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The efficacy of accounts for a breach of confidentiality by management

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Abstract

Management and non-management employees of a northeastern bank read a description of a manager who engaged in a breach of confidentiality. Subjects were asked to evaluate the acceptability of 27 excuses. Results showed that subjects' ratings of acceptability were affected by their individual perception of the severity of the stimulus manager's breach of confidentiality. Subjects' rank did not affect acceptability of accounts.

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Robert A. Giacalone is Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He has been given the Outstanding Young Men of America Award, 1985. One of his articles has been published in Group and Organization Studies (1985), another will be published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Hinda Greyser Pollard is Associate Professor of Management at the Bryant College, Smithfield, RI. She has been awarded Phi Beta Kappa (1958) and Who's Who of American Women (1985–1986). She has written an article, together with Giacalone, which has been published in The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review (1985–1986).

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Giacalone, R.A., Pollard, H.G. The efficacy of accounts for a breach of confidentiality by management. J Bus Ethics 6, 393–397 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382896

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