Mendoza School of Business

Honestly, that’s not a very ethical way to do things

Published: October 1, 2011 / Author: Ross Gittins



The following article is an excerpt from The Age that discusses the book, Blind Spots, co-authored by Ann Tenbrunsel, the Rex and Alice A. Martin Professor of Business Ethics & Co-director Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide. To read the entire article
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Honestly, that’s not a very ethical way to do things

ANOTHER personal question: how honest are you? According to the people who study these things, not as honest as you think you are.

In an experiment in which people were asked to solve puzzles and were paid a set amount for each puzzle they solved, some participants were told to check their answers against an answer sheet, count the number of questions answered correctly, put their answer form through a shredder, report the number of questions they got right to the experimenter and receive the money they had earnt.

A second group wasn’t allowed to shred their answers before reporting how many they got right. Those whose claims about how many they got right couldn’t be checked claimed to have got significantly more correct than the second group.

This article also appeared in The Brisbane Times, Western Australia Today and The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Topics: Mendoza