Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper.
Moore et al (2012) define misconduct as any conduct that violates organizational ethical
values or laws. The misconduct of employees is a form of unacceptable or negative conduct by
employees that is harmful or detrimental to the firm. Unethical conduct behavior or employee
misconduct has numerous degrees of consequences on the organization, ranging from dishonest,
to fraud and corruption for individual gain (Mayer, et al. 2013). Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper. Low consequences of
misconduct comprise small scale misconduct by staff with no substantial effect on the organization or peers.
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At this stage, the employee can merely deviate from the firm’s regulations
or norms, such as occasionally using organizational telephone for individual gain or spending an
additional five minutes on break (Treviño, den Nieuwenboer & Kish-Gephart, 2014). Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper.
Employee ethics is an integral component of an organization’s general Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). An employee of an organization has the basic responsibility to execute his
or her own task with moral and contractual obligations. Morally, employees of an organization
are entitled to observe the moral and civil law at workplace, as explained by Piccolo, Greenbaum
& Eissa (2012). In ethical issues, organizations organize promotion and education programs such
as issuing the perquisite documents including work rules, work procedures and code of ethics as
the guidelines for employee practice. In spite of these efforts, the misconduct of employee is
common in numerous organizations (Sharif & Scandura, 2014).
Essentially, employees and managers have the good intents to conform to acceptable
organizational social norms. Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper. According to Schminke, et al. (2014) most employees and their
leaders adhere to a personal code of behavior that comprises certain tenets about integrity,
keeping commitments and regard for others. Employees avoid from engaging in activities that
might compromise their careers, reputations or the firm. At times, unfortunately, employees fail to stick to the rule of the book through misconduct. In an organization, Askew, Beisler & Keel
(2015) note, it is challenging to predict or understand the misconduct of employees.
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High effect misbehavior covers illegal activities by staff that may affect the reputation of
the organization, the loss of substantial property or the threat of firm’s survival that demand the
firm to take prompt action (Miao, Newman & Xu, 2013).. Such activities include misuse of
organization’s property, embezzlement, disclosure of company secrets to rivals, employee fraud,
use of the firm’s property for individual gain, or sabotage of products (Thau, et al. 2014). From
the point of view of the organization, it is essential to take preventive measures and disciplinary
action against high impact misconduct of employees that is harmful to peers or the firm. A
research conducted in 2014 revealed that Wal-Mart, Altria Group, Inc., United Technologies
Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Edison International and Bechtel organizations
employees participated in some form of misconduct with respect to compromising standards
(Kouchaki & Wareham, 2015). In addition, the survey also revealed that work place retaliation
and reporting within the said organizations are another source of misconduct primarily due to the
fear of senior managers. Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper.
In brief, it is no doubt that employee ethics is an integral component of an organization’s general
CSR. In moral terms, employees of an organization are entitled to observe the moral and civil
law at workplace. Employees avoid from engaging in activities that might compromise their
careers, reputations or the firm. At times, unfortunately, employees fail to stick to the rule of the
book through misconduct. Such misconduct includes, but not limited to misuse of organization’s
property, embezzlement, disclosure of company secrets to rivals, employee fraud, use of the
firm’s property for individual gain, or sabotage of products. This misconduct can be harmful to
the organization, or peers within the organization. Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper.
References
Askew, O. A., Beisler, J. M., & Keel, J. (2015). Current Trends Of Unethical Behavior Within
Organizations. International Journal of Management & Information Systems (IJMIS),
19(3), 107-114.
Kouchaki, M., & Wareham, J. (2015). Excluded and behaving unethically: Social exclusion,
physiological responses, and unethical behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(2),
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Mayer, D. M., Nurmohamed, S., Treviño, L. K., Shapiro, D. L., & Schminke, M. (2013).
Encouraging employees to report unethical conduct internally: It takes a village.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(1), 8
9-103.
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Miao, Q., Newman, A., Yu, J., & Xu, L. (2013). The relationship between ethical leadership and
unethical pro-organizational behavior: Linear or curvilinear effects?. Journal of business
ethics, 116(3), 641-653.
Moore, C., Detert, J. R., Klebe Treviño, L., Baker, V. L., & Mayer, D. M. (2012). Why
employees do bad things: Moral disengagement and unethical organizational behavior.
Personnel Psychology, 65(1), 1-48.
Piccolo, R. F., Greenbaum, R. L., & Eissa, G. (2012). Ethical leadership and core job
characteristics: Designing jobs for employee well-being. In Work and Quality of Life (pp.
291-305). Springer Netherlands.
Schminke, M., Caldwell, J., Ambrose, M. L., & McMahon, S. R. (2014). Better than ever?
Employee reactions to ethical failures in organizations, and the ethical recovery paradox.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 123(2), 206-219.
Sharif, M. M., & Scandura, T. A. (2014). Do perceptions of ethical conduct matter during
organizational change? Ethical leadership and employee involvement. Journal of
Business Ethics, 124(2), 185-196. Unethical Conduct in an Organization Paper.
Thau, S., Derfler-Rozin, R., Pitesa, M., Mitchell, M. S., & Pillutla, M. M. (2014). Unethical for
the sake of the group: Risk of social exclusion and pro-group unethical behavior.
Treviño, L. K., den Nieuwenboer, N. A., & Kish-Gephart, J. J. (2014). (Un) ethical behavior in
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