ethical beliefs and management behaviour: a cross-cultural comparison

ABSTRACT. A cross-cultural empirical study isreported in this article which looks at ethical beliefsand 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 saythey believe, and what they do, between managersand their peers’ attitudes and behaviours, and betweenperceived top management attitudes and the existenceof company policy. In the latter, significant differencesare found by national ownership of the companyrather than the country in which it is situated.Significant differences are found, for both individualmanagers by nationality, and for companies by nation-ality 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 significantdifferences between national groups. However, nosignificant differences are found for measures for‘group loyalty’, ‘conflict between organizational andgroup loyalty’ and for ‘conflicts between self andgroup/organization’. The findings have implicationsfor cross-border management decision strategiesregarding such issues as receiving and giving of gifts,and the management of relations between localemployees and international organizations which maybe affected by differences in attitude to corporateloyalty.

Cross-cultural comparisons of ethicalbehaviour

Although there has been a growing interest inthe international dimensions of managementethics over the last decade (for example, Lane andSimpson, 1980; Berleant, 1982; Simpson, 1982;Hoffman et al., 1986; T. Donaldson, 1985, 1989),there still has been little academic work on thecross-cultural study of ethical values and behav-iour during this time. This apparent lack ofinformation is significant in view of theincreasing importance of doing business acrossborders and the growing international mobilityof managers, for example with developments inthe European Union (see, for example, Tijmstraand Casler, 1992, on the ‘europeanization’ oforganizations and managers; and van Dijck, 1990on ‘transnationalization’). The literature on theinternational aspects of differences in ethicalbehaviour has tended to focus on major ethical

Ethical Beliefs andManagement Behaviour: A

Terence Jackson

*Cross-Cultural Comparison Marian Calafell Artola

Journal of Business Ethics 16: 1163–1173, 1997.© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Terence Jackson is Director of the Centre For Cross CulturalManagement Research, which is based in the fourEuropean campuses of EAP European School ofManagement, in Oxford, Paris, Berlin and Madrid. Hehas a Bachelors degree in Social Anthropology, a Mastersdegree in education, and a Ph.D. in OrganizationalPsychology. He publishes and teaches extensively in thearea of cross-cultural management, and has a particularinterest in the comparative study of ethical values andbehaviour. His most recent books are OrganizationalBehaviour in International Management, andCross-cultural Management, both published byButterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.

Marian Calafell Artola is currently a Market Analyst fora major international data systems company and worksin Germany, and a Research Associate of the CentreFor Cross Cultural Management Research with aninterest in the connection between national values andethical beliefs and behaviour. She holds a first degreefrom ESIC (Escuela Superior de Gestion Comercial yMarketing) in Madrid, a Diplôme de Grande Ecole(France) and Diplomkauffrau (Germany) inManagement, both from EAP. * Author for correspondence.

differences between developed and developingcountries (see, for example, Lane and Simpson,1980) is in large part case-study based (see, forexample, J. Donaldson, 1992; and T. Donaldson,1989 which intersperses philosophical argumentand case study material) and may be almostanecdotal (see the example of Italian tax returnsin Kohls and Buller, 1995).

Whilst it is important for managers workingacross borders to have basic conceptual frame-works from which they can deal with differencesin ethical attitudes and behaviour, it is alsoimportant for them to understand what thesedifferences might be. This is particularly in thecase of western societies where such differencesbetween national cultures may be more subtle.This is also in the area of relatively minordecision making, rather than the more strategicdecision making often depicted in the literature(such as payment of bribes, environmental issues,copyright piracy and whistleblowing).

Recent work on cross-cultural differences inethical attitudes, behaviour and organizationalpolicy, whilst being so far sparse, has generallyadded to our understanding in these areas: Beckerand Fritzsche (1987a, 1987b), Izraeli (1988),Lysonski and Gaidis (1991) in general cross-cultural ethical managerial beliefs and behaviour;Langlois and Schlegelmilch (1990) in the area ofcorporate codes of ethics and national differences,and Lee (1982), and Armstrong and Sweeney(1994) in the area of cross-cultural marketingvalues. Other specific ethical issues such assoftware piracy have been considered cross-culturally (Swinyard et al., 1990), as well asresolving cross-cultural ethical conflicts (Kohlsand Buller, 1994) and differences in ethical beliefsbetween whites and blacks in the United States(Tsalikis and Nwachukwu, 1988).

Becker and Fritzsche (1987a) comparing theresponses to a postal questionnaire of French,German and U.S. managers concluded that theFrench were more optimistic towards corporateethical codes having an effect on business prac-tices than those from the other two countries,as well as raising the ethical level in the industry,reducing sharp practices and defining limits ofunacceptable behaviour. In fact, the authors saythis is rather idealistic of the French. The

German sample was pessimistic about such codes.They were more inclined to agree that busi-nessmen were forced to go along with shadypractice in order to survive, and that the moralaspects of the consequences of business are noneof their concern. The authors consequentlystylize the French managers as idealistic, theGermans as pessimistic and the American sampleas realistic!

A second part of this study with the samesample, reported in Becker and Fritzsche(1987b), concluded findings from responses to‘vignettes’ representing decisions relating to‘coercion and control’, ‘conflicts of interest’,‘physical environment’, ‘paternalism’, and‘personal integrity’, that the U.S. sample was‘more concerned with ethical and legal ques-tions’, and the French and German sample‘appeared to worry more about maintaining asuccessful business posture’ (p. 94).

Lysonski and Gaidis (1991) using the samevignettes as Becker and Fritzsche (1987b),investigated the ethical values of business studentsfrom the U.S.A., Denmark and New Zealand.They found the results overall comparable toBecker and Fritzsche’s findings, concluding thatindividuals in their sample were no more ethicalthan those of Becker and Fritzsche (1987b).There are no differences between the ethicalorientation of the three countries represented inthis study (that is between the responses to thevignettes) but rather in the degree of ethicalsensitivity, such that there are significant differ-ences between the three national samples withineach vignette as follows.

Coercion and control. The Danes would be morelikely than the other two groups to pay a bribeto an Asian businessman if it facilitated business.In Becker and Fritzsche’s (1987b) sample theFrench and Germans would be more likely to paythe bribe.

Conflict of interest. The New Zealanders would bemore likely to use their influence for theircompany to sign a contract, which puts lucra-tive business into their own personal privatebusiness. In the Becker and Fritzsche (1987b)study there were no significant differences

1164 Terence Jackson and Marian Calafell Artola

between the national groups, and none would belikely to sign.

In a second conflict of interest vignette notused in the Becker and Fritzsche (1987b) study,the Danes would be far more likely than theAmericans or New Zealand sample to yield tocompany pressure to divulge propriety informa-tion about their previous employer.

Physical environment. The Danish sample wouldbe far more likely to approve the release ofpollution into the air if requested by their generalmanager, than the sample from U.S.A. and NewZealand. In the Becker and Fritzsche (1987b)study the U.S. managers would be unlikely toapprove the request if it meant polluting theenvironment, whereas both the German andFrench sample ranged from neutral to slightlyin favour of releasing the pollution, with nosignificant differences between them.

Paternalism. Put in the position of an editor, thenew Zealand sample would be more likely thanthe other two groups, to consent to the pub-lishing of a book which described in detail howto make an atom bomb. In the Becker andFritzsche (1987b) study, all groups were reluctantto publish, and there were no significant differ-ences between them.

Personal integrity. The U.S. sample would be morelikely to us a false list price when discounting aproduct at a shop, than the other two groups.This vignette is not used in the Becker andFritzsche (1987b) study, but a second vignettewhich shows no significant differences betweengroup means in the Lyonski and Gaidis (1991)study, shows in the Becker and Fritzsche (1987b)study that although all managers are more likelyto blow the whistle on their company puttingout a faulty car part likely to cause injury, asignificant difference exists between the Germangroup and the other two groups, such that theAmerican and French are even more likely toblow the whistle than the German managers inthis sample.

It would seem, however, that from these twostudies, the Danish and German (and sometimes

French) sample would be more likely to behavein what might be regarded as a pragmatic way,and that Americans may be regarded as taking amore principled approach than the Europeans inthese studies. However, these studies have tendedto focus on quite weighty decision issues whichare important, but are not likely to be part of amanager’s day-to-day decision making.

In a study of 97 Israeli managers, Izraeli (1988)compares results with two previous studies(Newstrom and Ruch, 1975; and Ferrell andWeaver, 1978) conducted with U.S. managers,using a similar methodology. Izraeli uses a ques-tionnaire of 12 items of ‘behavioural situations’,which is adapted from the previous two studies.Respondents are asked to indicate to what extentthey believe, their peers believe and their topmanagement believes each behavioural situationis ethical or not ethical, and to compare this withwhat they do, what their peers do and whatorganizational policy exists on this.

There are some indications that peers arebelieved to be less ethical than the managersthemselves, although test results for statisticallysignificant differences are not reported. Similarlythere are unsupported differences reportedbetween ‘what I believe’ and ‘what I do’ on mostitems indicating a tendency to behave lessethically. ‘What I believe’ and ‘what top man-agement believe’ are similar in the Israeli sample,although top managers are more favourable toaccepting gifts, passing blame, and giving gifts.There was no correlation between ‘what I do’and the existence of an organizational policy inthe Israeli study.

Cross-cultural differences exist between theIsraeli and U.S. studies, in that the Israeli samplerated themselves more ethical than the U.S.samples, except on items ‘passing blame for errorsonto an innocent co-worker’ and ‘claiming creditfor someone else’s work. These items relate towhat Izraeli (1988) calls collegiality. The largestmean difference between the Israeli and U.S.studies is found in the two items which relate towork morality (or loyalty to organization), wherethe Israeli sample are less likely to take extrapersonal time and do personal business onorganizational time.

The importance of this study is that Izraeli

Ethical Beliefs and Management Behaviour 1165

(1988) draws on a methodology which focuseson relatively minor decision making within anorganization (except perhaps gift-giving andreceiving), provides a method which is easilyreplicable, provides data from three separatestudies, but has the weakness that no direct cross-cultural comparisons have been made withineach of the three studies. The study reported inthe current article uses this methodology as astarting point in order to obtain cross-culturalcomparisons between two European countries,to enable some comparison with the previousthree empirical studies already undertaken, andto suggest a basis for further study and compar-ison between different national cultures and overtime. Although the current study draws on arelatively small data base, it is hoped that this willprovide a good indication of the more subtledifferences existing between Western cultures,and can give rise to additional studies which willbe of help to practicing managers operatingacross national borders.

Objectives and theory

The objectives of the current empirical study areto examine a number of sets of relationships inmanagerial ethical beliefs and behaviours, someof which have been indicated by Izraeli (1988).In Izraeli’s study there is some indication of arelationship between variables constituting ‘col-legiality’ or loyalty to group, and ‘loyalty toorganization’. There are also other groupings ofvariables which may be conceptualized fromIzraeli’s study as: general societal values (thegiving and receiving of favours and gifts); conflictbetween self and collective (concealing one’serrors); and conflict between loyalty to group andorganization (not reporting others’ violations oforganizational policies).

Within the current study, the categories ofbeliefs and behaviours used by Izraeli (1988)and derived from the studies of Newstrom andRuch (1975) and Ferrell and Weaver (1978) areemployed to obtain data for French and Germanmanagers, with the results as far as possible beingcompared with those of the previous studies.

Hypotheses were developed from posited

relationships between variables and nationalitiesas follows.

H1: Ethical beliefs will vary significantlybetween national groups, in terms ofattitudes to societal values (giving/accepting favours), to organizationalloyalty, to group loyalty, to conflictsbetween organizational and group loyalty,and to conflicts between self and group/organization (concealing one’s errors).

Differences between national groups are to beexamined in terms of all ethical attitudinal andbehaviour categories cited above, but differencesbetween each of these categories are not antici-pated to vary significantly between nationalgroups, hence:

H2: Differences between attitudes of selfand others, and between attitudes andreported behaviour will not vary signifi-cantly between national groups, but willgenerally show significant differences,regardless of nationality, between ‘what Ibelieve’ and ‘what I do’, and between‘what I believe’ and ‘what peers believe’.

This will be consistent with findings of theprevious studies discussed above (Izraeli, 1988;Newstrom and Ruch, 1975; and Ferrell andWeaver, 1978).

Langlois and Schlegelmilch (1990) note arelationship between the adoption of corporateethical codes in European companies andAmerican parentage. The relationship betweennational parentage of the organization and theadoption of organizational policy related to thevarious ethical variables in this study will beexamined, hence:

H3: The adoption of organizational policy onethical conduct will vary significantlyaccording to the nationality of the parentcompany.


Research methods

Alumni from the authors’ institution (a grandeécole of the Chambre de Commerce etd’Industrie de Paris, and university of the Senateof Berlin) were sent postal questionnaires.Following a response rate of 18%, viable sampleswere obtained from French managers working incompanies in France (n = 62) and from Germanmanagers working in Germany (n = 28). Ofthese managers 50.6% worked for companies ofFrench ownership, 18% for companies ofAmerican ownership, 14.6% for German ownedcompanies, and 9% for British owned companies.The remainder worked for companies headquar-tered in Hong Kong, Belgium, Ireland and theNetherlands.

An adaptation of the questionnaire used byIzraeli (1988) (following Newstrom and Ruch,1975; and Ferrell and Weaver, 1978) wasemployed in order to facilitate the comparison ofcurrent results with those of the previous studies(see the discussion of these studies above) Themodified version of 12 items of behaviouralsituations was used, because of the comments ofIzraeli regarding the non-transferability acrosscultures of some of the items from the originalquestionnaire (Newstrom and Ruch, 1975). Thisversion also included a further question on theexistence of an organizational policy on each ofthe 12 behavioural situations. The questionnairewas therefore presented in matrix form wherebymanagers were asked to respond to each item insix different ways: ‘what I believe’, ‘what mypeers believe’, ‘what top managers believe’, ‘whatI do’, ‘what my peers do’ and whether ‘organi-zational policy exists’. Against each of thesequestions, for each item (a total of 72 responses),respondents were asked to rate each on a scaleof 1–5. The ‘believe’ items responses ran from1 = unethical to 5 = ethical. The ‘do’ items ranfrom 1 = infrequently to 5 = frequently, and theexistence of organizational policy from 1 = clearpolicy to 5 = no stated policy.

Results

Own beliefs and behaviours

The German and French results for ‘what Ibelieve’ and ‘what I do’ are summarized inTable I, by groups of variable (Cronbach’s Alphafor each grouping confirms the existence ofmedium to high bandwidth scales, rather than ahigh fidelity scale; see notes 4–6 of Table I: andsee Cronbach’s discussion on bandwidth-fidelity:1990, p. 208), and compared with the threeprevious studies cited above.

There are no significant differences of items orscales for group loyalty, conflict between organizationaland group loyalty, and conflict between self andgroup/organization between the German andFrench groups, but there are significant differ-ences between these national groups for thescale organizational loyalty and for the item ‘1.Accepting gifts/favours in exchange for prefer-ential treatment’. With the previous studies,organizational loyalty, as an attribute of ethicalbelief and behaviour, varies between the Israelisample at one end to the German sample at theother. Whilst the Israeli and French samples ratethemselves more ‘ethical’ on this attribute thanthe Americans and Germans, two aspects shouldbe borne in mind. First, it should still be remem-bered that a ‘high’ score of 21.01 is within arange of 10 to 50. Second, that a higher scoredoes not indicate a lack of ethical belief, but aninterpretation that this particular behaviouralsituation is not seen as unethical by the respon-dent. Whilst variation exists between nationalgroups for organizational loyalty, certain items areconsistently judged as more acceptable thanothers across the national groups.

Hence, ‘8. Doing personal business on orga-nization time’, ‘10. Taking extra personal time(breaks, etc)’ and ‘11. Using organization servicesfor personal use’ are seen as more acceptable than‘3. Divulging confidential information’, ‘4.Calling in sick to take the day off ’ (whichsurprisingly is only seen as very marginally moreacceptable than divulging confidential infor-mation, across the four nationalities), and ‘5.pilfering organization materials and supplies’.

Of the other scales and items, ‘12. Not



TABLE IManagers: what they believe and what they do

Germany France USA1 USA2 Israel3

Believe Do Believe Do Believe Do Believe Do Believe Do

Societal values4

1. Accepting gifts/favours inexchange for preferential treatment 1.71* 1.36 1.36* 1.18 1.61 01.85 1.67 1.14 1.13 1.26

6. Giving gifts/favours inexchange for preferential treatment 1.89 1.57 1.85 1.77 1.74 01.26 2.10 1.47 1.37 1.37

Scale mean 1.80 1.46 1.61 1.48 1.68 15.55 1.89 1.31 1.25 1.32

Organizational loyalty5

3. Divulging confidentialinformation 1.39 1.61* 1.33 1.28* 1.32 01.51 1.29 1.17 1.20 1.25

4. Calling in sick to takethe day off 1.39 1.21* 1.18 1.05* 1.98 01.24 2.14 1.29 1.21 1.23

5. Pilfering organizationmaterials and supplies 2.00 1.96* 1.61 1.54* 1.50 02.09 1.50 1.59 1.35 1.63

8. Doing personal businesson organization time 2.61* 2.37 2.10* 1.95 2.46 01.26 2.94 2.11 1.56 1.81

10. Taking extra personaltime (breaks, etc.) 2.79 2.30 2.43 2.07 2.59 02.12 2.40 2.22 1.59 1.78

11. Using organizationservices for personal use 2.43* 2.10 1.93* 1.78 2.45 01.86 2.77 1.91 2.01 1.68

Scale mean 2.10** 1.98** 1.75** 1.64** 2.05 01.68 2.17 1.72 1.49 1.56

Group loyalty6

2. Passing blame for errorsto an innocent co-worker 1.18 1.29 1.11 1.20 1.22 01.98 1.16 1.02 1.18 1.22

7. Claiming credit forsomeone else’s work 1.29 1.43 1.30 1.30 1.74 01.88 1.28 1.11 1.37 1.32

Scale mean 1.23 1.36 1.19 1.25 1.48 01.93 1.22 1.07 1.28 1.27

Conflicts between organizationaland group loyalty12. Not reporting others’ violations of organization policies 2.96 2.86 2.84 2.55 2.73 02.38 3.11 2.35 2.42 2.27

Scale mean (nominal) 2.96 2.86 2.84 2.55 2.73 02.38 3.11 2.35 2.42 2.27

Conflicts between selfand group/organization9. concealing one’s errors 2.29 1.99 2.09 1.90 2.16 01.46 2.28 1.53 1.56 1.47

Scale mean (nominal) 2.29 1.99 2.09 1.90 2.16 01.46 2.28 1.53 1.56 1.47

1 Newstrom and Ruch (1975); 2 Ferrell and Weaver (1978); 3 Izraeli (1988); 4 Cronbach’s Alpha for scale Societal Values:Believe = 0.627; Do = 0.554; 5 Alpha for Organizational Loyalty: Believe = 0.753; Do = 0.693; 6 Alpha for scale GroupLoyalty: Believe = 0.582; Do = 0.647, * Difference between group means of same item for German and French sample is significant at 0.05 level; ** Differencesbetween group means significant at 0.01 level (Organizational Loyalty scale: Values – t = 2.55, DF = 85, probability =0.013; Behaviour – t = 2.75, DF = 83, probability = 0.007).

reporting others’ violations of organizationalpolicies’ (conflict between organizational andgroup loyalty) is not seen particularly as an ethicalquestion) and ‘9. Concealing one’s errors’(conflict between self and group/organization)is not seen as unethical by all national groupsexcept the Israeli sample (see Table I).

It is also possible to compare the differences inbeliefs between the four national groups by rankordering each item from what is considered leastethical to what is considered most ethical, as inTable II.

Although there are differences betweennational groups in both item and scale scores,there are remarkable similarities between thedifferent groups on the order of items consideredunethical. Hence the two group loyalty items (2and 7) appear at the top of the list and passingblame for errors, and claiming credit for others’work is seen as most unethical by all nationalgroups. Item 12 ‘not reporting other’s violationsof organizational policies’ consistently appearsat the bottom of the list. This item, whichrepresents a possible conflict between loyalty toone’s organization and loyalty to one’s peer orwork group, does not appear to be a strong

ethical issue. Only item 4 ‘calling in sick to takea day off ’ varies considerably in rank orderbetween the two U.S.A. groups and the othernational groups, and is not seen as an ethical issueby the Americans.

Differences between self and peers

In the current study there are no significantdifferences between scores for ‘What I believe’and ‘What my peers believe’, except for item ‘7.Claiming credit for someone else’s work’(although no significant variation betweenGerman and French groups). Both German andFrench managers are saying that their peers aremore likely to claim credit for others’ work thanthey are. This is also reflected in differencesbetween ‘What I do” and ‘What my peers do’for both items 7. and 2., which are indicators ofgroup loyalty. It would seem that the respondentssee themselves as more loyal to their group thanare their peers.

Top management beliefs and company policy

There were no significant differences found foreither top management belief or company policybetween national groups by respondents.However, significant differences were foundbetween companies by nationality of parent.These reflect, in part, the national differencesalready reported above for individual respon-dents, in that differences in both perceived topmanagers beliefs and existence of company policyare to be found for company loyalty generally, andfor item ‘1. Accepting gifts/favours in exchangefor preferential treatment’, and in item ‘9.Concealing one’s errors’ (see Table III).

British and American companies are thereforemore likely to have a clearer policy on acceptinggifts and favours, and German companies less so.However, there are no significant differences bynationality of parent company for perceptions oftop management attitudes on accepting gifts.This is seen as mostly unethical by all. It is notsurprising that companies do not have a clearlystated policy on concealing one’s errors, but


TABLE IIRank order of items by nationality for ‘What I

believe’

Rank Germany France USA1 USA2 Israel3

01 02 02 02 02 0102 07 04 03 07 0203 04 07 05 05 0304 03 03 01 03 0405 01 01 06 01 0506 06 05 07 05 0607 05 06 04 04 0708 09 11 09 09 0809 11 09 11 10 0910 08 08 08 11 1011 10 10 10 08 1112 12 12 12 12 12

1 Newstrom and Ruch (1975), 2 Ferrell and Weaver(1978), 3 Izraeli (1988): The rank ordering of itemsin the Israeli study was retained in the numbering ofitems in the current study.


TABLE III Top management beliefs and company policy by nationality of parent

French German British American (n = 45) (n = 13) (n = 8) (n = 16)

Believe1 Policy2 Believe Policy Believe Policy Believe Policy

Societal values1. Accepting gifts/favours inexchange for preferential treatment 1.60 2.78* 2.00 3.46* 1.50 2.14* 1.56 2.18*

6. Giving gifts/favours in exchange for preferential treatment 2.18 2.87 2.00 3.00 1.88 3.00 1.56 2.00

Organizational loyalty3. Divulging confidential information 1.16** 1.64* 1.83** 1.85* 1.13** 1.57* 1.19** 1.00*

4. Calling in sick to take the day off 1.11** 2.69 1.42** 2.54 1.25** 3.29 1.12** 3.00

5. Pilfering organization materials and supplies 1.64 2.64 1.83 2.61 1.88 3.42 1.81 2.81

8. Doing personal businesson organization time 1.93 3.05* 2.33 2.46* 1.63 4.43* 2.25 3.75*

10. Taking extra personaltime (breaks, etc.) 2.14** 3.11* 3.00** 2.00* 2.25** 3.43* 2.50** 3.38*

11. Using organizationservices for personal use 2.05 2.95 2.33 2.54 1.16 2.86 2.00 3.00

Group loyalty2. Passing blame for errorsto an innocent co-worker 1.64 3.20 1.64 3.85 1.38 4.29 1.38 3.38

7. Claiming credit forsomeone else’s work 2.09 3.86 2.42 3.62 1.38 4.29 2.00 4.19

Conflicts between organizationaland group loyalty12. Not reporting others’violations of organization policies 2.05 3.42 1.92 3.08 1.71 3.86 1.79 3.31

Conflicts between selfand group/organization9. Concealing one’s errors 200** 3.26* 2.88** 4.20* 2.00** 4.14* 1.80** 2.95*

1 Respondents perceive this to be the belief of top management; 2 Respondents state the extent to which anorganizational policy exists.* Differences between group means for ‘policy’ are significant at 0.05 level; ** Differences between group meansfor ‘believe’ are significant at 0.05 level.

British and German owned companies seem lessconcerned over this issue in both attitude andcompany policy. Across the nationalities of parentcompanies, top management beliefs are seen asrepresenting more of a concern for this issue thanis reflected in company policy.

Divulging confidential information (item 3)is taken seriously by all companies, but all thosecompanies in the sample with an Americanparent take this the most seriously and have aclear policy on it. There was no clear companypolicy across the sample on calling in sick to takea day off (item 4.), although this is more clearlystated in companies with French or Germanparents. But, top management beliefs on this areperceived somewhat more definitely with topmanagers from companies of French andAmerican parents frowning on this more than theGerman and British.

It is top managers of companies of Britishparents who take the dimmest view of doingpersonal business on organizational time (item 8),but whose companies are least likely to have anorganizational policy on this. Companies ofGerman parents are more likely to have a policyon this, but their top managers are not perceivedas seeing this particularly as unethical. The sameis true for item 10. Taking extra personal timeon such as breaks, is more likely to attract a clearpolicy from a company of a German parent, buttop managers in the same companies are notseen as being particularly concerned with thisbehaviour.

Discussion

There is always a concern in presenting data oncultural differences of ethical beliefs and behav-iour, that not only is there a tendency to stereo-type as in all cross-cultural comparisons, but alsoto present one nationality as more or less ethicalthan another. More than in any other area ofcross-cultural comparison, in the study of valuesand ethics it is easy to fall into the twin trap ofethnocentrically judging another culture, ortaking a cultural relativist view and perceivinganything which the local culture endorses asacceptable within the terms of that particular

culture. Although the questionnaire items for thecurrent study were generated initially in anAmerican culture, it was the aim of this studyto gain a comparison of the ways in whichparticular management actions were viewed bydifferent national cultures. Particularly, it washypothesized that ethical beliefs will varybetween national cultures. Although this has beenborne out, as will be discussed below, this is onlyby degree rather than by fundamental differencesin the value structure of the national cultureswhich were investigated. It would therefore bewrong to conclude from the results of the currentstudy, or those of the previous studies heredescribed, that one national cultures is more orless ‘ethical’ than another. Rather, there may bedifferences in the way ethics is seen in relationto management practices.

The results from the current study (as well astheir comparison with the previous studies)support hypothesis 1 only in that significantdifferences were found in the area of organiza-tional loyalty. There were no significant differ-ences between national groups for group loyalty,conflict between organizational and group loyalty andconflict between self and group/organization. Thescores for items of group loyalty are consistentlylow across the four nationalities in Table I indi-cating that behaviour which goes against loyaltyto one’s group such as passing blame and claimingcredit for others’ work is perhaps universallycondemned. The item for conflicts between organi-zational and group loyalty, namely reporting others’violations of organizational policy, receives com-paratively higher scores across the four countries,indicating that not to report others is not par-ticularly seen as unethical. This result may havesome relevance to the practice of ‘whistle-blowing’ and could usefully be further investi-gated. The item for conflict between self andgroup/organization, does not show a significantdifference between group norms for the twonationalities represented in the current study, butvariation is evident when compared withprevious studies (Table I). Concealing one’s errorsmay therefore be regarded differently acrossnational cultures, and this should be furtherinvestigated. Finally, the attitude towards oneindicator of societal values, namely accepting gifts


or favours in exchange for preferential treatment,differs significantly between the German andFrench samples, but not the other item of givinggifts and favours. It may be that with a widersampling of national groups, significant differ-ences may be found for both these items. Thisis supported by the Becker and Fritzsche (1987b)and Lyonski and Gaidis (1991) studies reportedabove.

Hypothesis 2 is supported in that no signifi-cant differences between national groups couldbe found in the variation between own beliefsand perceived attitudes of others, nor in varia-tions between reported attitudes and behaviour.This is also borne out by the reported results ofthe previous studies using a similar questionnaire.

Hypothesis 3 was supported by evidence fromthe current study that there are significantdifferences between companies under ownershipby different nationalities for both perceived topmanagement beliefs and company policy. Yet nosignificant differences could be found betweencompanies actually situated in different countries(respondents were drawn only from French whoworked in France, and German who worked inGermany). This is an interesting result, as itindicates that the national culture of the parentcompany may be more important than where thecompany is actually situated. This is anotherresult which needs further research.

Implications for managing across borders

Whilst the current study was limited to a com-parison between two countries and based onrelatively small samples sizes, it was possible toobtain an overview from some 90 managers fromdifferent companies with parents of four nation-alities operating in France and Germany. It wasalso possible to compare results directly withprevious studies undertaken in the United Statesand Israel which employed the same ‘behaviouralsituations’ representing comparatively small-scaledecision making of a type which managersoperating across borders may meet in their day-to-day work. Consistencies were found acrossthese studies for questionnaire items in bothvariation of results between national cultures, and

in similarities of items across cultures. Despiteshortcoming in the nature of the researchinstrument and items employed, and in particularthat these may be quite culture-bound in theirconception, the use of similar instruments overa period of two decades provides a useful com-parison which could also be employed in futurestudies. This is particularly in view of a need toextend this study through geographically broaderinvestigations. This would allow the validation ofresults through comparison with more generalnational value investigations such as those byHofstede (1991) and Trompenaars (1993), andthrough associating ethical beliefs to factors suchas religious and social traditions, as well aseconomic and political circumstances prevailingin each country.

For managers operating across nationalborders, the results presented here have certainimplications. First, corporate policy and theperceptions of top management beliefs seem tocorrespond with the nationality of the parentrather than the national culture of the hostcountry. Second, differences between managers’ethical beliefs and reported behaviour seem tocorrespond with the nationality of the managerrather than the parent’s nationality of thecompany they work for. This may have implica-tions for the effectiveness of translating corporatepolicy (such as that communicated in codes ofethics) into the conduct and beliefs of individuallocal managers. Obviously this needs to befurther investigated, but may well have implica-tions for the way international companies com-municate expected ethical standards to localmanagers. Third, whilst differences in the atti-tudes towards gift-giving and receiving have beenquite well documented, there is a lack of empir-ical information on this, particularly betweenEuropean countries. This study indicates thatthere may be marked differences in attitudesbetween the national cultures represented in thesamples of this and the previous studies. If furtherstudies bear this finding out, then managersoperating across such countries will have to takeserious account of these difference, and be awareof decision strategies for dealing with them.Fourth, differences seem to exist in attitudes andbehaviour related to corporate loyalty. This may


have a number of implications for the waymanagers manage the relationship betweenemployees and organizations in different coun-tries: whether such issues are seen as a threat ornot to the well-being of the organization. Again,this needs further investigation in order to helpmanagers more effectively manage these varia-tions in attitudes and possible behaviour.

It is hoped that this study has provided anindication of differences in ethical beliefs, atti-tudes and policy, and where these differences mayexist. It is also hoped that it points the way, bothin its methodology and its results to further cross-cultural studies which may enhance our under-standing of more subtle differences in the minorday-to-day decision making which may affect thework of those managers operating across nationalborders.

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Centre for Cross Cultural Management Research,EAP European School of Management, Oxford

OX1 4HJ, U.K.


ethical beliefs and management behaviour: a cross-cultural comparison

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