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- 2022
- Book
Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop
By: Max H. Bazerman
It is easy to condemn obvious wrongdoers such as Elizabeth Holmes, Adam Neumann, Harvey Weinstein, and the Sackler family. But we rarely think about the many people who supported their unethical or criminal behavior. In each case there was a supporting cast of...
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- Article
The Deception Spiral: Corporate Obfuscation Leads to Perceptions of Immorality and Cheating Behavior
By: D.M. Markowitz, M. Kouchaki, J.T. Hancock and F. Gino
In four studies, we evaluated how corporate misconduct relates to language patterns, perceptions of immorality, and unethical behavior. First, we analyzed nearly 190 codes of conduct from S&P 500 manufacturing companies and observed that corporations with ethics...
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- Article
'Many Others Are Doing It, So Why Shouldn't I?': How Being in Larger Competitions Leads to More Cheating
By: Celia Chui, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino
In many spheres of life, from applying for a job to participating in an athletic contest to vying for a date, we face competition. Does the size of the competition pool affect our propensity to behave unethically in our pursuit of the prize? We propose that it does....
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Keywords:
Unethical Behavior;
Cheating;
Competitors;
Social Norms;
Ethics;
Behavior;
Competition;
Societal Protocols
- June 2020
- Article
Air Pollution, State Anxiety, and Unethical Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review
By: J Lu, J. Lee, F. Gino and A. Galinsky
Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018) reported four studies demonstrating that air pollution predicted unethical behavior and that one mediating mechanism was state anxiety. In contrast, Heck and colleagues reported two null-effect studies on air pollution, trait...
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- February 2019
- Article
Bounded Ethicality and Ethical Fading in Negotiations: Understanding Unintended Unethical Behavior
By: McKenzie Rees, Ann E. Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman
The business scandals in the past several decades led to the rising importance of ethics as a topic central to management scholarship. Behavioral scientists in particular were attracted to the topic in far greater numbers, and the study of ethical decision-making...
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- March 2018
- Article
Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior
By: Jackson G. Lu, Julia J. Lee, F. Gino and Adam D. Galinsky
Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and...
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- August 2017
- Case
Wake Up Call
By: David G. Fubini and Christine Snively
In 1993, three consultants at different stages in their careers must decide how to respond to what they considered to be unethical behavior from a partner at their firm. They each considered the potential consequences of reporting a senior colleague and the impact it...
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- March 2017
- Article
Creativity in Unethical Behavior Attenuates Condemnation and Breeds Social Contagion: When Transgressions Seem to Create Little Harm
By: Scott S. Wiltermuth, Lynne C. Vincent and F. Gino
Across six studies, people judged creative forms of unethical behavior to be less unethical than less creative forms of unethical behavior, particularly when the unethical behaviors imposed relatively little direct harm on victims. As a result of perceiving behaviors...
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- September 2016
- Article
Bounded Awareness: Implications for Ethical Decision Making
By: Max Bazerman and Ovul Sezer
In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by people who could have recognized the misbehavior, yet failed to notice it. To explain such inaction, management scholars have been developing the area of behavioral ethics and...
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Keywords:
Ethics
- 2016
- Chapter
Envy and Interpersonal Corruption: Social Comparison Processes and Unethical Behavior in Organizations
By: Julia J. Lee and Francesca Gino
Book Abstract: Competition for resources, recognition, and favorable outcomes are all facts of life in professional settings. When one falls short in comparison to colleagues or subordinates, feelings of envy may arise. Fueled by inferiority, hostility, and resentment,...
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- September 2016
- Article
Monitoring Global Supply Chains
By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill
Firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories are increasingly relying on private social auditors to provide strategic information about suppliers' conduct. But little is known...
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- 2016
- Chapter
Dishonesty Explained: What Leads Moral People To Act Immorally
By: F. Gino and D. Ariely
The last two decades have witnessed what seems to be an increasing number of cases of dishonesty, from corporate corruption and employee misconduct to questionable behaviors during the financial crisis and individual acts of unethical behavior in many spheres of...
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- 2016
- Chapter
How Moral Flexibility Constrains Our Moral Compass
By: F. Gino
Cheating, fraud, deception, uncooperative actions, and many other forms of unethical behavior are among the greatest personal and societal challenges of our time. While the media commonly focuses on the most sensational scams (e.g., Enron, Bernard Madoff), less...
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- May 31, 2016
- Article
Memories of Unethical Actions Become Obfuscated over Time
By: Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino
Despite our optimistic belief that we would behave honestly when facing the temptation to act unethically, we often cross ethical boundaries. This paper explores one possibility for why people engage in unethical behavior over time by suggesting that memory for their...
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- Article
Ethical Blind Spots: Explaining Unintentional Unethical Behavior
By: Ovul Sezer, F. Gino and Max H. Bazerman
People view themselves as more ethical, fair, and objective than others, yet often act against their moral compass. This paper reviews recent research on unintentional unethical behavior and provides an overview of the conditions under which ethical blind spots lead...
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- Article
Three Principles to REVISE People's Unethical Behavior
By: Shahar Ayal, Francesca Gino, Rachel Barkan and Dan Ariely
Dishonesty and unethical behavior are widespread in the public and private sectors and cause immense annual losses. For instance, estimates of U.S. annual losses indicate $1 trillion paid in bribes, $270 billion lost due to unreported income, as well as $42 billion...
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- October 2015
- Article
Hormones and Ethics: Understanding the Biological Basis of Unethical Conduct
By: Jooa Julie Lee, Francesca Gino, Ellie Shuo Jin, Leslie K. Rice and Robert A. Josephs
Globally, fraud has been rising sharply over the last decade, with current estimates placing financial losses at greater than $3.7 trillion dollars annually. Unfortunately, fraud prevention has been stymied by lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of its...
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- October–December 2015
- Article
Reducing Bounded Ethicality: How to Help Individuals Notice and Avoid Unethical Behavior
Research on ethics has focused on the factors that help individuals act ethically when they are tempted to cheat. However, we know little about how best to help individuals notice unethical behaviors in others and in themselves. This paper identifies a solution:...
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- 2015
- Article
Approach, Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work
By: C. Moore and F. Gino
Many of the scandalous organizational practices that have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic...
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- June 2015
- Article
Understanding Ordinary Unethical Behavior: Why People Who Value Morality Act Immorally
By: F. Gino
Cheating, deception, organizational misconduct, and many other forms of unethical behavior are among the greatest challenges in today's society. As regularly highlighted by the media, extreme cases and costly scams are common. Yet, even more frequent and pervasive are...
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