What motivates improper behavior?

Thèmes abordés

Self-interest, frustration, motivation

Résumé du document

Before going into the question of what motivates improper behavior, the expression improper behavior should be given a proper definition. It is in fact the way in which one acts or conducts oneself especially towards others which is improper. The meaning of improper is broad: it means as an adjective not proper (or not correct), but also not in accordance with propriety of behavior, unsuitable, inappropriate or abnormal, irregular. To narrow the definition, an improper behavior can be when someone behaves against the rules, but also against the moral or against the functioning way. Some mistakes are unintentional; simple human errors that happens despite our best efforts to do the right thing. Some are intentional and are the result of an action out of anger, desire to further their own self-interest, or frustration.

In business, the issues are enormous financially and people or companies are tempted to act with that kind of improper behavior. Those misconducts can do a lot of damage in business or other organization because people have a stake. There are multiple reasons as to why someone would act this way, but the first one is greed.

Extraits

[...] There are numerous examples showing what motivates improper behaviors in a company. As said before, it is even harder for a company to avoid these misconduct when they are dealing with a foreign country. In fact for many countries, the practice of bribing can facilitate business transactions. In the case of Siemens (as cited before), it was revealed that the use of bribing was recurring in order to obtain many foreign contracts: it involved Serbia, then Brasilia and although not proven also Greece. [...]

[...] They spread the corporation's values throughout the organization. They often do so by hosting ethics' conferences which attendances are obligatory for the employees. In fact if a company has a good Ethics and compliance program and end up making a mistake, the judges will be more open to not it giving a large fine, because the company has shown it made a mistake in good faith. A company also motivates the ethical behavior by creating an ethical code of conduct to specify its objective, building training program to communicate ethical objective, setting ethical committee and ethical audit to monitor the employees. [...]

[...] This can be seen by laws harsher on improper behaviors that have been passed. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 is one manifestation among others. It addresses accounting transparency requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and also the possible jail time for people who turn a blind eye to bribery. There are also the antitrust laws (Sherman Act 1890, Clayton Act 1914 and the Federal Act 1914) which regulates the conduct and organization Alex C. Michalos and Deborah C Poff, Citation Classics from the journal of Business Ethics, p405. [...]

[...] All those three measures reunited can explain a lot of wrong behaviors. For example, a person that is versed to deceitfulness and duplicity, who believes to be mostly influenced by powerful others and who has an hard time dealing with tense situations is more prompt to behaving improperly than someone who not versed into deceitfulness and duplicity and who deals well with tense situations. Ethical philosophies are also of huge importance as internal factors. They are the content of someone's principles and values. [...]

[...] Which is why in companies, business managers must be “ethically close to perfection” because they will be of great influence on employees. Another external factor, is how easy the improper behavior will be applicable. For example, if someone behaves improperly and risks absolutely nothing, then he will be more tempted to act this way than if the risks are present. The states have shown to take more and more interest in the battle against improper behaviors, and they try to encourage people to denounce misconduct. [...]