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.