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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 283-306 |
| Journal | Journal of Business Ethics |
| Volume | 122 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | Jun 2013 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 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