Can we commit future managers to honesty?
Nicolas Jacquemet
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 12676
- IdHAL : nicolas-jacquemet
- ORCID : 0000-0002-5056-9225
- IdRef : 103289860
Stéphane Luchini
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 742445
- IdHAL : stephane-luchini
- ORCID : 0000-0003-2721-0529
- IdRef : 059505621
J Rosaz
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 17069
- IdHAL : julie-rosaz
- ORCID : 0000-0003-4653-5310
- IdRef : 15096742X
Résumé
In a competitive business environment, dishonesty can pay. Self-interested executives and managers can have incentive to shade the truth for personal gain. In response, the business community has considered how to commit these executives and managers to a higher ethical standard. The MBA Oath and the Dutch Bankers Oath are examples of such a commitment device. The question we test herein is whether the oath can be used as an effective form of ethics management for future executives/managers-who for our experiment we recruited from a leading French business school-by actually improving their honesty. Using a classic Sender-Receiver strategic game experiment, we reinforce professional identity by pre-selecting the group to which Receivers belong. This allows us to determine whether taking the oath deters lying among future managers. Our results suggest "yes and no." We observe that these future executives/managers who took a solemn honesty oath as a Sender were (a) significantly more likely to tell the truth when the lie was detrimental to the Receiver, but (b) were not more likely to tell the truth when the lie was mutually beneficial to both the Sender and Receiver. A joint product of our design is our ability to measure in-group bias in lying behavior in our population of subjects (comparing behavior of subjects in the same and different business schools). The experiment provides clear evidence of a lack of such bias.
Domaines
Economies et financesFormat du dépôt | Fichier |
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Type de dépôt | Article dans une revue |
Titre |
en
Can we commit future managers to honesty?
|
Résumé |
en
In a competitive business environment, dishonesty can pay. Self-interested executives and managers can have incentive to shade the truth for personal gain. In response, the business community has considered how to commit these executives and managers to a higher ethical standard. The MBA Oath and the Dutch Bankers Oath are examples of such a commitment device. The question we test herein is whether the oath can be used as an effective form of ethics management for future executives/managers-who for our experiment we recruited from a leading French business school-by actually improving their honesty. Using a classic Sender-Receiver strategic game experiment, we reinforce professional identity by pre-selecting the group to which Receivers belong. This allows us to determine whether taking the oath deters lying among future managers. Our results suggest "yes and no." We observe that these future executives/managers who took a solemn honesty oath as a Sender were (a) significantly more likely to tell the truth when the lie was detrimental to the Receiver, but (b) were not more likely to tell the truth when the lie was mutually beneficial to both the Sender and Receiver. A joint product of our design is our ability to measure in-group bias in lying behavior in our population of subjects (comparing behavior of subjects in the same and different business schools). The experiment provides clear evidence of a lack of such bias.
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Auteur(s) |
Nicolas Jacquemet
1, 2
, Stéphane Luchini
3
, J Rosaz
4
, J F Shogren
5
1
PSE -
Paris School of Economics
( 301309 )
- 48 boulevard Jourdan 75014 Paris
- France
2
CES -
Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne
( 15080 )
- Maison des Sciences Économiques - 106-112 Boulevard de l'Hôpital - 75647 Paris Cedex 13
- France
3
AMSE -
Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques
( 526949 )
- 5-9 Boulevard Bourdet
CS 50498
13205 Marseille Cedex 1
- France
4
GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne -
Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne
( 1169842 )
- 93, chemin des Mouilles 69130 Écully 6, rue Basse des Rives 42023 Saint-Étienne cedex 02
- France
5
UW -
University of Wyoming
( 303412 )
- 1000 E. University Ave. Laramie, WY 82071
- États-Unis
|
Date de publication électronique |
2021-08-13
|
Date de publication |
2021-08
|
Volume |
12
|
Page/Identifiant |
2785
|
URL éditeur |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701627
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Langue du document |
Anglais
|
Nom de la revue |
|
Vulgarisation |
Non
|
Comité de lecture |
Oui
|
Audience |
Internationale
|
Données associées | |
Projet(s) ANR |
|
Mots-clés (JEL) |
|
Financement |
|
Domaine(s) |
|
Mots-clés |
en
Commitment, Lying, In-group bias
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DOI | 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701627 |
Origine :
Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
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