THE ETHICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: PROMOTING WHISTLEBLOWING INTENTIONS AND BEHAVIORS ANN TENBRUNSEL, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME Walking with Max Bazerman, Art Brief,Tina Diekmann, Dave Messick, Kristen Smith-Crowe, Elizabeth Umphress, AbhijeetVadera and Kim Wade-Benzoni
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THE ETHICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: PROMOTING WHISTLEBLOWING INTENTIONS AND BEHAVIORSANN TENBRUNSEL, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
Walking with Max Bazerman, Art Brief, Tina Diekmann, Dave Messick, Kristen Smith-Crowe, Elizabeth Umphress, AbhijeetVadera and Kim Wade-Benzoni
Self-Interested
Ethical
WANT/SHOULD CONFLICT:THE INHERENT TENSION IN AN ETHICAL DILEMMA
Affective
Impulsive
Hot-headed
Emotional
Cognitive
Thoughtful
Cool-headed
Rational
Negotiating with Yourself and Losing: Making Decisions with Competing Internal PreferencesMax H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel and Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, The Academy of Management ReviewVol. 23, No. 2 (Apr., 1998) WITH TINA DIEKMANN (2010)
WHO WINS…AND WHEN?
Copyright 2014 Ann Tenbrunsel
Prediction
Action
Recollection
Tenbrunsel, Diekmann, Wade Benzoni, & Bazerman, “Why we aren’t as ethical as we think we are: A temporal explanation”, Research in Organizational Behavior, 2010.
Forecasting Errors
RevisionaryEthics
CURRENT FOCUS
Copyright 2014 Ann Tenbrunsel
Prediction
Action
Tenbrunsel, Diekmann, Wade Benzoni, & Bazerman, “Why we aren’t as ethical as we think we are: A temporal explanation”, Research in Organizational Behavior, 2010.
Forecasting Errors
HOW ARE PREDICTION AND ACTION DIFFERENT?
Construal level: how an individual represents information pertaining to a particular stimulus
LOW CONSTRUAL
HIGH CONSTRUAL
WHAT’S FEASIBLE?
HOW?WHAT’S DESIRABLE?
WHY?
PREDICTIONACTION
HOW DO ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENTS INFLUENCE THE
LEVEL OF CONSTRUAL AND
WHISTLEBLOWING INTENTIONS VS. BEHAVIORS?
(with AbhijeetVadiera and Tina Diekmann)
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE:THE ETHICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Formal Systems
Informal Systems
Organizational Climates
•Communication•Surveillance/ Sanctioning
•Communication•Surveillance/Sanctioning
•Ethics•Justice •Respect
Tenbrunsel, Smith-Crowe & Umphress, 2003
ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENTS AND CONSTRUAL (3 STUDIES)
Climates of Ethics
Climates of Justice
Informal Communication Systems
Formal Communication Systems
Formal Sanctioning Systems
(Retaliation and Efficacy)
“WHY”
High Construal
“HOW”
Low Construal
TAKING THE WALK TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
• For-profit organization based in India
• 1000 employees (>18, full time)
• 81% Male
• 32% Single
• Mean Age: 33
• 52% College-Educated
• 200 Respondents with Supervisor Ratings
THE MODEL
Formal communication systems
Informal communication systems
Organizational climate for justice
Organizational climate for ethics
Whistle-blowing intentions
Whistle-blowing behaviors
Sanctioning systems
Perceived retaliation
Perceived efficacy
Formal communication systems
Informal communication systems
Organizational climate for justice
Organizational climate for ethics
Whistle-blowing intentions
Whistle-blowing behaviors
Sanctioning systems
Perceived retaliation
Perceived efficacy
Formal communication systems
Informal communication systems
Organizational climate for justice
Organizational climate for ethics
Whistle-blowing intentions
Whistle-blowing behaviors
Sanctioning systems
Perceived retaliation
Perceived efficacy
WHEN DO INTENTIONS TURN INTO BEHAVIOR?
Interactions
WHEN DO INTENTIONS TURN INTO BEHAVIOR?
Interactions
WHEN DO INTENTIONS TURN INTO BEHAVIOR?
Interactions
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTIONERS
• If you don’t focus on the “WHY” through culture building and informal communications, it doesn’t matter how strong your compliance systems are
• If you do the hard work of culture building and informal communication, but you don’t engage in the “HOW” through strong formal systems that focus on communication, retaliation and efficacy, then you did that work for nothing.
MEASURES
Organizational climate for ethics. Organizational climate for ethics was measured using four items: “My organization has values and standards of behavior that the people who work here really believe in,” “Top managers here would turn down business or other opportunities if it meant compromising my organization’s values and standards of business conduct,” “In my organization, people are encouraged to take full responsibility for their actions,” and “Ethical behavior is the norm in my organization.” Cronbach’s (1951) alpha for this scale was 0.72.
Organizational climate for justice. We adapted the scale developed by Ambrose and Schminke(2009) to assess the organizational climate for justice. Items for the scale were: “Overall, the way I’m treated by my organization is;” “In general, I can count on my organization to be;” “Usually, the way things work in my organization are;” and “For the most part, the way my organization treats its employees is.” For all items, participants responded on a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very unfair) to 7 (very fair). Cronbach’s (1951) alpha for this scale was 0.94.
MEASURES
Perceived retaliation. Two items captured our notion of perceived retaliation: “I fear that some members in my organization would retaliate against me for making the complaint if I reported misconduct to authorities” and “I feel confident that I would not be reassigned, detailed, or transferred against my wishes if I report unethical behaviors to supervisors” (reverse coded). Cronbach’s (1951) alpha for this scale was 0.66.
Perceived efficacy. We captured our notion of perceived efficacy with three items: “In my organization, employees violating ethics expectations are disciplined,” “In my organization, an employee failing to abide by policies is disciplined,” and “In my organization, people not conforming to ethical standards are disciplined.” Cronbach’s (1951) alpha for the scale was 0.75.
Whistle-blowing intentions. Our measure of whistle-blowing intentions comprised three items. Respondents indicated the extent to which they agreed with the following items: “In my organization, I will report unethical behaviors that I observe,” “I intend to complain to superiors when someone harms my organization or its members,” and “In my organization, I intend to inform the management about unethical and immoral practices within the organization.” Cronbach’s (1951) alpha for this scale was 0.78.
MEASURES
Control variables. For the respondent data, we controlled for age (in years), gender (men coded as 1, women as 0), marital status (married coded as 1, single as 0), education (high school education coded as 1, college/bachelor’s degree as 2, masters/postgraduate degree as 3, and doctorate/PhD as 4), tenure in organization in years, and organizational size. For organizational size, respondents were asked for the number of employees in their organizations. Responses were coded as: 1 = 1 to10, 2 = 10 to 50, 3 = 50 to 100, 4 = 100 to 200, 5 = 200 to 500, 6 = 500 to 1000, 7 = 1000 to 2500, 8 = 2500to 5000, 9 = 5000 and above.
It can be argued that whistle-blowing behavior is generally a binary variable, i.e., either employees blow the whistle or not. We therefore tested whether the results using a binary variable were the same as those obtained with our scaled variable. Specifically, we changed the supervisor ratings of whistle-blowing behaviors from continuous to binary by doing a median spilt of this variable and then combined these ratings with the self-reported behaviors. The results are identical to those presented here. We also coded supervisor ratings as 0 when ratings are below 4 (otherwise 1). Our results are identical with this measure of whistle-blowing as well.