Posted on: Monday, September 10, 2001

Integrity lacking at work, survey finds

Indianapolis Star

Workers say more than half of America's bosses lack integrity.

But those same workers have their own ethical lapses, with less than two in five saying they report misconduct when they see it.

Those are among the findings of a national workplace study conducted by Indianapolis-based Walker Information, and they are virtually unchanged from a similar survey conducted in 1999.

"My take on it is that integrity is a top-down, not a bottom-up, value," said Marc Drizin, one of Walker's lead researchers. "So if the senior managers don't exhibit high integrity, their employees aren't going to do the right thing, either."

The findings are based on a survey of 2,795 workers in business, government and nonprofit organizations. The survey was conducted in June and July in 48 states.

One conflicting development since the 1999 study is that workers are expressing more comfort in reporting unethical behavior even though they are no more likely to actually do so.

Forty-four percent said workers feel comfortable reporting misconduct, compared with 33 percent in 1999.

"I think that's a reflection that fewer workers fear retribution, but they don't go ahead and report it because they don't believe anything is going to be done about it," Drizin said.

Other findings:

• Only 48 percent of workers believe senior managers are people of high personal integrity.

• About 46 percent believe ethics problems at work are dealt with completely and fairly.

• Only 39 percent would report unethical behavior when they encounter it.

Unfair treatment of employees was cited as the most common ethical gaffe, followed by personal use of company resources and other forms of theft. Workers ranked the insurance and banking industries as having the highest degree of integrity, while transportation ranked last.