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Factors Affecting Ethical Attitudes in Mainland China and Hong Kong

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Abstract

In this article, we analyzed the effect of various factors on moral judgment and ethical attitudes of working persons. It was found that the effect of various socio-demographic factors on ethical attitudes varied between the two different categories of ethical issues under study, issues which involve explicit violation of laws vis-à-vis issues which involved social concerns. Our results did not support the implication of Callahan’s hypothesis that males are more sensitive to rule-based ethical issues while women are to issues involving social concerns; it was found that females have a lower acceptability of unethical behaviors related to both categories of issues in Hong Kong, whereas gender effect was not statistically significant in Mainland China. University education also had no significant effect on ethical attitudes. Religion played an important role in affecting ethical attitudes, however, its effect varied with different types of religions; Christianity was found to be most favorable to higher ethical standards, but people of traditional Chinese religion had a higher acceptability of unethical behaviors involving social concerns compared to people with no religion. Our finding also indicated that employees in state-owned enterprises, private employees, employees in foreign-investment firms, and employers in Mainland China all had a higher acceptability of unethical law-breaking behaviors compared to workers in collectives, throwing doubt on the validity of convergence theory in Mainland China.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Pak-Wai Liu, Judy Gay, John Gay, Alex Michalos and other participants of the 2006 World Business Ethics Forum for valuable comments. Part of the research was done when the first author was visiting Harvard-Yenching Institute; the generous support of the Institute is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Hong Kong Baptist University, Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Kit-Chun Lam & Guicheng Shi

  2. Faculty of Management and Administration, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China

    Guicheng Shi

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  1. Kit-Chun Lam
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  2. Guicheng Shi
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Correspondence to Kit-Chun Lam.

Additional information

Kit-Chun LAM is Professor in Department of Economics of the Hong Kong Baptist Universty. she is also Guest professor in the Centre for Business Ethics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Labor Economics, Canadian Joural of Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Economica and Labour Economics. Guicheng Shi is Assistant Professor in Faculty of Management and Administration of Macau University of Science and Technology

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Lam, KC., Shi, G. & Shi, G. Factors Affecting Ethical Attitudes in Mainland China and Hong Kong. J Bus Ethics 77, 463–479 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9360-1

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