Ethical reasoning at work: A cross-country comparison of gender and age differences

Lasthuizen, Karin; Badar, Kamal Article Ethical reasoning at work: A cross-country comparison of gender and age differences Administrative Sciences Provided in Cooperation with: MDPI – Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basel Suggested Citation: Lasthuizen, Karin; Badar, Kamal (2023) : Ethical reasoning at work: A crosscountry comparison of gender and age differences, Administrative Sciences, ISSN 2076-3387, MDPI, Basel, Vol. 13, Iss. 5, pp. 1-16, https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci13050136 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/275601 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Citation: Lasthuizen, Karin, and Kamal Badar. 2023. Ethical Reasoning at Work: A Cross-Country Comparison of Gender and Age Differences. Administrative Sciences 13: 136. https://doi.org/10.3390/ admsci13050136 Received: 16 February 2023 Revised: 15 May 2023 Accepted: 16 May 2023 Published: 19 May 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). administrative sciences Article Ethical Reasoning at Work: A Cross-Country Comparison of Gender and Age Differences Karin Lasthuizen * and Kamal Badar Wellington School of Business and Government, Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6012, New Zealand *Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: This paper uses the IBE Ethics at Work 2018 survey to explore employees’ ethical reasoning and examine gender and age differences across 12 countries. Debates about gender and ethics have been intense since Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, with feminist critiques from Gilligan and others advocating the different voice of women, while the recent arrival of Millennials in the workplace has raised new questions about age/generational differences and ethics. The findings in this study suggest that women and older workers have stronger ethical judgments in the workplace than men and younger workers. These gender and age differences, both among employees and managers, are consistent across countries. This study shows that individual characteristics are important for employees’ ethical reasoning, which affects their ability to make ethical decisions and act ethically. Business ethics research should therefore take greater account of differences between (groups of) employees and their learning needs when examining the effectiveness of ethics policies and instruments, while organizations can improve employee ethical reasoning by adopting diversitybased training programs and ethical leadership. Keywords: organizational ethics; ethical reasoning; gender; age; global employee survey 1. Introduction Over recent decades, increasing pressure from civil society and stakeholders has made organizations more conscious of the need to promote ethics (e.g., integrity, transparency and accountability) as well as the benefits of doing so, notably the economic, social and environmental impact (Elkington and Rowlands 1999). Thus, companies “should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy, in close collaboration with their stakeholders” (EC 2011, p. 6). One of the key stakeholders of an organization is its employees (Chen et al. 2020;Greenwood and Anderson 2009). Recent research suggests that employees’ ethical awareness has been growing as organizations increasingly incorporate ethics and sustainability practices into various levels of their business strategy, including human resources (Braga et al. 2021;Greenwood and Simmons 2004). However, not all employees may be equally interested in and knowledgeable about ethical issues. Employee ethics can vary according to their gender, education, age, ethnicity, culture, nationality and other characteristics (e.g., Weber et al. 2019). Among these, gender and age have attracted some of the greatest scholarly attention. Despite a reasonable number of studies on these issues, however, the findings have been contradictory. Drawing from gender socialization (Gilligan [1982] 1993), life stage (Kohlberg 1981) and generational theories (Inglehart 1977;Strauss et al. 1991), prior empirical research has explored ethical associations with gender and age, respectively. Results pertaining to gender have primarily reported that women hold a stronger ethical view than men (e.g., Dhandra and Park 2018;Glover et al. 2022;Haski-Leventhal et al. 2017;Roxas and Stoneback 2004;Ruegger and King 2013). However, studies have also reported no gender Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci13050136 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/admsci Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 2 of 16 differences (e.g., Davis and Welton 1991;Radtke 2000) or mixed results (e.g., Peterson et al. 2001;Valentine and Rittenburg 2007). Findings related to age have reported that older individuals exhibit stronger ethical beliefs than young individuals do (e.g., Glover et al. 2022;Peterson et al. 2001;Ruegger and King 2013), whereas a few others have found that younger groups/Millennials are more ethical than older generations (e.g., Boyd 2010;Haski-Leventhal et al. 2017; Meriac et al. 2010;Weber 2017). However, studies integrating cross-cultural, gender and age/generation similarities and/or differences have been rare (e.g., Chen et al. 2016;Cogin 2012;Curtis et al. 2012;Egri and Ralston 2004;Ober-Domagalska and Czernecka 2019). This article reports findings on gender and age differences in ethical judgment between employees and managers based on the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) unique Ethics at Work 2018 Employee Survey with more than 9000 respondents from 12 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. First, statistical scale validation of the survey questions was performed to make them available for in-depth analysis of the data, which to date are only reported on a descriptive level in IBE reports. Two distinct constructs were identified: employee ethical judgment and managerial ethical judgment. By investigating and identifying the correlates of the identified constructs, the following research questions (RQs) are answered: (1) Are there significant gender similarities and/or differences in ethical judgments in the workplace? Are the similarities/differences consistent across countries? (2) Are there significant age group differences in ethical judgments in the workplace? Are the similarities/differences consistent across countries? (M)ANCOVA analyses were used to answer the RQs and associated hypotheses. 2. Theory and Hypotheses 2.1. Gender and Age Similarities/Differences in Organizational Ethics and Associated Theories Organizational ethics emphasizes the importance of ethical decision making in preventing unethical employee conduct. Making ethical decisions requires individual ethical awareness defined as “the recognition of the moral nature of a situation” and ethical reasoning or judgment defined as “the decision about what is morally right in a situation” (cf. Lawton et al. 2013). Research shows that an individual’s cognitive moral development drives ethical decision making (e.g., Elm 2019;Weber 2019). Piaget ([1932] 1965) was the first to commence the study of moral development and reasoning based on studies with children. Kohlberg (1969) extended Piaget’s work with children into the ethical judgments of adolescents and adults by developing a six-stage (three-level) model of moral development. In his life stage theory, Kohlberg (1981) described ethical decision making as a developmental process, usually progressing with life experiences. He identified a typology of three levels of moral development: (1) preconventional—individuals are primarily concerned with their own interests, and ethical decisions are justified in terms of what is good for them, and therefore, they will try to seek rewards and avoid punishment by those who set the rules; (2) conventional—individuals conform to group/society expectations and rules, and what is right is what is socially accepted; and (3) postconventional—individuals are guided by ethics and make independent choices based on self-chosen ethical principles of justice and human rights. Following Kohlberg’s life stage theory of moral development, Trevino (1986) developed a person–situation interactionist model that can be applied to research into the ethical decision making of professionals in organizations. Treviño’s model assumes that individuals’ responses to ethical dilemmas are primarily determined by the stage of their cognitive moral development. However, within an organizational context, situational variables such as (ethical) programs, culture and leadership also moderate the cognition/behavior relationship. Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 3 of 16 Managers in particular play an important role as a key source of moral guidance for employees because of the authority they hold (Treviño and Brown 2005). Notably, Weber (1990, p. 93) found that “managers . . . reason at the conventional level” of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, just like most adults (cf. Loviscky et al. 2007). 2.2. Gender Similarities/Differences Kohlberg’s life stage theory was criticized by, among others, Gilligan ([1982] 1993) who argued that because women scored lower than men on Kohlberg’s measures of moral development, their ethical reasoning was regarded as flawed. Her research revealed that men and women might have different ways of thinking about ethical issues. While men more often use justice-oriented principled reasoning, as described by Kohlberg in the postconventional phase, women more often use a form of reasoning based on care and relationships (cf. Moreno-Segura et al. 2023). Gilligan proposed that Kohlberg’s theory did not adequately describe women’s moral development because it devalued the care voice. Furthermore, she argued that psychological theories that are based solely on a male model fail to take into account the different developmental experiences of women, and that women’s development of a more relational ethics of care (cf. Held 2006) should be valued just as highly as the development of reasoning based on ethical principles of justice and rights. Gilligan’s ([1982] 1993) gender socialization theory posits that men and women go through different socialization processes. Women are generally socialized to value the needs of others more than men and are more cooperative and emotionally close to others, whereas men are generally more driven by individual needs, competition and dominance (Gilligan [1982] 1993;Stern et al. 2005). One could argue that women will have high ethical reasoning because consideration for others and acting for the common good are central to their socialization. Other gender theorists argue that if families, societies and business schools socialize both genders similarly, men and women should be aligned in their ethical approach (Betz et al. 1989;Roxas and Stoneback 2004). While prior research has found that females hold stronger ethical views than men (e.g., Dhandra and Park 2018;Eweje and Brunton 2010;Glover et al. 2022;Haski-Leventhal et al. 2017;Ruegger and King 2013), studies have also reported no gender differences with regard to organizational ethics (e.g., Radtke 2000;Zsigmond et al. 2021). Weber and Wasieleski (2001) found no gender differences among managers in ethical reasoning. Similarly, Valentine and Rittenburg (2007), who used a cross-cultural sample of business executives, concluded that there were no gender differences in ethical judgment, although female managers had stronger intentions to act ethically. However, a meta-analysis of 19 studies by You et al. (2011) showed that, on average, women tend to score higher on moral sensitivity measures than men. Previously, Franke et al. (1997), in their meta-analysis of 20,000 respondents in 66 samples found that women have higher ethical standards than men. Based on these findings, the following hypothesis related to gender differences has been formulated: H1gender:Women will score higher on ethical judgment in the workplace than men. 2.3. Age Similarities/Differences Following Kohlberg’s life stage moral development theory, research has tried to understand the stages of moral development in relation to age. Although Kohlberg’s research placed most (American) adults at the conventional level, other studies report age-related differences. For example, Rawwas and Singhapakdi (1998) found that young, middle-aged and older consumer groups have different levels of moral development, with the older age group having the highest level. Peterson et al. (2001) found that business professionals in the younger age group exhibit a lower standard of ethical beliefs, while Ruegger and King (2013) found that older students are more ethical than their younger-age counterparts. On the contrary, Zsigmond et al. (2021) report no age differences in their recent study of Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 4 of 16 self-reported ethical behavior among employees in the SME sector, and Eweje and Brunton (2010) found mixed results regarding the ethical judgments of business students. Socialization theories attribute the level of ethical reasoning to socialization processes that begin in childhood during family upbringing and continue through adulthood through education, work, cultural experiences, etc., where ongoing social influences will generally encourage ethical behaviors and discourage unethical ones (cf. Thalmayer et al. 2019). Prior research has adopted the socialization perspective to understand age differences in ethics. For example, Milfont et al. (2016) reported greater endorsement of ethical values and less endorsement of unethical values for older participants. Gouveia et al. (2015) reported higher interpersonal and normative scores and lower self-promotion scores for older participants. Robinson (2013) found more conservative ethical tendencies in older participants. Glover et al. (2022) used years of work experience instead of age and reported, based on a scenario study, that years of work experience correlate with higher levels of ethical behavior. Similarly, they found that long-term managers made more ethical choices and assume that this is because they have more experience in ethical situations and dilemmas. In addition, they may also be more aware of the ethical context in the organization regarding what constitutes acceptable behavior. They therefore hypothesize that the way in which employees are socialized in the organization influences ethical decision making. Based on these arguments, the following hypothesis related to age differences in ethical reasoning at work has been derived: H1age: Older employees will score higher on ethical judgmentin the workplace than youn ger em ployees. Generational theories have been around for some time. Mannheim’s (1970) seminal work in this area suggests that generations contain two essential components: common location in a historic time period and a distinct consciousness that is the result of important events of that time. Mannheim’s work predates, but is reflected in, commonly used conceptualizations of generations based on age, such as Generation X, Generation Y, Baby Boomers, etc. These conceptualizations have their roots in generational cohort theory, developed by Inglehart (1977) and later made popular by Strauss et al. (1991). This theory posits that a generation is a social construction in which individuals born during a similar period are influenced by the same historic economic, political and social events during their childhood in such a way that these experiences differentiate one generational identity from another (Jurkiewicz and Brown 1998;Sessa et al. 2007). Growing up in a particular era affects an individual’s values, beliefs and attitudes which are shared by those born in the same time period and belonging to the same generation. Limited empirical evidence taking a generational stance has reported that younger cohorts, like Millennials, have more profound ethical values and stronger morality than older generations (cf. Badar and Lasthuizen 2023;Boyd 2010;Haski-Leventhal et al. 2017;Meriac et al. 2010;Weber 2017). Based on these arguments, a contradictory hypothesis is proposed: H2age: Younger employees will score higher on ethical judgmentin the workplace than ol der empl oyees. In summary, gender and age are important correlates of ethical decision making and behavior, but previous research has revealed mixed and conflicting results. Based on the used dataset from 12 countries, it will be tested whether there are consistent gender and age similarities/differences with regard to ethical judgment at work in line with the formulated hypotheses. 3. Materials and Methods 3.1. Sample The Ethics at Work 2018 survey of employees 1 is a part of triennial research by the London Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) into employee perceptions of ethics in the workplace. The aims of this international survey are to develop an understanding of employees’ Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 5 of 16 attitudes to and perceptions of ethics in the workplace and compare how business ethics is viewed and understood by employees in different countries. IBE has conducted a regular survey into employees’ views of ethics at work in Britain since 2005. The survey has since been widened to include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland in 2018. IBE reports the descriptive results for each country included in the survey, along with country comparative findings. Market research company ComRes carried out the survey on behalf of IBE. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Centre 2 and abides by its (ethical) rules. The survey was conducted online, in the native language of the participating country. A quota sampling approach based on age, gender and region was chosen to obtain a representation of the working adult population in each country. In 2018, 9148 employees were surveyed in total across the 12 countries. The sample included 4840 men and 4266 women, and 898 young (18–24 years), 4183 middle-aged (2 5–44 year s) and 4058 older people (45+ years). Furthermore, the dataset included a subset of 3028 respondents who identified as managers (1978 males, 1036 females), and representative workforce samples of approximately 750 employees per country. The demographic characteristics of each country sample can be found in Appendix A. 3.2. Procedure Two questions in the Ethics at Work 2018 survey were used to measure employees’ ethical judgments (see Table 1). The first question was Q1: “Below is a list of things that happen sometimes in the workplace. To what extent, if at all, do you think that each of the following actions is acceptable?” Table 1. Scale statistics for employee ethical judgment and managerial ethical judgment. Item Scale/Item Description Mean SD Loadings Cronbach αCommunalities Employee ethical judgment (n = 9148) 0.793 Q1 (v) Using company petrol for personal mileage 3.38 0.81 0.744 0.553 Q1 (vi) Charging personal entertainment to expenses 3.61 0.74 0.777 0.604 Q1 (vii) Pretending to be sick to take the day off 3.47 0.78 0.703 0.494 Q1 (viii) Minor fiddling of travel expenses 3.52 0.75 0.792 0.628 Q1 (ix) Favoring family or friends when recruiting or awarding contracts 3.32 0.84 0.660 0.436 Managerial ethical judgment (n = 3028) 0.846 Q14 (i) Petty fiddling is inevitable in a modern organization 2.77 1.23 0.740 0.547 Q14 (ii) If we cracked down on every little fiddle we would soon find we had no staff 2.70 1.26 0.799 0.638 Q14 (iii) If we cracked down on every little fiddle we would soon find we had no suppliers 2.67 1.23 0.791 0.625 Q14 (iv) As long as I come in on time and within budget I am not going to worry about a bit of petty fiddling 2.42 1.20 0.802 0.643 Q14 (vi) It is acceptable to artificially increase profits in the books as long as no money is stolen 2.03 1.19 0.739 0.546 The item battery consisted of nine items: (i) taking pencils and pens from work; (ii) posting personal mail from work; (iii) making personal phone calls from work; iv) using the internet for personal use during working hours; (v) using company petrol for personal mileage; (vi) charging personal entertainment to expenses; (vii) pretending to be sick to Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 6 of 16 take the day off; (viii) minor fiddling of travel expenses; (ix) favoring family or friends when recruiting or awarding contracts. Respondents could answer on a four-point Likert scale: totally acceptable, fairly acceptable, not very acceptable, totally unacceptable and don’t know. This question was asked of all respondents (n = 9148). The second question from the Ethics at Work questionnaire was Q14: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements?” The item battery consisted of six items: (i) Petty fiddling is inevitable in a modern organization. (ii) If we cracked down on every little fiddle we would soon find we had no staff. (iii) If we cracked down on every little fiddle we would soon find we had no suppliers. iv) As long as I come in on time and within budget I am not going to worry about a bit of petty fiddling. (v) There is no real difference between fraud and a little bit of petty fiddling. (vi) It is acceptable to artificially increase the profits in the books as long as no money is stolen. Respondents could answer on a five-point Likert scale: strongly agree, tend to agree, neither agree or disagree, tend to disagree, and strongly disagree. This question was asked (only) to respondents who indicated they had a managerial role (n = 3028). To provide scale validation of these survey questions, the underlying structure of all the items included in Q1 (9 items) and Q14 (6 items) was examined using factor analysis (Osborne 2008). As the most appropriate approach to the data, unweighted least squares (Morata-Ramírez and Holgado-Tello 2013) and oblimin rotation (Fabrigar et al. 1999) were employed. The factor analysis for Question 1 revealed two factors, and the five items (items v, vi, vii, viii, ix) that measured more serious unethical behaviours were chosen to make up the final scale “employee ethical judgment”. The factor analysis for Question 14 showed that five out of the six items (items i, ii, iii, iv, vi) constituted a good scale to measure “managerial ethical judgment”. All scales were re-coded in a way that higher scores represented more ethical answers (“the higher the better”). All included items had loadings of greater than 0.50 on a single factor and communality scores mostly exceeded 0.50, providing ample evidence of convergent validity (Fabrigar et al. 1999). All factors demonstrated high levels of internal reliability with Cronbach’s α exceeding 0.70 (Hair et al. 2018). The final scale statistics for both scales are shown in Table 1. Furthermore, the kurtosis and skewness scores of the study variables were examined and found to be between − 2 and +2 (George and Mallery 2019), indicating that the data demonstrated no significant violations of the assumption of normality. (M)ANCOVA that has the primary aim to test for significant differences between group means was used as the appropriate method to evaluate whether the means of the dependent variable (i.e., ethical judgment) were equal across levels of the independent variables (i.e., gender, age, country) (Osborne 2008). Finally, the independent variables age and gender were dummy coded (age: 1 = young (under 18–24), 2 = middle-aged (25–44), 3 = old (45–65+); gender: 0 = female, 1 = male). 4. Results and Discussion 4.1. Results To test the hypotheses, age and gender and their interactive effects with country for the two validated constructs were examined: employee ethical judgment (full sample) and managerial ethical judgment (managerial sample). Tables 2and 3show the results of ANCOVA. The models used country, age and gender as independent variables and employee ethical judgment (full sample: Table 2) and managerial ethical judgment (managerial sample: Table 3) as dependent variables, respectively. While explicitly testing and explaining country similarities/differences in ethical reasoning is beyond the scope of this paper, this variable was included as one of the independent variables to test whether age and gender similarities/differences are consistent across countries (i.e., interaction effects: country ×age; country ×gender). One-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were conducted to identify which independent variables had a significant effect on the dependent variables. Tables 2and 3show Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 7 of 16 that age, gender and interaction effects were significant for employee ethical judgment and managerial ethical judgment. The observed power for each statistic was ≥ 0.80 and therefore considered significant. Table 2. Univariate ANCOVA with employee ethical judgment as the dependent variable (full sample, n = 9148). Variables F Partial Eta Squared Observed Power Independent variables Country 17.319 *** 0.021 1.000 Age 239.551 *** 0.051 1.000 Gender 82.160 *** 0.009 1.000 Interactions Country ×age 4.266 *** 0.010 1.000 Country ×gender 3.542 *** 0.004 0.997 Country ×age ×gender 2.132 *** 0.006 0.998 *** p< 0.001. Table 3. Univariate ANCOVA with managerial ethical judgment as the dependent variable (management sample, n = 3028). Variables F Partial Eta Squared Observed Power Independent variables Country 10.513 *** 0.022 1.000 Age 152.503 *** 0.057 1.000 Gender 38.489 *** 0.008 1.000 Interactions Country ×age 3.243 *** 0.014 1.000 Country ×gender 1.797 ** 0.004 0.873 Country ×age ×gender 1.206 0.006 0.912 *** p< 0.001; ** p< 0.05. Figures 1–6plot the cross-country age and gender differences for employee ethical judgment (full sample) and managerial ethical judgment (managerial sample). The gender results revealed that women scored higher than men in employee ethical judgment (Figure 1) and managerial ethical judgment (Figure 5) consistently across almost all countries, strongly supporting H 1gender . Italy and France were exceptions, with equal scores for men and women in employee ethical judgment. In Italy, men and women also scored equally in managerial ethical judgment. The graphs clearly show that age was also relevant to ethical judgment, with the older group of employees and managers scoring higher than younger groups of employees (Figure 2) and managers (Figure 6). In Singapore, however, middle-aged managers scored slightly lower than their younger colleagues did with regard to their ethical judgment, and in Ireland, these differences were not significant (Figure 6), overall, these results strongly support H 1age and are not in line with H 2age . A closer look at the data further reveals that in Canada, Germany and the UK, middle-aged and young female employees scored equally on ethical judgment (Figure 3), and in Singapore, this was true for male employees (Figure 4), but both graphs clearly show that the oldest group of employees scored the highest on ethical judgment. Adm. Sci. 2023,13, 136 8 of 16 Adm. Sci. 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 8 of 17 Figure 1. Cross-country gender differences in employee ethical judgment (full sample = 9148). Figure 2. Cross-country age differences in employee ethical judgment (full sample = 9148). Figure 1. Cross-country gender differences in employee ethical judgment (full sample = 9148). Adm. Sci. 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 8 of 17 Figure 1. Cross-country gender differences in employee ethical judgment (full sample = 9148). Figure 2. Cross-country age differences in employee ethical judgment (full sample = 9148). Figure 2. 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