does social pressure influence ethical perceptions? - Repository ...

Global Management Conference – Bali, Indonesia April-May 2010
relationship is strong. Similarly, surveillance by other relevant members can reduce the possibility of unethical
behaviour. Individuals who perceive the need to defend their actions to relevant others are more likely to
conform to their expectations (Tetlock, 1992). The notion of accountability is considered a universal social norm
and seen as causing individuals to comply by creating internal pressure (Ferris, Dulebohn, Frink, George-Falvy,
Mitchell, & Mathews, 1997).
Such pressure to conform is likely to be higher in collectivistic cultures which value the overall good of the
group (or the larger society) and expect individuals to subordinate their personal interests and needs for the
benefit of the larger group (Francesco & Gold, 2005). Because kinship is important, there are clear expectations
of how people in groups should behave. This vastly contrasts with the individualistic cultures where the
primary concern of the individual is for himself (herself) and their families rather than the larger group or
society in general. In individualistic societies, the individual’s rights are paramount; individual preferences and
choices are the main drivers of social action. In collectivistic cultures, people look after each other in exchange
for loyalty, belonging and group identification.
Thus, in a collectivistic culture, social consensus of an event is likely to assume greater importance. It is not
a coincidence that in many collectivistic societies, a person’s word of honour is considered more important than
legal documents (which are highly valued in individualistic and low context-communication societies). Actions
which affect people here and now (“proximity”) may be more critical in a collectivistic culture.
This means that “social pressure” may, in several instances, play a greater role in defining the behaviours of
members of a collectivistic society. Indeed, in such societies, in some instances, social pressure may have
greater influence on individual members than perceived harm done by an event. Indeed, an earlier study showed
that moral intensity did not moderate the relationship between different accountability situations and ethical
intent/behaviour (Beu, Buckley & Harvey, 2003). Events that affect relevant others and are visible to them may
have great influence on individual behaviours. Following this, these two hypotheses are formulated:
Hypothesis 1: In high social pressure situations, events or actions are likely to be considered as “ethically
acceptable” which in the normal course would not have been considered as such.
Hypothesis 2: In high social pressure situations, even actions normally considered harmful may be
“ethically acceptable”.
The next section details the research methodology.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Sample
300 students in the BBA and MBA programs in a major business school in Republic of Georgia were invited to
participate in an anonymous, self-administered survey of their ethical intentions and values. Participation in the
study was voluntary and no identifying information was collected from anyone. 148 of them responded resulting
in a response rate of 49.3%. The sample was almost equally divided between undergraduates (n= 77) and
graduate students (n=71). 65 (or 43.9%) of the respondents were male; the median age of the respondents was
26 years (nearly 84% being 29 or younger). Almost everyone (99.7%) had some work experience, the median
work experience being 3-5 years. 77.7% of the respondents had their work experience in the private sector. The
business school’s medium of instruction is English and all were able to read and write the language. Prior pilot
testing using ten randomly selected students in the program indicated that there were no difficult, ambiguous or
leading words in the survey.
Republic of Georgia was chosen as the location because of its high collectivistic culture (Ardichvili &
Gasparishvili, 2001). Georgians have been found to be significantly more collectivistic than managers in other
neighbouring countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia or the Kyrgyz Republic, which, in turn, are more
collectivistic than most western developed countries.
Measuring Instrument
Since no existing measure assessing high and levels of “harm” and “social pressure” is available, we had to
design our own scale for assessing these constructs. The following steps were taken to develop the instrument.
1. As a first step, a thorough review of the literature was carried out with particular attention paid to studies
which detailed measures, vignettes, incidents or behaviours that highlighted ethical or unethical conduct. A
large number of scales and measures were collected representing various management functions (e.g.,
Babin, Boles & Robin, 2000; Barnett, Bass, Brown & Herbert, 1998; Dubinsky & Loken, 1989;
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