Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct Scale (PEMS)

Abstract

The Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct Scale (PEMS; Mendez-Meggison, Jackson, & Hein, 2025) is a psychological instrument developed to evaluate how individuals perceive various forms of ethical misconduct within organizational settings. Initially developed with 60 items based on a 2014 report by the Ethics and Compliance Initiative that detailed 28 common unethical behaviors observed among U.S. workers, the scale was subsequently refined. Following rigorous factor analysis across diverse samples—including university students and Amazon Mechanical Turk participants—the final measure was reduced to a 16-item, single-factor structure. The PEMS is designed to be broadly applicable across various organizational contexts, and studies have confirmed strong results concerning its reliability and validity.

Keywords

Employee Perceptions, Ethical Behaviors, Unethical Behaviors, Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct, Employee Attitudes, Organizational Behavior, Business Ethics, Workplace Deviance, Organizational and Occupational Measures

Authors

Mendez-Meggison, Andrea C., Jackson, Alexander T., Hein, Michael B.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct Scale (PEMS) is to systematically assess an individual’s judgment regarding the ethicality of specific behaviors that occur in a work setting. By quantifying these perceptions, the scale provides a necessary tool for understanding variations in ethical standards among employees and across different organizational cultures.

This measurement is crucial for researchers and practitioners interested in organizational behavior, as it establishes a foundational measure for ethical climate studies, predicting workplace deviance, and evaluating the effectiveness of ethics training programs.

Construct

The PEMS measures the psychological construct of Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct. This construct reflects the degree to which an individual views a set of common, potentially problematic workplace behaviors as unethical or acceptable. The scale is rooted in the idea that employee attitudes regarding ethics are predictive of broader organizational outcomes and personal engagement in or tolerance of misconduct.

The final 16 items capture a unitary construct, suggesting that perceptions of various forms of unethical behavior—ranging from minor infractions (like lying on a timesheet) to significant breaches (like offering gifts to persuade clients)—are generally evaluated along a single continuum of perceived ethicality.

Validity

The scale demonstrates robust psychometric properties supporting its Construct validity, which was initially confirmed through factor analysis resulting in a strong single-factor solution.

Concurrent criterion-related validity was established through significant positive correlations between the PEMS scores and established measures of undesirable traits and behaviors. Specifically, high PEMS scores correlated positively with the Dirty Dozen scale (DD; Jonason & Webster, 2010), which measures the Dark Triad components, and with counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), as assessed by the Interpersonal and Organization Deviance Scale (IODS; Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Furthermore, findings indicated that the PEMS acts as a mediator in the relationship between psychopathy and the likelihood of engaging in CWBs.

Reliability

The PEMS exhibits acceptable to high levels of Internal consistency across the datasets utilized during its development. The calculated Cronbach’s α values for the 16-item scale demonstrated strong reliability, ranging from .63 to .97 across the different samples tested.

Factor Analysis

Both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were employed to refine the scale structure. The EFA successfully yielded a clear single-factor solution, which accounted for a substantial 57% of the total variance in the original items.

During the CFA phase, the final 16-item model demonstrated a moderate overall model fit based on established fit indices: RMSEA = .11, CFI = .91, and GFI = .86. The chi-square test was statistically significant, χ2 (100) = 699.07, p < .001. These results support the use of the PEMS as a unidimensional measure of perceived ethical misconduct.

Instrument

Test Type: Original Rating Scale

Format: Responses are chosen from a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “Very unethical” to “Very ethical.”

Language Available: English

Population Group: Human; Male; Female

Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older), spanning Young Adulthood (18-29 yrs), Thirties (30-39 yrs), Middle Age (40-64 yrs), and Aged (65 yrs & older).

Population Details:

• Age Range: 20–74

• Location: United States

• Respondents: University Students and Amazon Mechanical Turk Participants

Test Methodology: Test Validity, Concurrent Validity, Construct Validity, Criterion Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis

Keywords

Organizational Ethics, Perceptual Measures, Workplace Misconduct, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Employee Morality, Psychometric Scale Development, Deviant Behavior

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not Available

Affiliation Email addresses: Mendez-Meggison, Andrea C.: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Mendez-Meggison, Andrea C.: Middle Tennessee State University, Industrial Organization Psychology, 45 Powder Mill Road, Sudbury, Massachusetts, United States, 01776, [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Commercial: No

Fee: No

Permissions: Contact Publisher

Test Year: 2025

Reference’s

Mendez-Meggison, A. C., Jackson, A. T., & Hein, M. B. (2025). Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct Scale development. Ethics & Behavior, 35(1), 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2024.2306125

Jonason, P. K., & Webster, G. D. (2010). The Dirty Dozen: A concise measure of the Dark Triad. Psychological Assessment, 22(2), 420–432.

Bennett, R. J., & Robinson, S. L. (2000). Development of a measure of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3), 349–360.

Items of the Perceptions of Ethical Misconduct Scale (PEMS)

Instructions: Below is a list of work-related behaviors. Please rate the extent to which you feel each behavior is unethical or ethical.

Response Scale:

1. Very unethical

2. Moderately unethical

3. Slightly unethical

4. Neither ethical nor unethical

5. Slightly ethical

6. Moderately ethical

7. Very ethical

Final Items:

1. Insulting a supervisor

2. Making jokes about age at work

3. Lying to customers to make a sale

4. Stretching the truth with customers

5. Having a beer at work

6. Smoking marijuana before work

7. Taking items from work

8. Lying on a timesheet

9. Lying to get a benefit offered by my company

10. Knowingly providing bad service to customers

11. Telling people about customers’ personal information

12. Discussing customers’ personal information with friends

13. Accepting gifts from clients

14. Offering gifts to persuade suppliers

15. Offering gifts to persuade clients

16. Having conflicts of interest at work

Original Items (60 items):

1. Lying to a coworker

2. Lying to a supervisor

3. Lying to a subordinate

4. Insulting a coworker

5. Insulting a supervisor

6. Insulting a subordinate

7. Using the internet at work to access social media websites

8. Making non-work-related purchases on the internet at work

9. Looking at pornography at work

10. Making jokes about race at work

11. Making sexual jokes at work

12. Making jokes about age at work

13. Making jokes about a coworker at work

14. Cutting corners on the job to be more efficient

15. Fudging the hours worked

16. Lying to customers to make a sale

17. Stretching the truth with customers

18. Getting someone back for wrongdoings

19. Not wearing all of the required safety equipment

20. Not following all of the safety regulations

21. Excluding someone from a work-related event because of their race

22. Excluding someone from a work-related event because of their sex

23. Excluding someone from a work-related event because of their sexual orientation

24. Excluding someone from a work-related event because of their ethnicity

25. Excluding someone from a work-related event because of their age

26. Having a beer at work

27. Having a cocktail at work

28. Going to work drunk

29. Smoking marijuana before work

30. Smoking marijuana at work

31. Doing drugs before work

32. Doing drugs at work

33. Taking office supplies from work

34. Taking items from work

35. Taking food from work

36. Lying on a timesheet

37. Lying to get a benefit offered by my company

38. Abusing other workers

39. Stretching hours to get overtime

40. Intentionally not performing well at work

41. Withholding effort at work

42. Knowingly providing bad service to customers

43. Having sex with coworkers

44. Having sex with subordinates

45. Having sex with supervisors

46. Using sex to get ahead at work

47. Manipulating coworkers with sex

48. Telling people about customers’ personal information

49. Discussing customers’ personal information with friends

50. Discussing customers’ personal information with family

51. Fudging company records

52. Fudging company invoices

53. Fudging sales numbers

54. Accepting gifts from customers

55. Accepting gifts from suppliers

56. Accepting gifts from clients

57. Offering gifts to persuade customers

58. Offering gifts to persuade suppliers

59. Offering gifts to persuade clients

60. Having conflicts of interest at work