Individual Beliefs About Organizational Ethics

Abstract

The Individual Beliefs About Organizational Ethics (IBOE) measure, developed by Froelich and Kottke (1991), is a 10-item instrument designed to quantify the degree to which employees accept or support behaviors within an organization that may violate established organizational ethics or broader societal norms. The measure is structured around two primary dimensions. The first dimension, called Support for the Company, assesses acceptance of actions such as engaging in questionable business practices or falsifying documents. The second dimension, Protect the Company, evaluates the perceived acceptability of employees lying to stakeholders (customers, supervisors, or co-workers) for the benefit of the organization. While multidimensional, the IBOE has also been successfully employed as a single, composite indicator reflecting an employee’s overall lack of acceptance of ethically dubious behaviors that serve organizational gain (Mudrack et al., 1999).

Keywords

organizational ethics, employee beliefs, ethical behavior, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, psychological measurement, Froelich and Kottke.

Authors

K. S. Froelich, J. L. Kottke.

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the IBOE scale is to provide researchers and practitioners with a reliable instrument for assessing individual differences in the acceptance of organizationally beneficial but ethically questionable conduct. It specifically measures the perceived necessity or acceptability of compromising ethical principles for the sake of organizational success, competitive advantage, or protection.

This scale is crucial for understanding the ethical climate within an organization and predicting employee compliance with potentially unethical directives. By differentiating between ‘supporting’ and ‘protecting’ the company through unethical means, the scale offers nuanced insights into employee moral reasoning in the workplace.

Construct

The scale measures the construct of Individual Beliefs About Organizational Ethics, which is defined as an employee’s cognitive framework regarding the permissible boundaries of ethical behavior when those boundaries conflict with the perceived needs or goals of the organization. This construct is explicitly split into two related, yet distinct, factors.

• Support for the Company: This dimension assesses the extent to which an employee justifies or rationalizes actions that violate ethical norms (e.g., deceit, falsification, prioritizing profit over safety) when done to support the company’s operational objectives or competitive standing.
• Protect the Company: This dimension focuses on the acceptance of lying or concealment directed at internal or external stakeholders (supervisors, co-workers, customers) specifically for the purpose of safeguarding the organization from negative consequences or exposure.

Validity

The validity of the IBOE has been established through correlations with several key organizational and psychological variables. Froelich and Kottke (1991) demonstrated good discriminant validity, finding that both the Support for the Company and Protect the Company dimensions were empirically distinct from general organizational commitment and job satisfaction.

In terms of convergent validity, both dimensions correlated positively with employee tenure and organizational commitment. Furthermore, when used as a composite measure (lack of acceptance of ethically dubious actions), the scale showed positive correlations with equity sensitivity and age, and the unacceptability of gaining self-benefits at the expense of the company. Conversely, the composite measure correlated negatively with internal locus of control, social responsibility, and the Protestant work ethic (Mudrack et al., 1999), supporting its theoretical position as a measure of ethical boundary acceptance.

Reliability

The IBOE demonstrates strong internal consistency across its dimensions and as a composite score, supporting its reliability for psychological measurement in organizational settings. The internal consistency estimates, calculated using Coefficient Alpha, are well above the conventional threshold of .70.

• The Support for the Company subscale achieved a Coefficient Alpha of .84 (Froelich & Kottke, 1991).
• The Protect the Company subscale achieved a Coefficient Alpha of .82 (Froelich & Kottke, 1991).
• When utilized as a single, 10-item composite measure, the scale maintained high reliability, yielding a Coefficient Alpha of .82 (Mudrack et al., 1999).

Factor Analysis

The original development by Froelich and Kottke (1991) suggests a two-factor structure. The 10 items are clearly partitioned into the Support for the Company factor (6 items) and the Protect the Company factor (4 items). This two-dimensional model reflects the distinction between general operational compromise and active concealment or deception aimed at organizational protection.

Although the scale is psychometrically sound when analyzed as two distinct factors, subsequent research (e.g., Mudrack et al., 1999) has utilized the scale successfully as a unidimensional measure, implying a high degree of correlation between the two factors, representing a general propensity toward accepting ethically ambiguous organizational behavior.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire / Attitudinal scale.

Format: 10 items utilizing a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Language Available: English (Original research source).

Population Group: Employees, organizational members, working adults.

Age Group: Adult (Implied by the context of organizational tenure and employment).

Population Details: Originally developed and tested on employed populations in the United States.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with statements regarding organizational behaviors. Scoring uses a 7-point scale where 1 = strongly agree and 7 = strongly disagree. Higher scores generally indicate a greater lack of acceptance of ethically dubious behaviors (i.e., higher ethical standards).

Keywords

ethics scale, organizational behavior, employee attitudes, moral reasoning, corporate misconduct, psychological assessment, Froelich, Kottke.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1991.

Permissions: Items were originally published in Educational and Psychological Measurement and are reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc. Researchers should consult Sage Publications regarding current usage rights and licensing fees.

Fee: Not specified in source; typically requires journal or publisher permission.

Reference’s

Froelich, K. S., & Kottke, J. L. (1991). Measuring individual beliefs about organizational ethics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 51, 377-383. Copyright© 1991 by Sage Publications, Inc.

Mudrack, P. E., Mason, E. S., & Shoaf, V. (1999). The individual beliefs about organizational ethics scale: Replication and refinement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59, 673-679.

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Items of the Individual Beliefs About Organizational Ethics

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Responses are obtained using a 7-point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly agree and 7 = strongly disagree.

Support for the company items:

1. It is okay for a supervisor to ask an employee to support someone else’s incorrect viewpoint
2. It is sometimes necessary for the company to engage in shady practices because the competition is doing so
3. An employee should overlook someone else’s wrongdoings if it is in the best interest of the company
4. A supervisor should not care how results are achieved as long as the desired outcome occurs
5. There is nothing wrong with a supervisor asking an employee to falsify a document
6. Profits should be given a higher priority than the safety of a product

Protecting the company items:

1. An employee may need to lie to a co-worker to protect the company
2. An employee may need to lie to a supervisor/manager to protect the company
3. An employee may need to lie to another company’s representative to protect the company
4. An employee may need to lie to a customer/client to protect the company