(Dis)Honesty in Organizations: Ethical Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose — (Dis)honesty as a quality of our actions can be assessed at different levels. Often these levels have not been differentiated. Semantically we cannot talk about a dishonest society or dishonest organizations — dishonesty can only be attributed to individual actions. We can approach a dishonest act through its essence (deontology), consequences (utilitarianism), and also through the person committing the act (virtue ethics), but most often organizational spheres are too complex objects of study to face ethical dilemmas without the influences that their context can bring. Therefore, the purpose of the chapter is to look at dishonesty as an unethical act through the lenses of behavioral ethics, since behavioral ethics is able to grasp the framing effects of ethical situations while combining the main elements of the previously mentioned traditional ethical theories.Design/methodology/approach — In the current chapter it will be differentiated between traditional ethical theories and acknowledged that depending on the level of analysis (individual, organization, or the society level) with their distinctly different ontological backgrounds, we will have different groundings for making any kind of axiological statements about the dishonesty of an action.Findings — In order to give ethical statements about (dis)honesty in organizations, we cannot neglect the influences brought by context. Organizations with endless social interactions both locally and globally usually have no universal basis for making axiological statements.Originality/value — The originality of this chapter is twofold: firstly to cover the importance of making sense of what ethical approaches we take as a grounding when we make ethical judgments in organizational context, and secondly to analyze whether and how the question of dishonesty differs when we switch between the most traditional ethical approaches. The chapter proposes a new framework how ethical decision-making should be assessed depending on the level of social interactions and how dishonesty is associated with gaining social approval.

Citation

Kindsiko, E. (2013), "(Dis)Honesty in Organizations: Ethical Perspectives", Vissak, T. and Vadi, M. (Ed.) (Dis)Honesty in Management (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-6361(2013)0000010006