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

• Published in: Journal of business ethics 2014-06, Vol.122 (2), p.283-306
• Main Authors: Ralston, David A., Egri, Carolyn P., Furrer, Olivier, Kuo, Min-Hsun, Li, Yongjuan, Wangenheim, Florian, Dabic, Marina, Naoumova, Irina, Shimizu, Katsuhiko, de la Garza Carranza, María Teresa, Fu, Ping Ping, Potocan, Vojko V., Pekerti, Andre, Lenartowicz, Tomasz, Srinivasan, Narasimhan, Casado, Tania, Rossi, Ana Maria, Szabo, Erna, Butt, Arif, Palmer, Ian, Ramburuth, Prem, Brock, David M., Terpstra-Tong, Jane, Grison, Ilya, Reynaud, Emmanuelle, Richards, Malika, Hallinger, Philip, Castro, Francisco B., Ruiz-Gutiérrez, Jaime, Milton, Laurie, Ansari, Mahfooz, Starkus, Arunas, Mockaitis, Audra, Dalgic, Tevfik, León-Darder, Fidel, Thanh, Hung Vu, Moon, Yong-lin, Molteni, Mario, Fang, Yongqing, Pla-Barber, Jose, Alas, Ruth, Maignan, Isabelle, Jesuino, Jorge C., Lee, Chay-Hoon, Nicholson, Joel D., Chia, Ho-Beng, Danis, Wade, Dharmasiri, Ajantha S., Weber, Mark
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavior modeling; Business; Business administration; Business and Management; Business Ethics; Citizenship; Collectivism; Cross cultural studies; Cultural differences; Cultural values; Decision making; Education; Ethical behavior; Ethics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Individual ethics; Individualism; Labor; Labour force; Management; Modeling; Multinational enterprises; Philosophy; Professional ethics; Quality of Life Research; Social ethics; Society; Studies; Work ethic
• ISSN: 0167-4544; 1573-0697
• DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1744-9

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.