Name : Ravindran S/O Konasaigaran

Course : UTB 1122

ID No :

Date

: 16 November 2015

In this digital fast phase world, unethical behaviors are becoming perennial and it is
occurring mostly between teenagers and adults. Adults nowadays expresses the act of
unethical behavior even though they are said to have good maturity and thinking skills as
they are growing older. Unethical behaviors are common in an organization or workplace
when these adults venture into career world. According to the school of ethical universalism,
being truthful or not being deceitful is considered right by the people of all nations (Jr.,
Gamble, & Strickland , 2008).Companies and organizations should respect the right of their
employees and avoiding unnecessary harm to workers or to the users of the companys
product and respecting the environment (Jr., Gamble, & Strickland , 2008).Regardless of the
company size, unethical behavior poses a major risk as it can cause financial issues and
damage the reputation of the organization (Groshan, 2015).Unethical behavior can also
decrease the quality of the workplace, affects the performance of employees and attitude
towards

the

job.

(Groshan,

2015).Examples

of

unethical

behavior

includes

cheating,plagiarism,falsification of data and unacceptable collaboration (Academic Integrity

In Social World:Examples Of Unethical Behavior, 2015).There are some causes of unethical
behaviors in workplace such as pressure, poor management skills, influence by deviant role
models, lack of respect of employees and communication issues.
The first cause of unethical behavior in a workplace is by experiencing pressure.
Employees in an organization faces pressure to sell unwanted product as they are getting
paid based on the quantity of products that they sell within a time range (Al-Saggaf,
Burmeister, & Weckert, 2015).The organization sets a performance indicator to the
employees so that they meet the requirements they supposed to. Project managers also faces
pressure when they have to finish up a project within a shorter time period regardless of its
complexity (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister, & Weckert, 2015).A good project is delivered when there
is appropriate amount of work done to design it and adds value to the project through
effective organization. Due to pressure, employees act unethically in workplace and they

claims it right as everyone does it based on the theory of false consensus effect (Hersey &
Hoyk, 2009).
Unethical behaviors in workplace is also driven through influences of deviant role
models (Cheang & Appelbaum, 2015).Employees who are newly appointed in an
organization tends to follow the superior employees that had worked in that particular
organization for a longer time period. High performance employees are forced to be in a
group that is led by an aggressor that influence new comers to commit in unethical behaviors
as well (Steven H.Appelbaum, 2007).The new employees becomes the stressors in the
organization as they involve themselves in aggressive acts, theft and also the wanting to quit
the job. In addition, a negative workplace environment can also give impact to the
employees to engage in unethical behavior as the employee violence can be assessed on their
job characteristics such as supervising others and disciplining others.Eventhough an
individual upholds a strong moral standards, the type of organization that one works may
exert a strong influence on himself or herself and may predispose them to engage in negative
deviant behavior (Steven H.Appelbaum, 2007).According to a survey, some employees also
observed unethical or illegal behaviors by coworkers in an organization (Gino, Ordonez, &
Welsh, 2014).
Furthermore, bad or poor management skills an employee in an organization can also
lead to unethical behavior (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister, & Weckert, 2015).The higher management
in an organization always over manage their employees to perform various tasks at a time.
This problem mainly arises between fresh graduates who steps into career world as they need
enough time for them to adapt themselves in an organization based on the type of
organization and the job that has been promoted to them. Higher management people has
huge expectations on these new comers and they think that these employees are able to
increase the productivity of the organization by achieving high target of sales of the product
that the company is delivering. In contrary, these new employees are unable to mound
themselves into a multi-tasking employee and tasks assigned to them could not be completed
on time.Consequently,the higher management tends to fire the new employees by insulting
them or favoring certain employees over these new comers (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister, &
Weckert, 2015).As a result, these employees has high tendency to behave unethically as they
think that they lose their priorities in that particular organization.

Moreover, commitment is also a cause in assessing the likelihood of engaging in

unethical behavior in workplace (Steven H.Appelbaum, 2007).Employees that are most loyal
and passionate about their work are least likely to consider quitting. Employees who thinks in
this manner does not involve themselves in unethical behavior because they need to maintain
the quality and values of an employee who has positive thinking and also having a good
future vision that would play a role in maintaining the reputation of the organization they are
working with. (Liao, Joshi, & Chuang, 2004) showed that organizational commitment is
inversely related to interpersonal and organizational deviance. One of Hirshys classical and
early elements of social bonding theory that was believed to be linked with the unethical
behavior was the concept of involvement. According to (Hirshi, 2005),the assumption is that
a person may be simply too busy doing conventional things to find time to engage in
unethical behavior.
Apart from that, unethical behavior in a workplace is caused by lack of respect for
employees (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister, & Weckert, 2015).Higher management undervalue the
role and capability of an employee that makes them to lose confidence on themselves. The
focus of the present study has been on the individual agent and part of the problem of this
lack of respect for employees seems to stem from themselves as they are not being skilled
enough in marketing their services to the business. To engender respect, the individual agent
must be both competent and ethical. Codes of ethics, which emphasize the role of individual
professionals are frequently seen to play an important role in gaining respect from the higher
management (Bowern, Burmeister, Gotterbarn, & Weckert, 2006).Misconception of own
team members of an employee creates dissatisfaction between them and the concept of unity
and team work vanishes when opposing ideas rises. The employees themselves is not
sufficient to raise the respect of discipline and higher management people should take
responsibility through professional societies and the profession itself (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister,
& Weckert, 2015).
Communication issues also plays a role of causing unethical behavior in workplace
(Al-Saggaf, Burmeister, & Weckert, 2015).Communication issues usually arises when there
are multitude of ethnic differences between workers in an organization as they cultivates
different languages and it is hard to cooperate with them as a group (Liao, Joshi, & Chuang,
2004).Employees who are having poor communication skills and issues can cause business
projects to fail and this may affect the growth and reputation of an organization. This issue
arises when the employees are not experienced in dealing a business project and therefore
3

they have to spend more time and resources on a business project. These employees work
according to the company task structure that is also a determinant for unethical workplace
behavior (Steven H.Appelbaum, 2007).
In a nutshell, unethical behavior in a workplace can be minimized through adaptations
of an organization to a specific organizational culture (Steven H.Appelbaum, 2007).Another
way of preventing the likelihood of employees deviant behavior is by conducting frequent
background checks when hiring. (Robinson & Bennett, 2005).It is imperative in an
organization to stop any type of behavior that would negatively affect it. Unethical behavior
in a workplace can be controlled if there is a good understanding between the managers and
the employees of an organization and they should learn the aspect of tolerance by reducing
pin-pointing on one another .Instead they should maintain give and take policy and work
towards the success and growth of an organization.
(1250 words)

References
Academic Integrity In Social World:Examples Of Unethical Behavior. (2015,
September 28). Retrieved from University of Michigan Library:
http://guides.lib.umic.edu
Al-Saggaf, Y., Burmeister, O., & Weckert, J. (2015). Reasons Behind Unethical
Behavior In The Australian ICT Workplace:An Empirical Investigation.
Journal of Information,Communication and Ethics In Society, 13(3/4), 235255. doi:10.1108/JICES-12-2014-0060
Bowern, M., Burmeister, O. K., Gotterbarn, D., & Weckert, J. (2006). ICT
Integrity:bringing the ACS code of ethics up to date. Australasian Journal
Of Information System, 13(2), 168-181.
Cheang, H. S., & Appelbaum, S. H. (2015). Corporate Psychopathy : deviant
workplace behavior and toxic leaders-part one. Industrial and Commercial
Training, 47(4), 165-173. doi:10.1108/ICT-12-2013-0086
Gino, F., Ordonez, L. D., & Welsh, D. (2014, September 4). How Unethical
Behavior Becomes Habit. Harvard Business Review.
Groshan, F. (2015, February). How To Detect Common Unethical Behaviors In
Workplace. Human Resources.
Hersey, P., & Hoyk, R. (2009). The Root Causes Of Unethical Behavior. Graziadio
Business
Review,
12(2).
Retrieved
from
http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/the-root-causes-of-unethical-behavior
Hirshi, T. (1969). Causes of Deliquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jr., A. A., Gamble, J. E., & Strickland , A. (2008). Crafting and Executive Strategy
(The Quest For Competitive Advantage). New York, America: McGraw-Hill
Irwin.
Liao, H., Joshi, A., & Chuang, A. (2004). Sticking Out Like A Saw Thumb:
Employee Disimilarity and Deviance At Work. Personal Psychology, 57(4),
969-1000.
Robinson, S., & Bennett, R. (2005). Development of a measure of workplace
deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3), 60-349.
Steven H.Appelbaum, G. D. (2007). Positive And Negative Deviant Workplace
Behaviors : causes,impacts and solutions. Corporate Governance: The
International
Journal
Of
Business
In
Society,
7(5),
586-598.
doi:10.1108/14720700710827176