Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/261890 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] BRQ Business Research Quarterly [ISSN:] 2340-9436 [Volume:] 24 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] Sage Publishing [Place:] London [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 19-33
Publisher: 
Sage Publishing, London
Abstract: 
This research focuses on the role of gender and physical attractiveness in judging severity of unethical workplace behavior. Scenarios with possible ethical dilemmas (commonly referred to as "gray areas" of behavior) were displayed to 4,483 subjects. Our findings show that "gray area" behavior was evaluated as more ethical if performed by male employees compared with women. We also found that attractiveness moderated the connection between gender and tolerance toward unethical work behavior. People judge more severely the same unethical action by plain-looking employees rather than attractive-looking employees, in accordance with the attractiveness-leniency effect-but only for women perpetrators. The physical attributes of men were not found to be relevant. We explore a number of explanations for this discrimination based on Expectation States Theory and Social Role Theory.
Subjects: 
Ethical judgment
gender
evaluation biases
physical attraction (PA)
unethical work behavior
JEL: 
C91
J71
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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