Abstract
Although the managerial practice of cheating spans complex and heterogeneous situations (from deception and trickery to fraud and swindling), most business ethics scholars consider that the very idea of cheating is indefensible on moral grounds, and quickly dismiss it as wrongdoing. This paper proposes to fine-tune this conventional moral assessment by arguing that some forms of cheating can be justified—or at least excused. To do so, it starts with a value-free definition of cheating that covers a wide diversity of situations: “breaking the rules while deliberately leading or allowing others to think they have been respected.” While using this definition at the metaethical level, the paper contends that the moral assessment of cheating depends on the obligation to comply with the rules. There are rules which do not entail moral obligations, and there are special circumstances where other more important obligations override the obligation to comply with the rules. Furthermore, the paper argues that respecting the penalty rules also influences the moral assessment of cheating on the rules. The key interest of this endeavor lies in contributing to building a more solid theoretical framework for the study of cheating in management, which may replace our common prejudices and basic intuitions on this matter.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for ‘lemons’: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500.
Allhoff, F. (2003). Business bluffing reconsidered. Journal of Business Ethics, 45(4), 283–289.
Alpern, K. D. (1988). Moral dimensions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Comments on Pastin and Hooker. In T. Donaldson & P. H. Werhane (Eds.), Ethical issues in business (pp. 54–59). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Ambrosini, M. (2018). Irregular immigration in Southern Europe: Actors, dynamics and governance. Cham: Palgrave.
Aquinas, T. (1947). The summa theologica (Fathers-of-the-English-Dominican-Province, Trans.). London: Burns&Oates.
Argandoña, A. (2005). Corruption and companies: The use of facilitating payments. Journal of Business Ethics, 60(3), 251–264.
Aristotle (1984). Nicomachean ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ashforth, B. E., & Anand, V. (2003). The normalization of corruption in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25, 1–52.
Audi, R. (2012). Virtue ethics as a resource in business. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(2), 273–291.
Austin, J. L. (1956). A plea for excuses: The presidential address. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 57, 1–30.
Bagus, P., Block, W., Eabrasu, M., Howden, D., & Rostan, J. (2011). The ethics of tax evasion. Business and Society Review, 116(3), 375–401.
Balch, D. R., & Armstrong, R. W. (2010). Ethical marginality: The Icarus syndrome and banality of wrongdoing. Journal of Business Ethics, 92(2), 291–303.
Beach, J. (1985). Bluffing: Its demise as a subject unto itself. Journal of Business Ethics, 4(3), 191–196.
Benton, R. J. (1982). Political expediency and lying: Kant vs Benjamin Constant. Journal of the History of Ideas, 43(1), 135–144.
Bicchieri, C. (2005). The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blackburn, S. (2008). The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2 edn.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bloomquist, J. (2010). Lying, cheating, and stealing: A study of categorical misdeeds. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1595–1605.
Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. New York: Vintage.
Bond, K. M. (1988). To stay or to leave: The moral dilemma of divestment of South African assets. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(1), 9–18.
Bouville, M. (2010). Why is cheating wrong? Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(1), 67.
Bovens, L. (2017). The ethics of dieselgate. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 40(1), 262–283.
Bowie, N. E. (2017). Business ethics: A Kantian perspective (2nd edn.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brennan, J. (2012). Conscientious tax objection: Why the liberal state must accommodate tax resisters. Public Affairs Quarterly, 26(2), 141–159.
Brooke, W. S., & Vikram, I. S. (2011). To cheat or not to cheat? How bank debt influences the decision to misreport. Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, 26(2), 383–414.
Bunnin, N., & Yu, J. (2008). The Blackwell dictionary of western philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Burrus, R. T., McGoldrick, K. M., & Schuhmann, P. W. (2007). Self-reports of student cheating: Does a definition of cheating matter? The Journal of Economic Education, 38(1), 3–16.
Butler, J., Giuliano, P., & Guiso, L. (2017). Trust and cheating. The Economic Journal, 126(595), 1703–1738.
Caldwell, C. (2009). Identity, self-awareness, and self-deception: Ethical implications for leaders and organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(3), 393–406.
Callahan, D. (2004). The cheating culture: Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead. Orlando: Harcourt.
Carr, A. Z. (1968). Is business bluffing ethical? Harvard Business Review (January-February), 143–153.
Carson, T. L. (1985). Bribery, extortion, and ‘the foreign corrupt practices act’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14(1), 66–90.
Carson, T. L. (1988). On the definition of lying: A reply to Jones and revisions. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(7), 509–514.
Carson, T. L. (1993). Second thoughts about bluffing. Business Ethics Quarterly, 3(4), 317–341.
Carson, T. L. (2001). Deception and withholding information in sales. Business Ethics Quarterly, 11(2), 275–306.
Carson, T. L. (2010). Lying and deception. Theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carson, T. L., Wokutch, R. E., & Murrmann, K. F. (1982). Bluffing in labor negotiations: Legal and ethical issues. Journal of Business Ethics, 1(1), 13–22.
Cohen, B. D., & Dean, T. J. (2005). Information asymmetry and investor valuation of IPOs: Top management team legitimacy as a capital market signal. Strategic Management Journal, 26(7), 683–690.
Confucius (2013). Analects. The great learning. The doctrine of the mean (J. Legge, Trans.). Mineola: Dover Publications.
Connelly, B. L., Certo, S. T., Ireland, R. D., & Reutzel, C. R. (2011). Signaling theory: A review and assessment. Journal of Management, 37(1), 39–67.
Constant, B. (1796). Des réactions politiques (2nd ed.). Paris.
Cummings, R. G., Martinez-Vasquez, J., McKee, M., & Torgler, B. (2009). Tax morale affects tax compliance: Evidence from surveys and an artefactual field experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 70(3), 447–457.
Curzon, L. B., & Richards, P. (2007). The longman dictionary of law. London: Pearson Education.
De George, R. T. (1989). There is ethics in business ethics; but there’s more as well. Journal of Business Ethics, 8(5), 337–339.
de Soto, H. (1989). The other path: The invisible revolution in the third world (1st edn.). New York: Harper&Row.
DePaulo, B. M., & Kashy, D. A. (1998). Everyday lies in close and casual relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 63–79. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.63.
Dunfee, T. W., Smith, N. C., & Ross, W. T. (1999). Social contracts and marketing ethics. Journal of Marketing, 63(3), 14–32.
Eabrasu, M. (2011). A praxeological assessment of subjective value. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 14(2), 216–241.
Eabrasu, M. (2012). Towards a convergence of the ethics of tax evasion and secession. In R. McGee (Ed.), The ethics of tax evasion. Perspectives in theory and practice (pp. 107–125). New York: Springer.
Eabrasu, M. (2018). Moral disagreements in business. An exploratory introduction. Cham: Springer.
Ebejer, J. M., & Morden, M. J. (1988). Paternalism in the marketplace: Should a salesman be his buyer’s keeper? Journal of Business Ethics, 7(5), 337–339.
Elangovan, A., & Shapiro, D. L. (1998). Betrayal of trust in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 547–566.
Elliott, T. L., Marquis, L. M., & Neal, C. S. (2013). Business ethics perspectives: Faculty plagiarism and fraud. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(1), 91–99.
Fadiman, J. A. (1986). A traveler’s guide to gifts and bribery. Harvard Business Review, 64(4), 122–136.
Fang, F. C., & Casadevall, A. (2013) Why we cheat: Scientists are unraveling the causes of fraud and dishonesty and devising new strategies for rooting them out. Scientific American Mind, 25, 33–39.
Floyd, L. A., Xu, F., Atkins, R., & Caldwell, C. (2013). Ethical outcomes and business ethics: Toward improving business ethics education. Journal of Business Ethics, 117(4), 753–776.
Freeman, V. G., Rathore, S. S., Weinfurt, K. P., Schulman, K. A., & Sulmasy, D. P. (1999). Lying for patients: Physician deception of third-party payers. Archives of Internal Medicine, 159(19), 2263–2270.
Gallie, W. B. (1956). Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 56, 167–198.
Gert, B. (2005a). Cheating. Teaching Ethics, 6(1), 15–27.
Gert, B. (2005b). Morality: Its nature and justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gewirth, A. (1968). Metaethics and moral neutrality. Ethics, 78(3), 214–225.
Giacalone, R. A., & Wargo, D. T. (2009). The roots of the global financial crisis are in our business schools. Journal of Business Ethics Education, 6, 147–168.
Gino, F., Ayal, S., & Ariely, D. (2009). Contagion and differentiation in unethical behavior: The effect of one bad apple on the barrel. Psychological Science, 20(3), 393–398.
Gino, F., Ayal, S., & Ariely, D. (2013). Self-serving altruism? The lure of unethical actions that benefit others. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 93, 285–292.
Gino, F., & Pierce, L. (2009). Dishonesty in the name of equity. Psychological Science, 20(9), 1153–1160.
Gino, F., & Pierce, L. (2010a). Lying to level the playing field: Why people may dishonestly help or hurt others to create equity. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(S1), 89–103.
Gino, F., & Pierce, L. (2010b). Robin Hood under the hood: Wealth-based discrimination in illicit customer help. Organization Science, 21(6), 1176–1194.
Goodnough, A. (2016, January 4). Many see I.R.S. penalties as more affordable than insurance. The New York Times.
Grasmick, H. G., Bursik, R. J. J., & Cochran, J. (1991). Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s: Religiosity and taxpayers’ inclinations to cheat. The Sociological Quarterly, 32(2), 251–266.
Green, R. M. (1991). When is ‘everyone’s doing it’ a moral justification? Business Ethics Quarterly, 1(1), 75–93.
Green, S. P. (2004). Cheating. Law and Philosophy, 23(2), 137–185.
Green, S. P. (2007). Lying, cheating and stealing: A moral theory of white collar crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 561–568.
Grimes, P. W. (2004). Dishonesty in academics and business: A cross-cultural evaluation of student attitudes. Journal of Business Ethics, 49(3), 273–290.
Grover, S. L. (1993). Lying, deceit, and subterfuge: A model of dishonesty in the workplace. Organization Science, 4(3), 478–495.
Gruzalski, B. (1981). Foreseeable consequence utilitarianism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 59(2), 163–176.
Hamilton, W. H. (1931). The ancient maxim Caveat Emptor. Yale Law Journal, 40(8), 1133–1187.
Hart, H. L. (1994). The concept of law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hidalgo, J. (2015). Resistance to unjust immigration restrictions. Journal of Political Philosophy, 23(4), 450–470.
Homans, G. C. (1950). The human group. Harcourt: Routledge.
Honoré, A. M. (1999). Responsibility and fault. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Hume, D. (1967). A treatise on human nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
John, L. K., Loewenstein, G., & Rick, S. I. (2014). Cheating more for less: Upward social comparisons motivate the poorly compensated to cheat. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 123(2), 101–109.
Johnson, S., Ryan, H. E. J., & Tian, Y. S. (2009). Managerial incentives and corporate fraud: The sources of incentives matter. Review of Finance, 13(1), 115–145.
Jones, G. E. (1986). Lying and intentions. Journal of Business Ethics, 5(4), 347–349.
Juan, S. (2015). Cancer patients look to India for lifesaving drugs. Retrieved July 14, 2018, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-01/28/content_19426250.htm.
Kant, I. (1909). Kant’s Critique of practical reason and other works on the theory of ethics. (T. K. Abbott, Trans., 6th ed.). London: Longmans.
Karpoff, J. M., Lee, D. S., & Martin, G. S. (2008a). The consequences to managers for financial misrepresentation. Journal of Financial Economics, 88(2), 193–215.
Karpoff, J. M., Lee, D. S., & Martin, G. S. (2008b). The cost to firms of cooking the books. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 43(3), 581–611.
Kinsella, N. S. (2003). A libertarian theory of contract: Title transfer, binding promises, and inalienability. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 17, 11–37.
Klitgaard, R. (1988). Controlling corruption. Berkley: University of California Press.
Kolb, R. W. (Ed.). (2018). Encyclopedia of business ethics and society (2nd edn.). London: Sage.
Langervoort, D. C., & Bainbridge, S. M. (2013). What were they thinking? Insider trading and the scienter requirement. In S. M. Bainbridge (Ed.), Research handbook on insider trading (pp. 52–67). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Lewicki, R. J., & Robinson, R. (1998). Ethical and unethical bargaining tactics: An empirical study. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(6), 185–204.
Lewis, D. (2008). Convention: A philosophical study. New York: Wiley.
Lloyd, G. (2015, May 21). Greenpeace accused of substitute reef ruse. The Australian.
Lowell, J. (2012). Managers and moral dissonance: Self justification as a big threat to ethical management? Journal of Business Ethics, 105(1), 17–25.
Mason, E. (2005). We make no promises. Philosophical Studies, 123(1–2), 33–46.
Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633–644.
McGee, R. W. (1994). Is tax evasion unethical? University of Kansas Law Review, 42(2), 411–435.
McGee, R. W. (2006). three views on the ethics of tax evasion. Journal of Business Ethics, 67(1), 15–35.
McNeilly, F. S. (1972). Promises de-moralized. Philosophical Review, 81(1), 63–81.
Mickiewicz, T., Rebmann, A., & Sauka, A. (2017). To pay or not to pay? Business owners’ tax morale: Testing a neo-institutional framework in a transition environment. Journal of Business Ethics, 1–19.
Migotti, M. (2003). All kinds of promises. Ethics, 114(1), 60–87.
Morris, D. (2012). Tax cheating: Illegal. But is it Immoral? Albany: State University of New York Press.
Murphy, P. E., Laczniak, G. R., Bowie, N. E., & Klein, T. A. (2005). Ethical marketing (Basic ethics in action). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
O’Clery, C. (2013). The Billionaire who wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney secretly made and gave away a fortune. New York: Public Affairs.
Paeth, S. R. (2013). The responsibility to lie and the obligation to report. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(4), 559–566.
Pastin, M., & Hooker, M. (1980). Ethics and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Business Horizons, 23(6), 43–47.
Plato (1991). The Republic (B. Jowett, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.
Rescher, N. (2017). Fairness. New York: Routledge.
Rhode, D. L. (2018). Cheating: Ethics in everyday life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ross, W. D. (2007). The right and the good. Oxford: Clarendon.
Salinger, L. M. (2005). Encyclopedia of white-collar and corporate crime. London: Sage.
Sayre-McCord, G. (1989). Deception and reasons to be moral. American Philosophical Quarterly, 26(2), 113–122.
Scanlon, T. (1998). What we owe to each other. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Schweitzer, M. E., & Gibson, D. E. (2007). Fairness, feelings, and ethical decision making: consequences of violating community standards of fairness. Journal of Business Ethics, 77(3), 287–301.
Seneca, L. A. (1932). Letters to Lucilius. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Sharma, E., Mazar, N., Alter, A. L., & Ariely, D. (2014). Financial deprivation selectively shifts moral standards and compromises moral decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 123(2), 90–100.
Shaw, W. H. (2011). Business ethics (7 ed., Cengage advantage books). Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Simkin, M. G., & McLeod, A. (2010). Why do college students cheat? Journal of Business Ethics, 94(3), 441–453.
Sims, R. R., & Brinkmann, J. (2003). Enron ethics (or: Culture matters more than codes). Journal of Business Ethics, 45(3), 243–256.
Slemrod, J. (2007). Cheating Ourselves: The Economics of Tax Evasion. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1), 25–48.
Sokol, D. K. (2007). Can deceiving patients be morally acceptable? BMJ, 334(7601), 984–986.
Stevenson, C. L. (1937). The emotive meaning of ethical terms. Mind, 46(181), 14–31.
Stevenson, C. L. (1938). Persuasive definitions. Mind, 47(187), 331–350.
Treviño, L. K., Butterfield, K. D., & McCabe, D. (1998). The ethical context in organizations: Influences on employee attitudes and behaviors. Business Ethics Quarterly, 8(3), 447–476.
van Prooijen, J.-W., & van Lange, P. A. (2016). Cheating, corruption, and concealment: The roots of dishonesty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vitek, W. (1993). Promising. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Walzer, M. (1973). Political action: The problem of dirty hands. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2(2), 160–180.
Wasieleski, D. M. (2008). Evolutionary psychology. In R. W. Kolb (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society (pp. 823–825). London: Sage.
Whetstone, J. T. (2001). How virtue fits within business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 33(2), 101–114.
White, J. A. (2004). Globalisation, divestment and human rights in Burma. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 14, 47–65.
Whyte, W. H. J. (1956). The organization man. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Wilson, J., & Damania, R. (2005). Corruption, political competition and environmental policy. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 49(3), 516–535.
Wokutch, R. E., & Carson, T. (1984). The ethics and profitability of bluffing in business. In M. Hoffman & J. M. Moore (Eds.), Business ethics: Readings and cases in corporate morality (pp. 457–462). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Zemach, E. M. (1973). The right to quit. The Philosophical Quarterly, 23(93), 346–349.
Zimmerman, M. J. (2007). The concept of moral obligation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
I need to thank Gabriel Gimenez-Roche for his suggestions on a previous draft that greatly contributed to improving the final version of the paper. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their numerous constructive comments during the review process.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
This paper does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eabrasu, M. Cheating in Business: A Metaethical Perspective. J Bus Ethics 162, 519–532 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-4003-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-4003-2