Harvard Business Publishing

Such a large scale unethical behaviour among the managers means incompetent or currupt top managements.Why was it restricted to only entry and middle level executives? Why didn't the agency feel the need to check if there is a rot at the top like some giants that crashed in the USA in recent past
What was the sample size and the method used?
Was validation exercise done?
With such gaps in actual survey or in reporting the credibility of the findings suffers.

On the other hand the reality is much worse. Day after day, the authority responsible for nabbing the corrupt unearths millions of dollars of unaccounted money. But he does not have powers to prosecute. What was earlier confined to government has now spread to the private sector also. May we should amend the Pareto Rule. In many organizations that I see, 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. Mr.Patil is right in blaming management. Managements, with some exceptions, invariably encourage sycophancy and rarely recognize honesty and hard work. The ill-gotten wealth stashed away in tax havens by the rich and famous is estimated to run into hundreds of billions of dollars. This is one of the reasons we remain a poor country. As for solutions, perhaps it is time for a revolution - not necessarily a violent one - we need another Mahatma Gandhi to set the system right.

12 cities out of a vast country like ours can only show a minor reflection of the actual scenario. the situation is more worse in smaller cities where govt. offices are the flag bearers.
we all have been talking about corruption(which is in direct proportion to ethics)for so long but what's has to be done and who should do it?
inner voice can guide only those who think what's right and what's wrong but what about those who don't have it? how do we provoke inner voice into them?
there are many questions unanswered...
and in the conditions in India only god knows when they will answered.

A sad state of affairs. I thought that such corruption was limited to government officials. I guess the executives are also part of the same society. I am actually attempting to list how much does it cost to get jobs done at various government offices in my blog post at http://huesoflife.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/bribe-rate-list. While I attempt satire in my writing, it really hurts to see the state of affairs.

You state that “Ethics itself is a grey area, there being no absolute right or absolute wrong.” If one follows this logic, why should the statistics you cite surprise you? Without clear definitions of right and wrong there can be no ethics, only choices based on personal opinions. Is it wrong to steal? Is it wrong to lie? If one cannot answer yes to these two questions, both of which are absolute statements of right and wrong, then how can one judge the actions in the study you cite as being unethical?

One of the problems in business, and in much of society, today is that we approach issues of right and wrong as personal choices rather than basing these on standards of right and wrong. Why are we then surprised when individuals behave accordingly?

I suspect that your father had clear moral standards and that these were based on unambiguous definitions of right and wrong. There is nothing old fashioned about that.

If your conscience is clear, then you can sleep peacefully. Justification of every unethical behaviour is off shoot of picking up bad influence of materialistic society. In this time still there are people who would not use things that do not belong to them. for others, he/she would be a fool who is not following the crowd. Yes, such persons who stick to principles lag behind others.. however in the mind of that person, he/she is not in the mad race at all.

Ethics should be this worldly affair and not a subset of morality.In ehics there are no hidden agendas.
I humbly suggest that dialogy is an element of ethical practice. Withot communication,empathy and inter subjectivity, one cannot even begin to think thically.The saying that one lives and learns can be applied to ethic effetively.
In the world t com reputational capital is going to govern.
I congradulate the learned Professsor fo writing a timely article.

S.Prabakaran

How do you think about it, from legal perspective?

Far too often the decline on moral ethics by employees has been perceeded by the decline in moral ethics by employers. If companies treat their staff in an ethical way then the chances of the staff behaving in an ethical way are significantly increased. It would be interesting to ask the same sample how they see their bosses behaving and how they feel they are treated in their jobs by their companies.

Either way this does not excuse those staff who work unethically (whether lying, cheating, stealing, etc) but it does go someway to understanding the root cause and subsequently the next steps in trying to improve or change this behaviour.

Which after all should be the response of every leader should they discover this situation happening in their company.

The "global village" phenomenon has practically killed the distinction between good-bad - which is relative to individuals - and right-wrong - which is expected to be absolute atleast for a tribe/ country/ large group. Local sensibilities have been horrendously trampled over by Global television. This has killed all sense of RIGHT and WRONG.
Today, the market has become the principal arbitrator of anything and everything. Naturally, whatever MAKES MONEY is good and whatever LOOSES MONAY is bad. The men-of-the-world draw THEIR ETHICS from the market. Hence, there is nothing SEEN WRONG in giving a bribe if it serves the primary ethic of MAKING MONEY by getting a contract awarded, etc. Whatever qualms an individual may have regarding BRIBES per se, are quashed by the logic of DOING SMALL WRONGS FOR A LARGER RIGHT.
At the largest level, we see this in loss of - Learned - STATESMEN to petty POLITICIANS. See how closely the adjectives fit! When was the last time you heard a STATESMAN-LIKE speech from a leader? In fact, Erudition itself has become an un-wanted trait; if you are erudite, you don't advertise it for the fear of being percived as snobbish. STATECRAFT which was important in maintaining and preserving the dignity of nations, has become subservient to BUSINESS, hence we find high-ranking politicians opening business-conferences - hawking dignity - for an appearance fees. A Statesman would never have descended to the low levels attained by today's politicians. But we agreed that they are PETTY, so no complaints.
Similarly, at a lower level, people draw their inspiration, energies and values from what they see in their leaders. The leadership quotient TODAY has become DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to the VISIBILITY FACTOR. Hence, aspiring leaders don't think twice about resorting to gimmickery to appear on TV. Naturally, the most visible people TODAY are not those with the most profound thoughts, but those who are adept at GETTING NOTICED. No surprise if the common man is also trying to GET NOTICED by hook or crook.
The entire focus has shifted from the means to the ends, and in an ENDS dominated scenario, MEANS are not to be questioned. The moral dilemma which is posed by this article is about the MEANS, but are people even aware of the dilemma? They are simply focussing on the ends because everyone tells them to focus on the ends.
For the working class, if the organisation which contracted them for 40-hour week does not see anything wrong in getting them to work more than 70 hours, then what right does the organisation have to complain if the employee makes a few telephone calls or takes home a pencil box for their kids? Ideally, the employee should have been out with the kid to the supermarket for buying stationery and on the way, could have had an opportunity for sharing ice-cream and talking about school /homework issues with parent. The organisation has deprived the employee of this bonding time with the kid. The employee has learnt to focus on the ends, means not questioned. Box of pencils wanted? Box of pencils is available, and don't ask where I got it from!
To summarize: I think the masses follow whatever models are shown to them, not what they are told. I don't see this turning around in the next 100 years, till it becomes unbearable and explodes into a revolution which will AGAIN make MAKING MONEY a BAD WORD.
On a much larger time-scale: All eras have had their boundaries, and there are always issues on the boundary. In every group, there will be rules and there will always be SOME people who will side-step the rules to gain a quick-advantage. Maybe in another 100 years, the focus will shift from money to some other goal, and at that time, the ethical issues will be around THAT GOAL. If we are yearning for a trouble free society which will be highly ethical, that is possible only in an eutopia.

Ethics at work can be managed through performance management and open communication.
Consider my workplace. Staff members are given "personal accounts", through which to do personal work, make phone calls and other liberties. Their account "debits" are countered with performance and job description.

E.g. Sales staff can go on paid leave the momen't they've reached their annual target, or they can choose to be paid for their efforts. Office staff can do their children's school projects at work as long as their KPI's remain in the black.

The policy is: do your work and you get paid, exceed expectations and you get rewarded. At the core of this system (besides a miriad of procedures, policies and automated data collection points) is the simple principle of forthcoming honesty and a non-critical environment (where no idea or request is critisised - ever, only approved or denied). The outcome: productivity is greater than personal liberties.

Very timely. One of the goals of our firm this half of the year is to make employees aware of ethics and laws that guide these ethics in business practices.

Joel is spot on in his views. There is no grey are and it cannot be allowed at any cost. Thats if a business wants to be fully ethical. There is clear right and wrong in every instance. We just bias our decisions based on our personal choices/relationships, and hoping that 'giving one more chance' would make things right the next time. No, it wont. In fact, it sends the wrong message - that of tolerance to unethical practices.

Some of these statistics are misleading. For example, I would never take stationary from work, or even intentionally take pens etc. When I do discover pens from works, I take them back to work. Also I would have answered that it's OK to do personal errands during work hours mainly because the lines between work and personal have blurred. Do I work 8-6 and then I'm done!? Hardly. If my day starts w/ a conference call at 6AM and ends with a conference call from 7-8PM, I don't feel bad about taking 45 minutes to go to the bank or dry cleaners mid-day. So the ethics question is really "are you getting your job done? Are you taking time out from the day when you 'should' be working?" Gets closer to what you're after.

Can we change any of this behavior?

Because, I see many initiatives across my organisation and many similar initiatives must have been there already in rest of corporates with No result.

The Ethical are Ethical, and Rest Don't change. How one can inject Ethics
when the person you are trying to inject is too old to get it into his mind ?

I'd like to offer the following observations;
Ethics in organisations seem to be influenced by the culture and what is permissible by the organization or the leadership. People will mimic what they see and what is the norm.

Ethics should not be like performance management, where you're allowed to make mistakes and improve along the way. The very nature of moral ethical behaviours are dependant on the individuals values and personal codes of conduct.

Thank you for this interesting discussion.

I have gone through the report, as per the link provided in this story. If that is the complete report, it provide details of any working class or group which makes the part of study sample and such type of findings. It also does not highlight the circumstances under which such employees adopt the so called unethical practices. It also does not provide any analysis why such unethical practices were noticed on the part of working class and what are the recommendations of the study group about their conclusion. The story is just a case of "reading between the lines” to bias the opinions of one and all readers. As a Work Study man, I can vouch safe that such studies are often the result of biases and vindication of individual interests just to please the hiring management of the services to show as if they have made a scholarly study and the management is going to be benefited extremely with the findings of their study. The result is often stringent attitudes of the management and more violation of their policies stealthily and also more inefficiency and costs.

A pertinent question arises what class of personnel use such unethical attitudes and under what circumstances.

According to my experience, as the influential and powerful people are the cause of creation of dacoits and criminals by their behaviors, unethical use of power by the management creates the unethical behaviors amongst the employees, though not openly, but stealthily. Management does not mean a Manager should always be a dictator and have a wielding rod in his hands. Employee will be quite a faithful servant, if you are reasonable to him. Just try my long standing proven experiment with ethics.

As per the report the incidence of unethical practices in Corporate Sector are high. When corporate sector thinks of squeezing an employee like a lemon, make her work for 10 to 12 hours a day, and often refuses leave to employee, why it should expect the employee not to lie while applying for leave. If a Manager thinks that by going at leave of employee may hold up the work of his unit, he cannot be considered as an efficient Manager, if he considers himself as dependent of a subordinate worker. Rather he should be generous towards the genuine needs of his subordinate. On refusal the employee would try on some lame excuse to go on leave for more days than his actual need. The Manager actually should think himself in the position of his subordinate what happened to him had he been refused leave in his dire need. Only two days back when a General Manager of a distant place, during his consultation on vigilance matters, gave me a hint that one of his Assistant General Manager proceeded on leave on medical grounds when he refused him leave and asked me to suggest what action should he take against him. I had to advice him never to refuse any leave to any one in future. Rather, he should ask his AGM, if he needs any more leave. I do not recommend any action that makes a worker to become an indisciplined lot by virtue of excesses of some higher authority. We must not forget that an employee will never be able to avail more leave than his entitlement. During the whole of my service I practiced this formula and never refused any leave to any of my subordinates. The result was that they never tried to lie for taking leave. When they are able to get leave by stating a correct reason, there would be no need for an employee to lie. Rather they would remain more loyal to you at the time of your actual need.

I cannot forget an example of an employee who remained at work voluntarily with me in the office till 02.30 AM after midnight even on asking that he should go to his home, but he refused saying when I was at work he would remain there to assist me. This happened when in the beginning days of the set up of a Corporation, I had to process hundreds of resumes of the applicants myself, due to non-availability of an assistant to prepare briefs and agenda papers for the Interview Board scheduled to be held at 10.00 AM, for the aspirant candidates for the posts of two managers and three Deputy and Assistant Managers in the Corporate Office. The man never asked for any extra remuneration for that, as all of the employees knew well that I used to take due care of the interests of the employees at work without their asking.

And when I left the corporate office after setting up the necessary infrastructure, the Chairman & Managing Director during my farewell luncheon could not refrain to publicly speak, "I have never seen any such farewell gathering where from Gate-keeper and Security Guard to the Level of CMD all have gathered at the occasion to bid farewell to any executive."

Before we put a question mark on the ethics of others, we must have a look at our own ethics. You cannot question the ethics of your subordinates, if you are not observing such ethics as you expect from those working under you. So, as Managers and mentors we are obliged to first set up examples of observing ethics in office. As of my more than 39 years of experience at various levels and positions, I found more unethical attitudes on the part of the high ups than the lower class employees. These people forget that they observe just a few ones, while hundreds and thousands of eyes are observing him. If none points out to him about his misdeeds, he should not remain in a fools’ paradise that none knows about his ethics. If he uses his office telephone to talk to his friends at a distant place or to a stock broker to take care of his equity holding, none can restrain his subordinate to use the office phone for his private purposes. Rather, if you allow him to have a talk at the need of time to know the farewell of his relative or a friend, he would try to use the office phone just for 3 to 5 minutes with the inbuilt fear in his mind that the management may not take any serious view of his using the phone for long time. But when you try to put restrictions on him, he will try to remain in the office after office hours with a false plea of completing his work by intentionally keeping his work pending that he could do during office hours, and would talk unrestrictedly for an hour or so. In fact the management should treat such extra expenditure as an overhead, which ultimate can enhance productivity of the employee. However, by this, I do not intend to advise not to put a hold on the excessive use of telephone for private purposes. But, excessive means excessive only and not moderate use.

I have not written it as of any bias, but my practical experience of management, my own ethics of not doing any personal work in office, not using my office telephone for my private calls, not using any office stationary for my own use, having gained exemplary loyalty of my subordinates, very cordial relations with staff unions all the times at all places wherever I was posted (with no conflict on record against me during the whole of my service), etc. gave me much more respect and practical moral power over my subordinates than the officially delegated powers to me.

Hi readers,

In my discussion of today, for the text--
"If that is the complete report, it provide details of any working class or group which makes the part of study sample and such type of findings."

as appearing in 2nd sentence, please read as follows:

"If that is the complete report, it DOES NOT provide details of any working class or group which makes the part of study sample and such type of findings."

Sorry for the inconvenience, if any.

Dear Coleagues of Discussion:
In 1980 I was 26 years old when I was transfered from Brazil to South Carolina. After two years I became very homesick and looked for help in a psicotherapeut. It did not work. I made some overseas calls which I payed for in a humilliating manner.
At the end I gave up the job and came back to my country without a job. It took me three weeks to find a new job in a recession.
Nevertheless I never fogot the shame and humiliation a went through because the overseas calls I did. I was even refused for one job because of the bad recommendation letters I placed. (and payed for).
Today I am 53 years old, finishing my Doctorade and completely unemployable. I still consider myself a capable worker, very cooperative and able to help many companies. But the scars still follo me everywhere. I though about committing suicide many times and I thought at the end of the day that my "crimes" were not worth taking my own life.
Thanks
Gil

If, as you say, "ethics itself is a grey area, there being no absolute right or absolute wrong," then what are you talking about?

The discussion of whether it is right or wrong to steal office supplies from your employer just is one of absolute right or wrong. While it is true that there are complex ethical dilemmas which, by definition, create multiple unpalatable outcomes, that is not what we're talking about here when we ask whether our employees -- and bosses -- are ethical when they take the property or resources of another without the other's consent.

One fascinating aspect about some of the posts included here is the number of folks who seem to want to justify --or at least explain -- employee theft as a function of observing misconduct or exploitation by their superiors. Yet even if a boss is a thieving, exploitive monster, it does not become ethical to mimic his behavior because you are a victim of it. We can all empathize with such victims. But to justify their misconduct because we empathize with their plight is to invite the societal decline we all now see: "The top people do it, so I'll do it too."

Think about it. Do you really want to call THAT ethical?

Very often the only reason a problem is declared an "ethical grey area" is that the declarant hasn't looked deeply enough to see the black or the white behind the cloud of hypocrisy -- the fear that if we hold another accountable we have to hold ourselves accountable, too. We are all unethical sometime, perhaps not egregiously, but in some way we compromise our ethics. But that is no reason to deny their existence. Rather it is the reason we ought to recognize that ethics are based on morals that are discovered, not created, and that we are at times morally frail and thus ethically compromised.

The question then becomes not whether an act is ethical, but what shall we do with the one who violates the ethic. When we get to this point -- where we recognize that ethics are standards to be met -- that we can humanely yet rationally determine what shall be done with the one who violates the ethic.

I suspect that being more than 80% ethical is a rare condition. For example, I'd like to think of myself as one of the good guys, but I'm spending my evenings enjoying the Olympics on a flat-screen TV while children in Africa die of malaria. Is that ethical?

A perfectly ethical person would recognize a personal obligation to all sentient beings of today and tomorrow throughout the world. Not many of us can claim so large a circle of those whose welfare counts for us.

I suspect that being more than 80% ethical is a rare condition. For example, I'd like to think of myself as one of the good guys -- but I'm spending my evenings enjoying the Olympics on a flat-screen TV while children in Africa die of malaria. Is that ethical?

A perfectly ethical person would recognize a personal obligation to (at least) all sentient beings, present and future, throughout the world. Few of us can claim so large a circle of those whose welfare counts for us.

Answering the fundamental question posed, "Is honesty and integrity binary" is the key to this discussion.
If the answer is "Yes" you need to build an organisational culture that reflects that outcome, an extrordinarily difficult objective in any circumstances, an almost impossible one in an environment where what westerners call "corruption" is the societal status quo.
If the answer is "No" you need rules to set the cut-off point from which acceptable behaviour becomes unacceptable. Setting such a set of rules, and effectively and equitably policing the adherence is a truly impossible task.

My answer to the question is Yes, it is binary, you are either acting honestly or you are not. Long term this is a far better management outcome than the alternative, but it takes real leadership, and transparently consistent leadership at all levels of an orgainsation to make it happen. A difficult and challenging task, but one that builds sustainable organisations.

Professor Krishnamurthy,

Ethics is culture-dependent. I mean say inhabitants of island A believe that an exchange of a gift is taboo, but island B believes otherwise. If 20 percent of island A exchange gifts - then 80 percent are ethical, but from island B's perspective, an exchange of a gift is acceptable, so 80 percent on island B would be from their point of view unethical. Now along come islanders from island C where they believe that exchange of gifts are acceptable only on Mondays. Islanders D believe only on Tuesdays... Which islander is ethical if they exchange gifts on Wednesdays? An international law is imposed on the region forbidding gift exchange. What happens now? The standards of today are of course set internationally, however they fail to account for grey zones and tend to privilege one culture or practice over another. In Asia for thousands of years it was perfectly acceptable for a student to provide her teacher with a gift. Not today. It is seen as a bribe. I am sure Confucian ethics would say otherwise. I suggested in Gill Corkindale's discussion on Siemen's that transparency ratings would be one way of improving transactions without unduly benefitting the party that has taken the higher moral road.

I believe also that island biogeography models
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_biogeography

can be used in modelling these ethical dilemmas. It is a fantastic discrete and rich way of deriving qualitative results about moral behaviour over a period of time. Perhaps if anyone is interested in this idea they might contact me.

I'm spending my evenings enjoying the Olympics on a flat-screen TV while the elderly die of fuel poverty right here in the UK, and even more people go hungry back home on the streets of many cities (and inner-cities) in the USA. Is that ethical?

What about having fun while being ethical? As a manager, and also when I volunteer with children at a youth theater, having an atmosphere where when you do "right" makes you feel good is vital. Doing the right thing, working hard etc. needs to be appreciated, encouraged and acknowledged. Transparency of management is key. Nobody likes to be lied to and we ALL hate a double standard. This is something we need from top to bottom of our companies. Cheating on an expense report, and stealing time away to call home aren't good ways of getting that enjoyment. Give it to your employees willingly instead of making them feel the need to take it for themselves. The company i work for gives us "personal" time. That's just what it is, personal. No excuses or reasons, just time you can take for whatever you need and your manager can't ask. Such a great policy that reduces lying, cuz really, do they need to know i'm going for my "well-woman" exam?
My second point is that placing your employees well matters. If they are invested in what they do, and feel a sense of accomplishment and that what they do matters, then I think it's easier to care about ethics. Maybe we all need to look at what we do with our jobs. So many of us have to put away our ideals to do some very basic aspects of our work or just are working for a pay check and purposefully ignore unethical decisions the companies we work for make. This shouldn't be the norm, but it is.

People are people, not god! The senior management should be result-driven, not just fucusing on such kind of ethical issues.

I thing Ethical is very necessary to make business and to conduct the company. The important point here is to understand that companies are the little peace of the sociaty. So if the companies don´t work correctly it will reflect in the sociaty and this company will lose opportunities..If the things are in the correct place the results will be positvies, the other wise, if the things are in the wrong place the things will be bad.

Image how will be the image of this company ????

I am sorry for my english, thank´s a lot !

Excellent article.

At the workplace, as an Integrity co-ordinator I face these and other dilemmas every day. The company has its Business Principles and several policies and we keep reinforcing these with workshops with teams of managers. To my mind, it has to do with:
a. Value system of the individual and how well it has been drilled in the company's inductions and thereafter.
b. Culture of the company - How things are done here. How well it is imbibed on the individual employees by the behaviour of their seniors, peers and juniors.
c. Tolerance levels. In India we have a very high degree of tolerance and tolerance to me is Tolerating+ Nonsensical behaviour. Once the Zero tolerance is explained and reinforced with strict discipline it becomes a way of life.
d. Leadership - Leaders play a very important role and I was reading the book summary of ' Never steal a clip' and realised how infectious it is.
e. Transparency - It is a well known fact that as we climb up the leadership ladder we resemble a mannequin in a showcase. I have seen in a few city showrooms a huge crowd late evenings when people throng them to see the clothes change of the mannequin dolls ! A leader / public figure is similarly in public's microscopic eye. If his behaviour is transparent and worth emulating - he gets following. And is there a leader without a follower?

When people are asked to charge 0.1hr for their time, when they are asked to multitask and are layed off without any reason , their retirement accounts wiped out. You are talking about taking office stationary??? What sort of an ethics are you talking about?
Author's father on the other hand appears to be a typical sincere officer in india who happens enjoy a secure government job for 35+ yrs with full benefits and a guaranteed pension plan. With that it is much easier to be ethical.

Don't compare apples to oranges.

Ethics -you can classify on different scales.
1)work vs home 2)personal vs proffessional 3)personal vs social 4)general vs specific
In a given situation or in a given situation or in a given position one act,thing or deed may look ethical but the same can be framed under big title un-ethical.
Likewise,routine and daily household behaviour may be ethical in that arena but the similar trait may be rated as unscroupulous in strict work place conditions.
Hence,definately,it can be scaled.There can be no 100% judjement, nor 100 % structuring of ethical behaviour.Only thing one has to be self-aware and try to improve upon with good sence of morality to the extent possible.

We have to worry about flood gates rather than sluice leaages.

Being ethical or not ? as rightly said it is a grey area because there is no clear demarcation of the right from the wrong. Also a right in once locale is wrong in the other...
For me, ethics, is some thing do with the personal charecteristics.
The values that an individual frames for oneself and strictly abides, or lets say, most of the times abides to them are the foundation of 'ethical' behaviour of an individual in single or in a group.
The epitomization of accepted practices and ideals form the ethics at the corporate level.

In today's world where people move across geographies, cultures, societies, the question of acceptable 'ethics' does come up.
It would be hard to generalize across the globe and coming up with an acceptable framework for ethics could be decades away..., but until then by practising being truthful to oneself, to the fellow beings, to the workplaces, the responsibilities each of us carry out, does help to keep the order and lay the necessary foundations in the generations to come....
I am sure there is a verse in "The Gita" on this aspect...

Rgds
Srinivas D

Well written article. On a personal note, i would like to add few of my thoughts here.

In a country like India, people take advantage of the word Democracy. We all think we have all the rights to do whatever we want and live as we want. Thats good.But, when we think from Society point of view its wrong. Even if we get One more Gandhi to India, it's realy difficult to change the people as we are used to it. I m not saying we are bad, we are good when it comes to saving our own face. Let's take an example. A person who is living in India and comes down to US,he immidiately changes to the culture and adpats to the changes happening here. But, the same person used to split (an example) back home atIndia. This is not because of wrong within him, its how our culture has moulded us.

There is no point in looking out for a change. We must all transform within ourselves to create an another revolution.

Each of us should take the responsibilites and try to protect our mother India! Jai Hind!

-Ganesh

I would like to see a report on how often people work over time and devote their personal/family time towards office work?

This certainly made a thought provoking write up.

To me ,it (the write up) would make a logical conclusion,if the professor could suggest some effective means of tackling this degrading values at various levels.Be it at a primary education ,high school,college or even at work.

I remember when I was a middle school student in Mysore(India)we had a subject called Moral science as a part of the curriculum.Although we felt it was a redundant subject then,I ,I now feel it is the most appropriate subject to handle degrading values in life.

Introduction of moral science as a program at various levels could lead to an over hauling of one's life.The program may be designed to fit specific levels such as students/professionals.
further,a periodic evaluation of individuals could also add value. Moral science is no more a kid stuff,after all.

In conclusion, many more therapies can be suggested and implemented by learned and experienced thinkers.

I think its about time that business world must change the standard definition of ethics, morality and values. Make all these "unethichal' surveyed behaviors as ethichal and some how think of linking them with performance at work. Give them out as required by employees, make it part of compensation package or something like that.

The survey would have more meaningful if the senior executives were included too. If not all, most executives have their role models in the seniors and would emulate them (from the good) or follow the same methods their seniors do (the bad). In systems where corruption seems to be institutionalized, it does not make sense to blame a section of people/society.

Regards
Sreenivasa

One of the dilemmas proposed here (by Mark Perez and some others) is about justifying what they call "employee theft" against "exploitation by employers". The sum total of his argument appeared to me thus: "Two wrongs don't make one right. So, don't perprate a wrong which YOU can avoid."
I beg to disagree:
1. When you call it employee "THEFT" remember that yuo have already CONCLUDED on the matter. Which at best can be ONE tenable position; there may be other positions too. Theft as defined in the law cannot be practiced; if I use your pen to sign a paper WITHOUT your knowledge, in LAW I have STOLEN the ink, in practice, any court will mark such a suit as frivilous. We have to understand that we cannot deal with something like a 'personal telephone call made from the office' with laws which were essentially written to manage cattle and gold hoards. These laws assume a hard classification of black and white, whereas we are dealing here with a lot of grey. Once you agree that we are dealing with grey, you lose the right to stamp someone as a "thief", since the stamping is a conclusion of the same old system which we are now questioning as grey.
2. If we still persist in using the same system, can we define something like "employer theft"? An employee is not doing BUSINESS with his employer; he is working for a salary. As long as he does his defined job properly, he is entitled to a salary regardless of whether the business makes a profit in that particular transaction or not. So, when employers force / cajole / require / request (or whatever adjective suits you) an employee to spend more time on the job (which rightfully should have been utilized for the wife / kids) are THEY not committing a THEFT according to the old system?
I would love to see how the law treats a suit brought by children on their father's employer for STEALING THIER DAD'S TIME! (I would provide free legal guidance to anyone who does!).

So, I agree with you on this count: Two wrongs don't make one right. But that is not the point here. The question is "are we going to follow the system RIGIDLY or flexibly?" In case you say RIGID, please let the employees go home at 6:00 PM. If no, then don't accuse them of STEALING pencils or using the office cab to drop off a date. Stealing is TOO big a word for the act. We don't know what it might be called; I am not even yeilding to call it pilferage. We don't know what it may be called, but definitely not STEALING.
Ever tried calling it Privilige?
Everyone is entitled to drinking water in office. I never heard of anyone STEALING water and hawking it on the streets! Same with pencils. And cabs. Ad infinetum. Someone has to draw the line; nobody has succeeded yet. The case is open.