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

David Ralston (1) , Carolyn 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 Potocan , Andre Pekerti , Tomasz Lenartowicz , Narasimhan Srinivasan , Tania Casado , Ana Maria Rossi , Erna Szabo , Arif Butt , Ian Palmer , Prem Ramburuth , David J. Brock (2) , Jane Terpstra-Tong , Ilya Grison , Emmanuelle Reynaud (3) , Malika Richards , Philip Hallinger , Francisco 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 Jesuino , Chay-Hoon Lee , Joel Nicholson , Ho-Beng Chia , Wade Danis , Ajantha Dharmasiri , Mark Weber (4)

1 BGU - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
2 Human Genetics Unit, Department of Medicine (WGH)
3 AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence
4 Argosy University

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.

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; Business administration

David Ralston, Carolyn Egri, Olivier Furrer, Min-Hsun Kuo, Yongjuan Li, et al.. Societal-Level Versus Individual-Level Predictions of Ethical Behavior: A 48-Society Study of Collectivism and Individualism. Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, 122, pp.283-306. ⟨10.1007/s10551-013-1744-9⟩. ⟨hal-01800688⟩