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Societal-Level Versus Individual-Level Predictions of Ethical Behavior: A 48-Society Study of Collectivism and Individualism

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Abstract

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Taras et al. (2012) provide only regional scores for countries located in a number of geographic regions (e.g., Arab countries, Baltic USSR, Central America, and South America). Rather than assigning geographic region scores, which assumes a lack of inter-societal cultural variation within a geographic region, we only used values scores identified for individual countries. Taras et al. (2012) also provide meta-analytic VSM individualism/collectivism scores based on the full set of studies conducted 1970–2010. The results of HLM analyses (N = 29 societies) using these scores were the same (nonsignificant for all SIE dependent variables) as for the more recent set of scores based on studies conducted during the 2000s which we used to provide a more updated assessment of the VSM individualism/collectivism value.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Fellow International Research Consortium, Ft. Myers, FL, USA

    David A. Ralston

  2. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Carolyn P. Egri

  3. University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Olivier Furrer

  4. National Central University, Zhongli, Taiwan

    Min-Hsun Kuo

  5. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yongjuan Li

  6. ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Florian Wangenheim

  7. University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Marina Dabic

  8. University of Hartford, Hartford, CT, USA

    Irina Naoumova

  9. Keio University, Yokohama, Japan

    Katsuhiko Shimizu

  10. Instituto Tecnológico de Celaya, Celaya, Mexico

    María Teresa de la Garza Carranza

  11. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Ping Ping Fu

  12. University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

    Vojko V. Potocan

  13. University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Andre Pekerti

  14. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA

    Tomasz Lenartowicz

  15. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Narasimhan Srinivasan

  16. University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Tania Casado

  17. International Stress Management Association, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Ana Maria Rossi

  18. Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

    Erna Szabo

  19. Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

    Arif Butt

  20. RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Ian Palmer

  21. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Prem Ramburuth

  22. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    David M. Brock

  23. Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia

    Jane Terpstra-Tong

  24. University of Westminster, London, UK

    Ilya Grison

  25. IAE Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Emmanuelle Reynaud

  26. Pennsylvania State University, Reading, PA, USA

    Malika Richards

  27. Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China

    Philip Hallinger

  28. CEMPRE-Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Francisco B. Castro

  29. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

    Jaime Ruiz-Gutiérrez

  30. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Laurie Milton

  31. University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    Mahfooz Ansari

  32. CIBER-Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Arunas Starkus

  33. Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Audra Mockaitis

  34. University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

    Tevfik Dalgic

  35. University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Fidel León-Darder & Jose Pla-Barber

  36. National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Hung Vu Thanh

  37. Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Yong-lin Moon

  38. Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Mario Molteni

  39. University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Yongqing Fang

  40. Estonia Business School, Tallinn, Estonia

    Ruth Alas

  41. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Isabelle Maignan

  42. Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Jorge C. Jesuino

  43. Keppel Offshore & Marine, Singapore, Singapore

    Chay-Hoon Lee

  44. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Joel D. Nicholson

  45. National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Ho-Beng Chia

  46. University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Wade Danis

  47. Postgraduate Institute of Management, Colombo, Sri Lanka

    Ajantha S. Dharmasiri

  48. Argosy University-Twin Cities, Eagan, MN, USA

    Mark Weber

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  1. David A. Ralston
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  2. Carolyn P. Egri
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  41. Ruth Alas
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  44. Chay-Hoon Lee
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  45. Joel D. Nicholson
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  46. Ho-Beng Chia
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  47. Wade Danis
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  48. Ajantha S. Dharmasiri
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  49. Mark Weber
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David A. Ralston.

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Ralston, D.A., Egri, C.P., Furrer, O. et al. Societal-Level Versus Individual-Level Predictions of Ethical Behavior: A 48-Society Study of Collectivism and Individualism. J Bus Ethics 122, 283–306 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1744-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1744-9

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