Lecture 8 Flashcards
What is organisation misconduct
When individuals or groups violate internal or external rules
Can emerge by accident when attempts to carry out one behaviour unintentionally results in another
What is organisational deviance
An event, activity or circumstance occurring in a formal organisation that deviates from both formal org design goals and normative standards or expectations
What is the rational choice perspective
Focus on growth goals shifts towards inappropriate risk taking, manipulation of accounts or outright fraud
Assumes self interested actors who need to be controlled in order not to choose actions that would be beneficial for them but harmful for transaction partners or third parties
Aligns with cost benefit analysis- trade off between control costs and misconduct costs
Actions chosen because the benefits outweighs the potential sanction
Principle agent relationship is likely to create a moral hazard
Managers with stock options ar likely to manipulate accounts to influence stock value
What is strain theory
Actors resort to misconduct when they are unable to achieve their goals through legitimate means
Failing and marginal organisations are most likely to offend
Can result because of power and status contents
Gaps between goals and achievements may be used to result in misconduct
Provide reason why impoverished are more likely to engage in illegal activity
What are cultural theories of misconduct
Assumptions about how human nature is fundamentally competitive
May encourage members to achieve ends without providing guidance or by promoting rule breaking and unnecessary risk taking
Such s culture may be exacerbated when there are pressures for achieving extraordinary performance
What are the 3 main ways a culture may support misconduct
Endorse misconduct
Permit misconduct under certain circumstances
Can give rise to other conditions that facilitate misconduct
What is the network perspective
Focuses on misconduct linked by social ties and intentional efforts to deceive
Goodrich brake scandal
What is accidental misconduct
Based on recognition that managers are limited in what they know
Based on bounded rationality, accidental misconduct is likely to be inevitable
How does misconduct spread in organisations
Initiation- top managers embark on Wongful course of action
Proliferation- explicitly and implicitly encourage lower level employees to engage in misconduct
Institutionalisation1 misconduct becomes embedded in organisational memory and solidified through routine and structures
Socialisation- new participants exposed
What does Palmer say
Misconduct can start anywhere
Range of social and psychological processes facilitate misconduct
What is greves definition of misconduct
Behaviour in or by an organisation that a social controlmagent judges to transgress a line serperating right from wrong
How do social control agents create misconduct
Move the line of what is acceptable and what is not
What are some of the emerging issues in publishing
More submissions, pressures to publish, difficulties in finding reviewers
What are the ethics in publishing
Preoccupation with elite journals creates incentives encouraging a system of gaming or pushing the boundaries of appropriate behaviour
Blatant misconduct is only part of the problem
What are the pressures in business school research
Management education is growing
Salaries for business school professors are lucrative
Strong incentives and pressures to publish in as narrow range of reputable journals
What is the no harm no foul misconception
Rare companies direct to attribute blame for their failures on fraudulent papers
Disconnect from research and practice
What is do as i say, not as I do
How can ethics be taken seriously when self interest overrules ethical considerations
What are rests 4 stages of ethical decisions
Awareness
Judgement
Intention to act
Action
What are problems with business school research
Myopic focus on proxies tends to distance unethical behaviour
Some research may be downplayed by not harm no foul
Larger problem is the ethical culture business schools develop and promulgate
What is plagiarism
The appropriation of another persons ideas, processes, results or words without getting credit
What is fabrication
Making up of data
What is falsification
Manipulating multiple materials, equipment and processes
What are the elements of the taxonomy of research misconduct
Predetermined dishonesty- aware of misconduct but hides hoping to et away
Bending the rules- individual is aware but is unilaterally trying to shift the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate
Complexity- increase variable in bounded rationality, making mistakes
Ignorance and sloppiness- perpetrator is aware of the rules but is perhaps hazy about details
Honest errors and genuine mistakes
Who is effected by misconduct
Other researchers - may build on tainted work - lose status Themselves Employers - damage institutional reputation Students - legitimises unethical behaviour Editors - serious damage to reputation Firms
What are some examples of org misconduct
Enron - 7th largest company in america, profit and debt manipulation
VW- cars found to have a defeat device that could detect when being tested
11 million cars effected
Big push to sell cars in US
Tesco- artificially inflated profit by 250m
4 senior executives. Subject to enquiry
Renault f1 team
