Unethical Decisions: The Impact of Reinforcement Contingencies and Managerial Philosophies

Abstract

Unethical behavior is a serious issue facing business organizations. This study reports the results of a laboratory experiment involving 338 subjects in an in-basket simulation requiring that they decide whether or not to give kickbacks. Subjects were divided into two groups—each assigned a different managerial philosophy. Subjects were rewarded for unethical decisions on the first three trials and punished for unethical decisions on the last three trials. Results on all six trials support the hypotheses that unethical decisions are dependent on reinforcement contingencies and partially (in the first three trials) support the hypothesis that unethical decisions are dependent on stated managerial philosophy.