Department of Banking and Finance, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Chair of Economic Psychology and Leadership Ethics, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Friedrichshafen, Germany.
PLoS One. 2022 Jan 11;17(1):e0262201. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262201. eCollection 2022.
Corruption is ubiquitous in practice and has severe negative consequences for organizations and societies at large. Drawing on a laboratory experiment, we propose that individuals high in moral commitment are less likely to engage in corrupt behaviors and prefer foregoing financial benefits. Specifically, we posit that individuals refrain from corruption (i) the more they endorse integrity (incorruptibility) as a protected value and (ii) the higher their level of Honesty-Humility. The results of a two-step experiment largely support our expectations: people who treat compromises to integrity as unacceptable were less willing to accept bribes, and Honesty-Humility decreased bribe-giving. The findings are robust to demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, cultural background) and additional personal characteristics (e.g., risk tolerance, dispositional greed) and have important implications for ongoing theory-building efforts and business practice.
腐败在实践中普遍存在，对组织和整个社会都有严重的负面影响。本研究通过实验室实验发现，道德承诺水平高的个体不太可能从事腐败行为，更愿意放弃经济利益。具体来说，我们假设个体避免腐败的行为受到以下两个因素的影响：（1）他们越认可正直（廉洁）作为受保护的价值观；（2）他们的诚实-谦逊水平越高。两步实验的结果在很大程度上支持了我们的预期：将对正直的妥协视为不可接受的人不太愿意接受贿赂，而诚实-谦逊则降低了贿赂的给予。研究结果对人口统计学变量（如年龄、性别、文化背景）和其他个人特征（如风险承受能力、倾向贪婪）具有稳健性，对正在进行的理论构建努力和商业实践具有重要意义。
