TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence of Ethics and Misconduct in a Multinational Corporation
T2 - Motives for Growth of Corrupt Environments in Today’s Business World
AU - Elbæk, Christian Truelsen
AU - Mitkidis, Panagiotis
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Unethical behavior, such as corruption and fraud, is a massive problem in today’s business world. Research in the fields of business ethics and moral psychology has presented compelling evidence of a series of behavioral concepts that might influence an individual’s propensity to engage in unethical conduct. Yet, it is still unknown how these concepts apply to more ecologically valid contexts such as real-world scandals on unethical behavior. Motivated by this, we use empirical qualitative evidence from one of Denmark’s largest corruption scandals to explore how well renowned concepts within business ethics and moral psychology hold up in the real world, when looking into both what causes unethical behavior and how it could be minimized. We find evidence that catalysts of immoral conduct in the case company are well supported by some of the most well-researched concepts in the research area, and our research indicates a possible real-world interaction between concepts.
AB - Unethical behavior, such as corruption and fraud, is a massive problem in today’s business world. Research in the fields of business ethics and moral psychology has presented compelling evidence of a series of behavioral concepts that might influence an individual’s propensity to engage in unethical conduct. Yet, it is still unknown how these concepts apply to more ecologically valid contexts such as real-world scandals on unethical behavior. Motivated by this, we use empirical qualitative evidence from one of Denmark’s largest corruption scandals to explore how well renowned concepts within business ethics and moral psychology hold up in the real world, when looking into both what causes unethical behavior and how it could be minimized. We find evidence that catalysts of immoral conduct in the case company are well supported by some of the most well-researched concepts in the research area, and our research indicates a possible real-world interaction between concepts.
KW - business ethics
KW - corruption
KW - moral psychology
KW - empirical qualitative evidence
U2 - 10.1504/IJBGE.2021.10041702
DO - 10.1504/IJBGE.2021.10041702
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1477-9048
VL - 17
SP - 50
EP - 78
JO - International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics
JF - International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics
IS - 1
ER -