Economy and Supervisors’ Ethical Values: Exploring the Mediating Role of Noneconomic Institutions in a Cross-National Test of Institutional Anomie Theory

Kristine Velasquez Tuliao () and Chung-wen Chen ()
Additional contact information
Kristine Velasquez Tuliao: National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
Chung-wen Chen: National Taiwan University of Science and Technology

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 156, issue 3, No 12, 823-838

Abstract: Abstract This study examined the direct influence of national economic condition, as well as the indirect effects through the strength of noneconomic institutions on supervisors’ ethical reasoning using the institutional anomie theory developed by Messner and Rosenfeld (Soc Forces 75(4):1393–1416, 2001). Utilizing data of 20,025 supervisors across 52 countries, the analyses showed that high disparity in the economic distribution directly and indirectly leads to unethical values. High economic inequality in a country resulted in high tendency of supervisors to justify unethical acts. In addition, some of this influence went through the institutional strength of family, education, polity, and religion, thereby indicating partial mediation. As a result, the study presented the important roles of social institutions in explaining supervisors’ attitude and behavior. The findings of this research contribute to the institutional anomie theory by clarifying the multilevel path of the macrostructures’ conditions in explaining supervisors’ ethicality. Moreover, since some of the relationships between variables resulted in the direction opposite to the propositions of the theory, this study suggested other theoretical models that may be integrated with IAT. Along with these theoretical contributions, practical implications to businesses and society are discussed to strengthen supervisors’ ethics.

Keywords: Anomie theory; Supervisors’ ethics; Mediating effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3620-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:156:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3620-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3620-5

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().