When does preferential treatment become bribery? At what point does friendly banter become sexual harassment? How does a joke become bullying? Traditional views on unethical behaviour in business have focused on fixing errors of judgement by teaching people how to think better. Bad things are done by bad people who either lack character, have poor values or are affected by greed. The solution is more training and education in values and ethics along with character building exercises.
This makes sense if unethical behaviour is the result of conscious reasoning, however new research in the fields of social psychology and neurocognitive science indicate that this may not be the case. Social psychology experiments show that we are often unaware of the moral aspects of behaviours and associated decisions and that contextual factors can change incrementally so that we are blind to ethical dilemmas. Slowly our ‘norms’ change such that what would once be considered unethical behaviour now becomes business as usual. In this ‘blind’ state research in the field of neurocognitive science indicates that we then make decisions sub consciously by simply pattern matching to past behaviours.
Conscious reasoning then acts like a lawyer defending a client by justifying the actions taken post event. The field of criminology gives some insight into how this process works. Instead of bad outcomes being created by bad people with ill intent, bad outcomes can be created by good people who have used justifications to neutralise their morals. Common moral neutralisations include; ‘It’s not my responsibility’ – e.g. to stand up against workplace bullies; ‘It’s not hurting anyone’ – e.g. preferential client treatment; ‘They deserve it’ – e.g. sexual innuendo directed at an attractive or flirtatious woman; ‘I deserve it’ – e.g. raiding the office stationary cabinet; ‘Everyone else is doing it’ – e.g. giving gifts to prospective clients to gain favour; ‘Appeal to higher loyalties’ – e.g. I’m doing it for the company to justify bribery; and, ‘You think I’m bad but you should see them’ – e.g. why it’s ok to return fire with regard to bullying or workplace harassment.
Of significance is that fact that these moral neutralisations are present before the unethical behaviour takes place – in other words people have them in the back of their mind to justify their behaviour. The prevalence of these moral neutralisations in the workplace can create an environment where it is easy for a good person to cross the ethics line without even being aware of it.