Ethical Beliefs and Management Behaviour: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

A cross-cultural empirical study is reported in this article which looks at ethical beliefs and behaviours among French and German managers, and compares this with previous studies of U.S. and Israeli managers using a similar questionnaire. Comparisons are made between what managers say they believe, and what they do, between managers and their peers' attitudes and behaviours, and between perceived top management attitudes and the existence of company policy. In the latter, significant differences are found by national ownership of the company rather than the country in which it is situated. Significant differences are found, for both individual managers by nationality, and for companies by nationality of parents, in the area of ‘organizational loyalty’. The attitude towards accepting gifts and favours in exchange for preferential treatment, as a measure of ‘societal values’, is also found to show significant differences between national groups. However, no significant differences are found for measures for ‘group loyalty’, ‘conflict between organizational and group loyalty’ and for ‘conflicts between self and group/organization’. The findings have implications for cross-border management decision strategies regarding such issues as receiving and giving of gifts, and the management of relations between local employees and international organizations which may be affected by differences in attitude to corporate loyalty.