Societal-level versus individual-level predictions of ethical behavior: A 48-socirty study of collectivism and individualism

David A. RALSON, Carolyn P. EGRI, Olivier FURRER, Min-Hsun KUO, Yongjuan LI, Florian WANGENHEIM, Marina DABIC, Irina NAOUMOVA, Katsuhiko SHIMIZU, María Teresa de la GARZA CARRANZA, Ping Ping FU, Vojko V. POTOCAN, Andre PEKERTI, Tomasz LENARTOWICZ, Narasimhan SRINIVASAN, Tania CASADO, Ana Maria ROSSI, Erna SZABO, Arif BUTT, Ian PALMERPrem RAMBURUTH, David M. BROCK, Jane TERPSTRA-TONG, Ilya GRISON, Emmanuelle REYNAUD, Malika RICHARDS, Philip HALLINGER, Francisco B. CASTRO, Jaime RUIZ-GUTIÉRREZ, Laurie MILTON, Mahfooz ANSARI, Arunas STARKUS, Audra MOCKAITIS, Tevfik DALGIC, Fidel LEÓN-DARDER, Hung Vu THANH, Yong-lin MOON, Mario MOLTENI, Yongqing FANG, Jose PLA-BARBER, Ruth ALAS, Isabelle MAIGNAN, Jorge C. JESUINO, Chay-Hoon LEE, Joel D. NICHOLSON, Ho-Beng CHINA, Wade DANIS, Ajantha S. DHARMASIRI, Mark WEBER

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64 Citations (Scopus)

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. Copyright © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)283-306
JournalJournal of Business Ethics
Volume122
Issue number2
Early online dateJun 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Citation

Ralston, D. A., Egri, C. P., Furrer, O., Kuo, M.-H., Li, Y., Wangenheim, F., et al. (2014). Societal-level versus individual-level predictions of ethical behavior: A 48-socirty study of collectivism and individualism. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(2), 283-306.

Keywords

  • Cultural values
  • Influence ethics
  • Hierarchical linear modeling
  • Collectivism
  • Individualism

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