but still unique effects upon organizational commitment (OC). CSR and CPIO do not directly impact employee's intentions to leave, but they do have an indirect effect on intentions to leave, which operates through OC.

The design of the study precludes absolute conclusions regarding causality in tested relationships. The study design also limits generalizability.

CSR and CPIO are strongly related, possibly due to shared cultural principles, suggesting that either CSR or CPIO may establish a basis in values that will support the other. Adding CSR to existing CPIO (or the reverse) is likely to enhance employee attitudes.

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between continuous process improvement activities and CSR. In addition, it conceptually and empirically evaluates how CSR and CPIO simultaneously influence employee attitudes and behaviors.

The relationships between intention to look for work and gender, race, and job complexity are assessed using a national sample of working young adults in the USA (n = 3,622). The effects of gender and race on job complexity are also assessed. The results of the path analysis indicate that women perceive greater complexity in their jobs than do men. The findings also suggest that minority groups experience lower job complexity compared to their Anglo counterparts. Finally, intention to look for work was positively affected by racial minority status and negatively influenced by job complexity. The managerial implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided.