engleski

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

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. Is the use of societal-level values for cross- cultural analyses both acceptable and sufficient in today’s global economy? To begin to address this question, we examine the extent to which values predict the ethical behaviors of 16, 229 business professionals from 48 societies. Specifically, we conducted multi-level analyses to simultaneously assess relationships at the societal and individual levels of analysis for the collectivism and the individualism values dimensions of the cross-culturally validated Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) construct (Schwartz 1992) with the four dimensions (pro- organizational, image management, self-serving, and maliciously intended) of the cross-culturally validated Subordinate Influence Ethics (SIE) construct (Ralston and Pearson 2010). We begin by briefly reviewing the study constructs and providing an overview of the debate on appropriate levels of analysis for predicting the behavior of professionals in the global workforce. Having thus framed our research question, we present the study methods and results. We conclude with a discussion of reasons why our findings support using individual-level analyses, as well as our observations on future directions in work values research.

cultural values; influence ethics; hierarchical linear modeling; collectivism; individualism

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