Title: Evidence of ethics and misconduct in a multinational corporation: motives for growth of corrupt environments in today's business world

Authors: Christian T. Elbæk; Panagiotis Mitkidis

Addresses: Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark ' Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark; Social Science Research Institute, Centre for Advanced Hindsight, Duke University, 334 Blackwell Street, Suite 320, Durham, NC 27701, North Carolina, USA

Abstract: Unethical behaviour, such as corruption and fraud, is a massive problem in today's business world. Research in the fields of business ethics and moral psychology has presented compelling evidence of a series of behavioural concepts that might influence an individual's propensity to engage in unethical conduct. Yet, it is still unknown how these concepts apply to more ecologically valid contexts such as real-world scandals on unethical behaviour. Motivated by this, we use empirical qualitative evidence from one of Denmark's largest corruption scandals to explore how well renowned concepts within business ethics and moral psychology hold up in the real world, when looking into both what causes unethical behaviour and how it could be minimised. We find evidence that catalysts of immoral conduct in the case company are well supported by some of the most well researched concepts in the research area, and our research indicates a possible real-world interaction between concepts.

Keywords: business ethics; corruption; moral psychology; empirical qualitative evidence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2023.127469

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2023 Vol.17 No.1, pp.50 - 78

Received: 10 Aug 2020
Accepted: 10 Jun 2021
Published online: 06 Dec 2022 *