Attitudes to typical ethical issues

Based on the findings from the interviews, the author created the list of the most common behaviors, which individuals may exhibit at work, which may be perceived unethically, and addressed the issues to the respondents to understand their attitude to those kinds of behavior and motivation behind. The following typical acts were discussed with the participants: lying, talking behind the back (backstabbing), and misuse of working time for personal matters. The author tried to obtain the perspective of the both sides and understand the reasons forming the attitudes.

It was found out that for the majority of the subordinates lying turned out to be not purely unethical, and they imagined substantial amount of justifying reasons, why the act of lying could be considered by them as ethical. Despite generally agreeing to the fact that lying in general is not ethical, they were convinced that it is contingent upon the consequences, intentions and particular situation.

“It depends. If the truth could hurt people, then some kind of lying is ethical.

But it depends on the situation and on the intentions. If they are good, then it is fine. I guess if they are not good, it is unethical. I know that there are thoughts that it is never good and blah blah but sometimes it can be actually ethical to try not to tell the truth, so as not to not hurt the person, right? Yes, because sometimes you can lie and then think about the answer more and then you can put it in a way that will not hurt them, for example. And then it will be truthful in the future.” (Respondent Filip)

“Of course, lying is never a good thing. But if it doesn't break any rules or policies of the company, if it does not cause any bad impact to any of the parties, I think that It might be sometimes ethical. I wouldn't say that I am in favor or I approve it, but if it does not break any rules, does not have any impact, and sometimes you need to do it, for instance, when you need to do the report, and you did not do it, instead of admitting that it was your fault, you find some excuse. It is not the best way, I cannot say I like it, but overall, I would say that sometimes it might be.” (Respondent Alex)

“Well, there's vast amounts of situations where lying is absolutely fine. Well, it comes from where you just have things which are not to be disclosed as such. Like from the matter of things. So that's one which is fine. Then there is If you stole something and you're going to get caught, just get it. So if you're lying, but sometimes lying is a form of truth...I like that person and telling them truth about things, you see a friend and you don't say like, oh my God, you look like a shit today and sometimes you do. But when you don't want to make them feel even worse, you don't say that. And it's not like you could consider it as lying from one perspective and from other perspective.

It's like I like the person and so I'm not going to throw the truth in their face”

(Respondent Radek)

“Lying is also the part of the work. Sometimes it can happen that someone is going to lie to another person, as was mentioned, talking to the back of the people, sometimes like some of the subordinates, like if something is wrong or, you know, like something we're discussing between the team, they can run towards the manager and tell everything to the manager. It's also things like super unethical towards your teammates, just in your face.” (Respondent Žaneta)

“To me personally, no. But to someone else in order to achieve the greater goal, I don't know if you're trying to execute something. Like we are talking about companies. Right? So, if you're trying to execute something within the company and, you know, there's this bulletproof guy and he doesn't want to hear anything and if you say him some sweet words, he will say, yes, you can do this thing, this is amazing. And probably. Yes, lying can be justified. It

depends whether you're lying about what they're trying to do.” (Respondent Lukas)

At the same moment, all of the people that held positions of manager/supervisor with no regards to their nationality claimed that lying in the context of work environment cannot be justified and is absolutely unethical act. Nevertheless, their strict attitude towards lying was attributed purely to the work environment, and they did not see any huge issues with regards to lying in daily life.

“If lying can be ethical, you mean, the white lies. I think there is really dependency on the situation in terms of where you are. In a working environment, I would say that lying is unethical in basically every incident.

In personal situation, sometimes white lie... And I'm parent myself as well, so sometimes the white lie... I do not lose sleep over it. But in the work environment, I would say that the lying is unethical in every instance and I don't see justification for it.” (Respondent Michal)

“Well, it depends what kind of lie it is, small lie...I mean, of course, I would say that in general, it is not ethical. I don't like it. I don't do it myself. But if if it's something small just to prevent some big issue, then I guess it all depends on the situation. In 95 percent I would say that no, it's not ethical. I don't like it. I would rather prefer just to come to me, say to me directly, whatever you've done or whatever you think, and just go ahead and we'll deal with it if it's something small and like, inconsiderable. And it would make my life easier. And I would prefer rather not to know about it. And I'm thinking about it like not only about work, but also, it's not only about work, but also private life then. Yeah, I mean it's ok.” (Respondent Yanina)

“No, no, no. To. For me lying is not ethical at all in any context or situation”

(Respondent Michaela) 4.6.2. Backstabbing

It was curious to find out that despite the wide acceptance of the fact that backstabbing as the example of unethical behavior, the majority of the respondents admitted that it is quiet natural for human being so act so, and only one respondent emphasized his extremely negative attitude towards backstabbing commenting on it as on the practice that he would never accept, support, and would always be trying to get rid of.

“It was just blaming someone just because they knew that no one would come to that guy. I did not like it because even though I understand that sometimes all of us would like to blame someone, so no one comes to us, but I just did not like blaming the back of the person, who would not even find it out.”

(Respondent Oleg)

The rest of the participants responded in the very similar way to the question.

“Yes, I think takes place definitely, because especially in the office environment, we have groups of the people who always talk about something and other people as well or something happened, and they want to discuss it. I would not say it is really something unethical. I think even if you talk behind the back of a person, it does not mean you are talking something bad about the person. (Respondent Alex)

“I think it is very natural for everyone.” (Respondent Michaela)

“I do not think it is ethical, but I guess everybody is doing that.” (Respondent Filip)

4.6.3. Misusing working time for personal matters

The very similar trend as with lying could be traced with the using working time for the personal matters. People in supervisor positions (both nations) emphasized the importance of the working time, admitting the possibility to adjust owing to some unexpected circumstances or personal issues. Nevertheless, they did not agree with the proposition of insignificance of observing working hours depending on the status of the work completion. Whereas the people in purely subordinate positions insisted on the completion of the work as determination of the distinguishing between ethical and unethical usage of working time for other matter.

“So, I understand your question, like during the work time, if I will be dealing with personal matters. Well, I also think that, you know, we are not married to our companies and our companies are not our families. And so, it is good to keep the lives in the first place. And after that comes the loyalty to the company. So, you try your best, but, you know, you have to look after yourself.” (Respondent Radek)

“It is not only ethical, it is important. It must be done, especially now on the current situation, working time is again a tricky question. So, we enjoy the

just think of it from a human perspective. If we work together, and I know that you have a problem. Right. And they know that you cannot use working time for personal, if your performance is impacted by unsolved issues elsewhere. I better give you the time to solve those issues and wait for you to come back with full power when you are ready rather than suffer you, suffer me. The whole quality is not what we are used to. It is better to be honest than say: Max, I need these three days to come back to my normal because I am tired. I have my whatever. Unsolved issues have an immediate impact on your ability to deliver to my patient. And I do not want you to suffer. So, I say with let us do this like this. We plan, we delay, we agree. Maybe I say, OK, not three days, but OK, maybe tomorrow. And then we have a dialogue.

What is going to be much worse is that when they expect something, you know, that you cannot make it, but you still say, yes, I will do it and you don't do it. We'll do it halfway, then we have a problem. Then you actually acted unethically towards me.” (Respondent Maxim)