Assessing Ethical Behavior:
Assessing ethical behavior:
Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale
Robert L Cardy
Department of Management
College of Business
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85226
T. T. Selvarajan*
College of Business
Northeastern State University
Tahlequah, OK 74464
Email: selvarat@nsuok.edu
Paper submitted to the HR Division of the 47th Midwest Academy of Management Meeting, 2004.
*Presenting author. Also, address all correspondence to T. T. Selvarajan.
Assessing ethical behavior:
Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale
Abstract
The increasing importance of ethical behavior in organizations indicates the need for performance appraisal systems to explicitly include ethical dimensions of performance. This study developed a six-dimension behavioral scale for assessing ethical judgment using the Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) procedure. One hundred and thirty four business undergraduate students participated in developing the scale. The use of this scale for conducting research on the process of making ethical performance judgments is discussed.
Assessing ethical behavior:
Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale
Ethical behavior at the organizational and individual level has been of considerable interest to researchers for the past two decades (e.g., Baumhart, 1961; Brenner & Mohlander, 1977). Ethics in business has been asserted to be the most important problem facing American companies today (Baehr, Jones, & Nerad, 1993). The issue of ethics has recently become the focus of media attention in the wake of corporate scandals in companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, and Arthur Anderson. In addition to being a current issue in the media domain, unethical...
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