Demographic Differences in Professional Ethcial Behavior

People define ethical behavior in different ways, especially in a professional environment. For most, ethical behavior is determined by what society and people generally consider acceptable and honest. This study focused on whether age affects one’s idea of professional behavior. We created a survey that described workplace scenarios relating to ethical behavior, and asked respondents to express how much they disagree or agree with the action taken in the scenarios using a 7-point scale. We also collected demographic data such as age, income, and occupation. In total, we received 364 responses of which 305 were complete. We divided the responses into two groups and used the statistical software tool R to look for correlations between the responses to the survey questions. The results of that calculation were inconclusive, so next we performed a test of means to determine if the means of the responses to the questions were equal between the two age groups. Our results showed that the groups had a statistically significant difference in their responses on questions regarding interactions with coworkers. However, we did not detect any statistically significant differences among the other survey questions, and we concluded that the wide variation in responses may be caused by other variables not tested in this study. Our results hint that there are differing views between each generation, and businesses should recognize the possible shifts in the rising generation’s concept of ethical behavior. This may signal a need to change codes of ethics for the upcoming employees.