Ethics and Religion

ABSTRACT. Although it seems that ethics and faith should be think, past research suggests mixed conclusions on the relationship. We argue that such mixed results are mostly due to methodological and conceptual limitations. We develop hypotheses railroad tieing Cornwall et al. s (1986, Review of Religious Research, 27(3) 266244) sacred components to individuals willingness to justify estimablely suspect behaviors. Using data on 63,087 individuals from 44 countries, we find support for three hypotheses the cognitive, one affective, and the behavioral component of religion are negatively related to thics. Surprisingly, one aspect of the cognitive component (i. e. , belief in religion) shows no relationship. Implications for research and practice are discussed. KEY WORDS religion, ethics, cross-national study Introduction The link amid religion and ethics seems obvious (Tittle and Wlech, 1983 Weaver and Agle, 2002). Religions, through the determine they embody, often build the bas is for what is considered right and wrong (Turner, 1997). Religion produces both courtly and informal norms and provides people with a freedom/constraint duality by prescribing behaviors ithin some acceptable boundaries (Fararo and Skvoretz, 1986). Such norms, values, and beliefs are often codified into a religious code such as the Bible or the Koran. In Christian religions, for instance, the Ten Commandments provide a broad basis of codified honest rules that accept Christians must K. Praveen Parboteeah (Ph. D. Washington State University) is an Associate Professor of International Management in the Department of Management, University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Parboteeahs research interests include international management, ethics, religion and engineering science and nnovation management. He has published articles in numerous academic journals including Academy of Management diary, Organization Science, Decision Sciences, Small Group Research, Journal of Business ethical mot ive, Journal of reality Business, Management International Review, International Journal of Human Resource Management, R&D Management and Journal of Engineering and Technology Management. Martin Hoegl (Ph. D. University of Karlsruhe, Ger more) is Professor at WHU Otto Beisheim work of Management, where he holds the Chair of Leadership and Human Resource Management.Before joining WHU, he served on the faculties of Washington State University and Bocconi University (Milan, Italy). His research interests include leadership and coaction in organizations, management of R&D personnel, knowledge creation in innovation processes, and the management of geographically dispersed collaboration. He has published in leadership international journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, the Journal of Management, Decision Sciences, and others. John B. Cullen is Professor of Management at Washington State University.He has also served on the faculties of the Univ ersity of Nebraska, the University of Rhode Island, Waseda and Keio Universities in Japan (as a Fulbright lecturer), and the Catholic University of Lille in France. Professor Cullen is the past president of the Western Academy of Management. Professor Cullen is the author or co-author of quartette books and over 60 journal articles. His publications have appeared in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Organizational Studies, Management InternationalReview, Journal of Vocational Behavior, American Journal of Sociology, Organizational Dynamics, and the Journal of World Business. He currently serves on the editorial get on with of the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies and has served on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal and Advances in International Comparative Management Journal. Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 80387398 Springer 2007 DOI 10. 1007/s10551-007-9439-8 follow in order to actualize what they believe in (e. g. , salvation). In turn, through daily exposure to orms, customs, laws, scripts, and practices, religions impart social members with values and produce expectational bonds or reciprocal expectations of predictability (Field, 1979) that eventually become taken for granted. Such values often provide guides for what are considered ethical behaviors for most of the humanitys religions (Fisher, 2001). Further more(prenominal), in societies where one or few religions are dominant, the overarching core values of these religions are likely to be mirrored in secular values of society (codified law or non-codified social norms), which regulate everyday activity and thical behavior. However, despite the above conceptual tie mingled with religions and ethics, research has provided mixed conclusions on the relationship (Tittle and Welch, 1983 Weaver and Agle, 2002). For instance, some studies have found no difference between religious and non-religious individuals on unethical behaviors such as dishonesty and deception (e. g. , Hood et al. , 1996 Smith et al. , 1975), while a negative relationship was found between use of illegal substances and individual religiousness (Khavari and Harmon, 1982). The results are no more authorised for studies linking religions to usiness ethics. For instance, Kidwell et al. (1987) found no relationship between religiosity and ethical judgments of managers while Agle and Van Buren (1999) found a small positive relationship between religious beliefs and corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, even studies linking marketing ethics with religiousness have found insignificant results (Vitell and Paolillo, 2003), whereby religiosity was found unrelated to consumer ethics. Taken together, the above supports Hood et al. s (1996 341) view of research between religion and ethics as something f a roller coaster ride and the difficulty to reach definitiv e conclusions about the relationship (Weaver and Agle, 2002). We, however, believe that the mixed results are mostly due to the following conceptual and methodological issues. First, most studies tend to consider only linear conceptualizations of religion, such as church attendance or religious affiliations (e. g. , Agle and Van Buren, 1999 Schwartz and Huisman, 1995). However, De Jong et al. s (1976) empirical test of the multidimensional view of religion clearly shows that religion seems far too complex an arena of human behavior as iverse and heterogeneous as human behavior not to include many contrastive and unrelated types of variables (Dittes, 1969 618). Therefore, it seems important to consider more multidimensional measures of religiosity to get a richer understanding of the relationship between ethics and religiosity. Second, even those studies that have considered two-fold dimensions have done so without regard for conceptual support for the choice of their dimensions (e. g. , Agle and Van Buren, 1999). In addition, some studies have even included numerous dimensions and chosen those dimensions hat fit their results (e. g. , Conroy and Emerson, 2004). We believe that it is crucial to consider theoretical models that guide the choice of dimensions. Third, most studies have considered only one religion (e. g. , Angelidis and Ibrahim, 2004 Conroy and Emerson, 2004). Given the similarities of what is considered ethical behavior by the major world religions (Fisher, 2001), we suggest considering cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of religiosity (rather than specific religious denominations) as predictors of ethics. Fourth, Weaver and Agle (2002) argue that many f the ethical measures have been attitudinal and may thus suffer from social desirability biases. It is therefore important to consider measures that do not elicit socially desirable responses. Finally, many studies have emphasized narrow, and for this subject matter, peculiar sam ples of undergraduate and MBA students (e. g. , Angelidis and Ibrahim, 2004 Conroy and Emerson, 2004 Kidwell et al. , 1987). Thus, in addition to issues of generalizability to wider populations, Tittle and Welch (1983) have also warned that student samples should be viewed with skepticism given the bureau of eligion at such ages. Research is needed using more comprehensive samples that target representative populations in terms of age and culture. Given the above, we investigate the relationships between multiple dimensions of religion and ethics. We use data from the World Values Survey (WVS) (2000) to examine how specific dimensions of religion (Weaver and Agle, 2002) are related to ethics and thus merged multiple religious denominations and multiple facets of the Kidwell, J. M. , R. E. Stevens and A. L. Bethke 1987, Differences in the Ethical Perceptions Between Male