The individual and situational factors predicting unethical behaviour in the workplace : a direct and conceptual replication of Jones & Kavanagh (1996)

Tools

Evans, Thomas Rhys and Bartlett, James Edward and Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, Amelie and Allen, Tim and Antoniou, Georgia and Arent, Sara and Asmarani, Dea and Binns, Neelo and Boulton, Clara and Bowhay, Joshua and Cederlund, Linnea and Chana, Ramnik and Chou, Yu Yang and Dookheea, Kevina and Guglani, Gurbani and Hamson-Ford, Abi and Hood, Holly and Hostafci, Eci Balim and Jahanzeb, Suha and Jones, Kaylie and Joseph, Gemma Katie M and Kemalesh, Tephilla and Karoui, Lamiss-Roya and Khan, Soha and Kviatkoyskyte, Renata and Lee, Jing Xuan and Lewis, Rahimah and Logan, Odelia and Martin, Georgia and Masuleh, Samaneh Vahedi Moghadam and McCulloch, Rebecca and Modi, Pragya and Nakro, Susan and Nguyen, Vy and Phan, Minh and Philcox, Edward and Pliego, Ana B and Raman, Sasha and Ramji, Anusha Vaithianathan and Ramsay, Anna M. H. and Rhone-Parkinson, Natasha E and Rizzo-Powell, Tayla and Simony, Attila and Sobolak, Roksana A and Thompson, Maia and Ujobundo, Believe and Vijayakumar, Bhagyashree and Wells-Dean, Natalja and Wernick, Michaela Natasha and Wood, Gemma and Yang, Chan Young and Zahid, Zareen and Addicott, Colleen and Bending, Hazel and Bradford, Elisabeth E. F. and Branney, Peter Edward and Butler, Joanna and Chu, Irene and Clark, Oliver and Dean, Laura and Griep, Yannick and Hatton, Tom and Heard, Caroline and Kowalczyk, Olivia and Lautarescu, Alexandra and McCarthy, Tony and More, Kimberly R and Sabo, John and Schleu, Joyce Elena and Scholarios, Dora and Searle, Rosalind and Sebah, Ilham and Wallis, Laura and Wang, Ruijie and Wilson-Lemoine, Jérémy E. and Wilson-Lemoine, Emma and Burns, Calvin (2025) The individual and situational factors predicting unethical behaviour in the workplace : a direct and conceptual replication of Jones & Kavanagh (1996). Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology, 8 (1-3). pp. 20-52. ISSN 2374-3611 (https://doi.org/10.1080/23743603.2025.2507434)

[thumbnail of Evans-etal-2025-The-individual-and-situational-factors-predicting-unethical-behaviour-in-the-workplace]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Evans-etal-2025-The-individual-and-situational-factors-predicting-unethical-behaviour-in-the-workplace.pdf
Final Published Version
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 logo
Download (2MB)| Preview

Abstract

Intentions to act unethically in the workplace are purported to be driven by a number of situational and individual factors. Across two seminal vignette experiments, Jones and Kavanagh reported inconsistent effect sizes for manager and peer influence and locus of control, consistent significant effects for work quality and Machiavellianism, and consistent non-significant effects for gender. Using an innovative multi-site collaboration, the current Registered Report represents a direct replication of these experiments (N = 2218), and adds a longitudinal conceptual replication capturing self-reported unethical work behaviour (N = 1747). Both replications found a consistent small effect of having a more external locus of control and male identity, and a consistent moderate effect of machiavellianism, for increasing unethical intentions and behaviour. The situational factors, whilst consistent in direction with that of the original study, varied more substantively in effect size. Our results highlight the value of multi-site collaborations and different replication types in developing conceptual, methodological, measurement and theoretical clarity to ensure future works can progress more rapidly to minimize the negative impacts of unethical workplace behaviour and improve individual’s working lives. All materials, code and data for this project can be found here: osf.io/d3arx.

ORCID iDs

Evans, Thomas Rhys, Bartlett, James Edward, Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, Amelie, Allen, Tim, Antoniou, Georgia, Arent, Sara, Asmarani, Dea, Binns, Neelo, Boulton, Clara, Bowhay, Joshua, Cederlund, Linnea, Chana, Ramnik, Chou, Yu Yang, Dookheea, Kevina, Guglani, Gurbani, Hamson-Ford, Abi, Hood, Holly, Hostafci, Eci Balim, Jahanzeb, Suha, Jones, Kaylie, Joseph, Gemma Katie M, Kemalesh, Tephilla, Karoui, Lamiss-Roya, Khan, Soha, Kviatkoyskyte, Renata, Lee, Jing Xuan, Lewis, Rahimah, Logan, Odelia, Martin, Georgia, Masuleh, Samaneh Vahedi Moghadam, McCulloch, Rebecca, Modi, Pragya, Nakro, Susan, Nguyen, Vy, Phan, Minh, Philcox, Edward, Pliego, Ana B, Raman, Sasha, Ramji, Anusha Vaithianathan, Ramsay, Anna M. H., Rhone-Parkinson, Natasha E, Rizzo-Powell, Tayla, Simony, Attila, Sobolak, Roksana A, Thompson, Maia, Ujobundo, Believe, Vijayakumar, Bhagyashree, Wells-Dean, Natalja, Wernick, Michaela Natasha, Wood, Gemma, Yang, Chan Young, Zahid, Zareen, Addicott, Colleen, Bending, Hazel, Bradford, Elisabeth E. F., Branney, Peter Edward, Butler, Joanna ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9445-2419, Chu, Irene, Clark, Oliver, Dean, Laura, Griep, Yannick, Hatton, Tom, Heard, Caroline, Kowalczyk, Olivia, Lautarescu, Alexandra, McCarthy, Tony ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2757-7718, More, Kimberly R, Sabo, John, Schleu, Joyce Elena, Scholarios, Dora ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3962-3016, Searle, Rosalind, Sebah, Ilham, Wallis, Laura, Wang, Ruijie, Wilson-Lemoine, Jérémy E., Wilson-Lemoine, Emma and Burns, Calvin;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)