Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics 2010, 3 (6), 71-84.

An Important Antecedent of Ethical /

Unethical Behavior: Religiosity
Muzaffer AYDEMİR*, Özüm EĞİLMEZ **

Abstract
In This study, we aimed to explore the relationship between religiosity and business
ethics. Two dimensions of religiosity – intrinsic and extrinsic- were studied. We have
tested two hypotheses related to the relationship between religiosity and ethical
attitudes.
In our study, we surveyed 510 managers from 6 different organizations in Turkey.
Our survey instruments have three parts. First part included 24-vignette ethics scale
of Barnett and Brown (1994). Second part included 11-item religiosity scale of
Allport and Ross (1967). Third part contained various demographic measures.
Findings of the study show that intrinsic religiosity is partly and positively related
with ethical attitudes and extrinsic religiosity is partly and negatively related to the
ethical attitudes. In other words, intrinsically motivated people are more prone to
behave ethically than extrinsically motivated people are.
Keywords: Religiosity, ethical attitudes, business ethics.
JEL Classification Codes: M1, M12, M14.

* Associate Professor, PhD, Bilecik University, FEAS, Department of Business Administration, Bilecik,
Turkey, e-mail: muzaffer.aydemir@bilecik.edu.tr
** Research Assistant , Bilecik University, FEAS, Department of Business Administration, Bilecik, Turkey,
e-mail: ozumunsal@yahoo.com
Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

1. Introduction
Ethics has been one of the principal issues confronting businesses for many years.
While businesses are responsible for maximizing long-term value for the
shareholders, they are also expected to adequately monitor their employees’
performance, and to enforce and adhere to certain ethical standards.
Business ethics have been the subject of controversy and debate for many years
among researchers and practitioners. Not surprisingly, frequent scandals have
fostered considerable interest and scholarly work in the business ethics realm.
Recently, interest in this area is intensified due to widespread media accounts of
outbreaks of ethical failing and questionable practices by corporations and
corporate executives. Events such as the collapse of Enron, the destruction of
documents at Arthur Andersen, questionable CEO compensation packages and
other practices at Tyco, and charges of fraud at WorldCom have shaken public
confidence in business world. In accordance with these ongoing discussions,
scholars and practitioners are wondering what has to be done to assure ethical
behaviors in the business environment.
Some scholars debate whether religious beliefs should be an appropriate grounding
for business ethics. On the one hand, Madigan (2005) criticizes the popular
assumption that “religion and morality are synonymous” and then he claims that
this assumption is incomplete because religion is not the sole determinant of our
morality. On the other hand, Calkins (2000) states that business ethic has recently
neglected its religious traditions. Magill (1992) and Fort (1997) claim that rather
than excluding religion from business ethics, business ethics ought to consider
religion as a healthy ground. McMahon (1986) argues that religions make valuable
contributions to business ethics. Religions’ values, principles, and practices give
sense of responsibility, and guidance to the people of business world.
This current paper presents the results of a study that explored the roles of the
managers’ religiosity play in determining their ethical attitudes regarding
questionable business practices.

2. Literature Review
In the business ethics literature, there are three main approaches for the
explanation of the unethical behavior in organizations: “bad apples approach”,
“bad barrels approach” and “interactive approach.” The bad apple approach
assumes individual characteristics as primary force influencing unethical behaviors.
This perspective underlines the importance of “moral character” (Brass et al., 1998)
or personal factors (Schermerhon, 1996: 110) such as past experiences, values and
morals (Griffin, 1990). On the other hand, the bad barrels perspective emphasizes
the various attributes of organizations (Griffin, 1990) and society that influence
unethical behaviors. This perspective emphasizes the system (Brass et al., 1998) or
the environment (Schermerhon, 1996: 110) in which people live. In other words,

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 An Important Antecedent of Ethical / Unethical Behavior: Religiosity

the perceived organizational environment is significantly related to the ethical or

unethical decisions of the managers and employees. (Sims and Keon, 1999)
Supporters of the interactive approach pinpoint the reciprocal interaction between
these two groups of factors. (Brass et al., 1998)
In this study, we explored the impacts of religiosity as a personal factor on the
ethical or unethical attitudes of the managers.
2.1. Religion and Religiosity
The impact of religion on our social and economic lives is an historical debate.
Nowadays, some scholars pay closer attention to the subject and aim to explore
the relationship between religious beliefs and business ethics. Here, as Bernardin
(2006) noted, we define religion as a belief system which include God and/or
supernatural.
Religiosity can be defined as a belief in God accompanied by a commitment to
follow certain principles set by God (McDaniel and Burnett, 1990).
Cornwall et al. (1986) examined the dimensions of religiosity and found six core
and seven peripheral dimensions. Core dimensions of religiosity are traditional
orthodoxy, spiritual commitment, religious behavior, particularistic orthodoxy,
church commitment, religious participation. Peripheral dimensions are religious
knowledge, religious experience, personal community relations, personal well-
being, marital happiness, physical health, and spiritual well-being.
However, Allport (1950) classified the dimensions of religiosity as intrinsic
religiosity and extrinsic religiosity. In other words, he implied that people’s interest
for religious beliefs and activities may come from intrinsic motivational factors
(religious satisfaction itself) and/or extrinsic motivational factors (material gains
etc.).
In general, motivational factors for human behaviors can be analyzed as either
intrinsic or extrinsic. Although combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
are common, one is likely to be primary for a given person doing a given task.
Therefore, intrinsically motivated people do something because it is interesting,
involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging. However, extrinsically
motivated people do something because it helps them to achieve some rewards. In
other words, from the stand point of religiosity, intrinsically motivated people
internalized their beliefs. In contrast, extrinsically motivated people involved in
religion for external reasons such as social desirability etc. (Paloutzian, 1996;
Amabile, 1996; Amabile, 1997; Unrau and Schlackman, 2006)
2.2. The Relationship between Religiosity and Ethical Attitudes
Although some researchers argue that affects of religiosity on the ethical attitudes
of people are situational (Saat et al., 2009) or high religiosity does not always mean
high ethical values (Rashid and Ibrahim, 2008), most of the scientific researches

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Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

below generally show positive relationship between religiosity and ethical

attitudes.
Religiosity has an influence both on human attitudes and behaviors (Clark and
Dawson, 1996; Weaver and Agle, 2002). It is one of the factors that significantly
influence people’s values, ethical judgments (Huffman, 1988; Hunt and Vitell,
1993), ethical and social responsibilities (Ibrahim et al., 2008). Religiosity in general
has a positive impact on ethical attitudes. (Kennedy and Lawton, 1998; Singhapakdi
et al., 2000; Siu et al., 2000; Conroy and Emerson, 2004; Stack and Kposowa, 2006).
Furthermore, it provides an important basis for social integration and the
prevention of deviant behaviors (Stack and Kposowa, 2006).
Practicing religious beliefs or attending religious activities are also positively related
to the ethical attitudes (Phau and Kea, 2007; Bloodgood et al., 2008; Perrin, 2000).
From the stand point of intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity classification,
there is a positive correlation between intrinsic religiosity and ethical attitudes.
Intrinsically motivated people have more positive ethical attitudes than extrinsically
motivated people have. (Donahue, 1985; Aydemir et al., 2009) Intrinsic religiosity is
a determinant of ethical beliefs. In other words, as expected, the stronger a
respondent’s sense of intrinsic religiosity, the more likely he/she was to find
various ‘‘questionable’’ business activities as wrong. (Vitell et al. 2005; Vitell and
Muncy, 2005; Vitel et al. 2006; Vitell et al. 2007)
The basic explanations for the positive relationship between intrinsic religiosity and
ethical attitudes are in the following sentence: ‘‘extrinsically motivated person uses
his religion whereas the intrinsically motivated lives his religion.” (Allport and Ross,
1967: p. 434) The person with intrinsic religious orientation finds his main motive in
religion (because he internalized his religious belief), so that his religious beliefs
and commitments guide his behavior in areas of social and business life. (Allport,
1966: 451-454) Therefore, we proposed the positive relationship between intrinsic
religiosity and ethical attitudes of the managers here too.
H1: Intrinsic religiosity is a positive determinant of all the dimensions of managers’
ethical attitudes.
By contrast, the person with extrinsic religious orientation tends to use religion in
the service of other reasons, such as providing security, sociability, or gaining
friends or business clients. (Allport, 1966: 451-454) Thus, we proposed the negative
relationship between extrinsic religiosity and ethical attitudes of the managers
here.
H2: Extrinsic religiosity is a negative determinant of all the dimensions of managers’
ethical attitudes.

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 An Important Antecedent of Ethical / Unethical Behavior: Religiosity

3. Methodology
This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the roles that managers’
religiosity play in determining their ethical attitudes regarding questionable
business practices. Two dimensions of religiosity – intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity
– were studied.
3.1. Sample
Table 1: Sample Demographics
Demographic Factors N % Total
Sex
Female 234 45,9 510-100%
Male 276 54,1
Age
Between 16-25 101 19,9
Between 26-35 222 43,5 510-100%
Between 36-45 135 26,4
46 and Over 52 10,2
Marital Status
Married 295 57,8
510-100%
Single 196 38,4
Divorced / Widowed 19 3,7
Education
High School and Lower 63 12,4
510-100%
Two-year College 128 25,1
University and Over 319 62,5
Position
Top Management 22 4,3
510-100%
Middle Management 76 14,9
Lower Management 412 80,8
Sector
Manufacturing 54 10,6
Banking 49 9,6
Private Education 126 24,7 510-100%
State Organization 129 25,3
Utility 70 13,7
Other 82 16,1
Size of the Company
Between 1-9 employees 82 16,1
510-100%
Between 151-250 employees 175 34,3
250 and more employees 253 49,6

The data is collected with the convenient sampling technique mainly from six
organizations which are located in northwestern part of Turkey. Approximately
1000 questionnaires sent to the managers in these organizations and 550
questionnaires returned. 40 questionnaires are eliminated because of missing

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 Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

values and 510 questionnaires are used for the analysis. Some demographics about
the sample are given in Table 1.
3.2. Measures
The survey consists of three parts. The first part included 24-vignette ethics scale of
Barnett and Brown (1994), included employee theft, lying to customers, taking
advantage of customers, using company services and whistleblowing among
others. The second part included 11-item religiosity scale of Allport and Ross
(1967). We used the adopted version of the scale by Vitell et al. (2007). The third
part contained various demographic measures such as age, sex, marital status,
educational level, position and sector etc.
The dependent construct in the analysis was managers’ ethical attitudes as
measured by the 24-vignette ethics scale of Barnett and Brown (1994). The
respondents were asked to rate each vignette on a five-point scale from – strongly
believe that it is ethical (1) to strongly believe that this is unethical (5). It is
important for the readers to note that a high score on this scale indicates that
managers have stronger belief that these behaviors are wrong or unacceptable.
Overall reliability score of the ethics scale is 0.833.
Extrinsic and intrinsic religiosities were measured by using the adopted version of
Allport and Ross (1967), using a five-point Likert type scale anchored by “1 = I
strongly disagree” and 5 = I strongly agree”. In the response format, higher scores
indicate higher degree of religiousness. Overall reliability score of religiosity scale is
0.741. The intrinsic dimension has 8 items (3 control questions are excluded from
the analysis) and is exemplified by items such as, ‘‘I try hard to live my life
according to my religious beliefs.’’ The extrinsic dimension includes 6 items. It is
exemplified by items such as, ‘‘I go to religious services because it helps me make
friends.’’

4. Results
Factor analysis identified four main factors for the ethics scale. In the ethics scale,
four factors explained approximately 58% of the variance. Factor loads are shown
in table 2. In table 2 and 3, mean scores and standard deviation scores of each item
are given in parenthesis respectively.
Table 2: Ethics Scale’s Factor Analysis
COMPONENTS E1 E2 E3 E4
20. An employee uses company services for personal (4,29;
,67
0,98)
22. A worker passes blame for errors to an innocent co-worker.
,82
(4,63; 0,71)
23. A worker claims credit for someone else's work. (4,57; 0,80) ,82
24. A worker does not report others' violations of company
,57
policy. (3,94; 1,13)

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 An Important Antecedent of Ethical / Unethical Behavior: Religiosity

1. After agreeing on a purchase price for a new car, a

salesperson accepted $100 from a customer for getting the ,72
sales manager to reduce the car price by $300. (4,01; 1,20)
5. In response to demands for more sales from the sales
manager, salespeople for an industrial supply company have
provided cash gifts for $100 to $200 to purchasing agents in ,70
order to increase sales. The sales manager is aware of the gifts
and allowed them to continue. (3,54; 1,24)
14. A flour milling company developed a new milling process
that created more dust than emission control equipment could
,62
handle. The company ran the process on the third shift when
pollution would not be detected. (4,20; 1,09)
15. A manager authorizes a subordinate to violate company
,64
rules. (4,12; 1,05)
2. A salesperson promised Friday delivery of goods ordered on
Wednesday even though the probability of Friday delivery was ,75
only 30%. (4,17; 0,91)
3. An independent sales contractor sells a line of quality
merchandise at moderate to high prices. The contractor is also
,68
selling a line of lower quality merchandise at a higher markup.
Customers are not told that the quality is different. (4,26; 0,98)
6. A salesperson sells a more expensive product to a customer
when a less expensive one would be better for the customer. ,57
(3,81; 1,15)
8. In the trial run of a major presentation to the board of
directors, the marketing vice president deliberately distorted ,52
some recent research findings. (4,25; 0,87)
11. A salesperson gives material gifts, such as free sales
promotion prizes or "purchase-volume incentive" bonuses to a ,79
customer in order to increase sales. (2,42; 1,21)
12. A salesperson gains information about competitors by asking
buyers for specific information about these competitors. (2,70; ,83
1,25)
Eigen values 3,70 1,78 1,51 1,14
Percent variance explained 26,44 12,74 10,81 8,15
Cumulative Variance 26,44 39,18 50,00 58,15
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax With Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 6 iterations.

Factor analysis identified three main factors for the religiosity scale. In the
religiosity scale, three factors explained approximately 64% of the variance. Factor
loads are shown in Table 3.

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Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

Table 3: Religiosity Scale’s Factor Analysis

COMPONENTS R1 R2 R3
25. I enjoy reading about religion. (3,41; 1,19) ,83
26. It is important for me to spend time in private thought and ,80
prayer. (3,45; 1,10)
27. I have often had a strong sense of God’s presence. (4,47; 1,07) ,55
28. I try hard to live all my life according to my religious beliefs. ,77
(3,31; 1,18)
29. My whole approach to life is based on my religion. (3,06; 1,24) ,77
30. I go to religious services because it helps me to make friends. ,69
(2,06; 1,12)
34. I go to religious services mostly to spend time with my friends. ,85
(1,87; 1,03)
35. I go to religious service mainly because I enjoy seeing people I ,87
know there. (1,85; 1,03)
31. I pray mainly to gain relief and protection. (3,25; 1,32) ,79
32. What religion offers me the most is comfort in times of ,81
trouble and sorrow. (3,42; 1,25)
33. Prayer is for peace and happiness. (3,73; 1,21) ,77
Eigen values 3,38 2,08 1,54
Percent variance explained 30,79 18,96 13,99
Cumulative Variance 30,79 49,75 63,74

Descriptive statistics about the factors of ethics scale and religiosity scale are
shown in Table 4. Here, it is interesting to notice that religiosity scale has three
dimensions instead of two. Second and third dimensions are related to the extrinsic
religiosity. The items concerning “friendship” are come under factor two and the
items concerning “happiness” are come under factor three.
Table 4: Descriptive Statistics about the Factors
Std.
Factors Mean Deviation C. Alpha
E1 (Workers’ independent actions) 4,35 ,67 ,71
E2 (Bribery, kickbacks, etc.) 3,97 ,83 ,69
E3 (Lying and misdirecting customers etc.) 4,12 ,68 ,63
E4 (Questionable information collection method etc.) 2,56 1,05 ,63
R1 (Intrinsic Religiosity) 3,54 ,88 ,81
R2 (Extrinsic religiosity – friendship) 1,93 ,87 ,74
R3 (Extrinsic religiosity – happiness) 3,47 1,02 ,73

We named the dimensions of religiosity scale according to Allport and Ross (1967)’s
intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity classification. In other words, items

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 An Important Antecedent of Ethical / Unethical Behavior: Religiosity

under R1 dimension are related to the intrinsic religiosity and items under R2
dimension and R3 dimension are related to the extrinsic religiosity.
Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to test two research
hypotheses. As we expected, there is a positive and significant relationship
between “intrinsic religiosity” dimension and all dimensions of ethics scale except
dimension four (E4). By contrast, there is a negative and significant relationship
between extrinsic religiosity and all the dimensions of the ethics scale except
dimension four (E4). Results of the correlation analyses are given in Table 5. The
main reason for mixing results of factor four (E4) might be that participants do not
consider items under factor four as unethical. Mean scores of these items are 2,42
and 2,70 (see the table 2).
Table 5: Intercorrelations among the Factors
E1 E2 E3 E4
R1 (Spearman’s rho) ,149** ,019 ,128* -,200**
(Sig. 2-tailed) (,001) (,673) (,004) (,000)
R2 (Spearman’s rho) -,269** -,225** -,049 ,092*
(Sig. 2-tailed) (,000) (,000) (,273) (,037)
R3 (Spearman’s rho) -,126** -,268** -,053 -,087*
(Sig. 2-tailed) (,004) (,000) (,233) (,049)
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2- tailed).
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2- tailed).

Multiple regression analysis was also used to analyze the data and test hypotheses
with intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as the independent variables and the four
dimensions of the ethics scale as the dependent variables. In order to examine the
relation between the dependent and independent variables, four separate multiple
regression analyses (enter method) were conducted. The results of these multiple
regression analyses appear in Table 6.
Workers’ questionable independent actions (E1): According to the regression
analyses, intrinsic religiosity (R1) and sex positively; extrinsic religiosity (R2 and R3)
negatively explain the workers’ questionable independent actions.
Bribery, kickbacks etc. (E2): Intrinsic religiosity and size of the company positively;
extrinsic religiosity and marital status negatively explain the unethical behaviors
such as bribery, kickbacks etc.
Lying and misdirecting customers etc. (E3): Intrinsic religiosity, sector, size of the
company and age positively explain the unethical behaviors such as lying and
misdirecting customers etc.
Questionable information collection methods etc. (E4): Intrinsic religiosity a
education negatively, position and sector positively explain the questionable
information collection methods etc.

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Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

Table 6: Regression Analyses

Model Standardized beta t- value Sig.
Dependent variable: E1 - Workers’
independent actions
Constant 27,082 0,000
R1 ,133 3,031 0,003
R2 -,290 -6,745 0,000
R3 -,107 -2,388 0,017
Sex ,131 3,054 0,002
R² = 0,127 F- value = 18,290
Adjusted R² = 0,120 Significance =0,000
Dependent variable: E2 - Bribery,
kickbacks, etc.
Constant 19,210 0,000
R1 ,094 2,223 0,027
R2 -,185 -4,483 0,000
R3 -,249 -5,485 0,000
Marital Status -,122 -2,960 0,003
Size of the company ,230 5,602 0,000
R² = 0,186 F- value = 23,096
Adjusted R² = 0,178 Significance =0,000
Dependent variable: E3 - Lying and
misdirecting customers etc.
Constant 18,976 0,000
R1 ,120 2,814 0,005
Sector ,126 2,749 0,006
Size of the company ,139 3,036 0,003
Age ,160 3,675 0,000
R² = 0,102 F- value = 14,276
Adjusted R² = 0,094 Significance =0,000
Dependent variable: E4 - Questionable
information collection method etc.
Constant 8,975 0,000
R1 -,232 -5,421 0,000
Education -,110 -2,558 0,011
Position ,094 2,174 0,030
Sector ,100 2,314 0,021
R² = 0,081 F- value = 11,130
Adjusted R² = 0,074 Significance =0,000

According to the results of the correlation and the regression analyses, we partly
accepted hypotheses H1 and H2.

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 An Important Antecedent of Ethical / Unethical Behavior: Religiosity

Although it is not the main aim of this research, we analyzed the participants’
differences related to the religiosity and ethical perceptions in terms of their
demographic variables. However, t-test and ANOVA did not show any statistically
significant differences among participants’ religiosity and ethical attitudes in terms
of their demographic measures, such as age, education, position etc.
Through this article, we prefer not to present statistically insignificant results of
these analyses. However, all these analyses and the results are available, if asked.

5. Conclusions
In this study, we explored the relationship between religiosity and ethical attitudes
of the managers. The findings of the study show that there are significant and
meaningful correlations between the dimensions of religiosity and attitudes
towards questionable business practices. That is, an intrinsic religious orientation
appears to explain, in part, one’s attitude toward questionable business practices.
People who have a stronger intrinsic religious orientation tend to consider
questionable business practices as wrong or unethical. Furthermore, people who
have stronger extrinsic religious orientation tend to believe that questionable
business activities were less unethical. It is perhaps not surprising that someone
who has high extrinsic religious orientation might be inclined to support some of
these kinds of activities.
Our findings related to the intrinsic religiosity are consisted with the findings of
Vitell et al. (Vitell et al. 2005; Vitell and Muncy, 2005; Vitel et al. 2006; Vitell et al.
2007)
It is interesting to note that people who have high extrinsic religious orientation
consider questionable business practices more acceptable than people who have
low extrinsic religious orientation. As Allport (1967) put the word “uses” to
differentiate the intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity, extrinsically motivated
people approach religion as a tool or instrument to reach some personal goals,
such as making friends etc.
However, we should be careful about reaching the conclusion quickly. Because,
correlation coefficients, R2 and beta values are low. In other words, intrinsic and
extrinsic religiosity are explaining only small amount of the managers’ ethical
attitudes towards questionable business practices. Therefore, there are other
factors that should be included into the analysis. We can speculate that these
factors might be personal factors such as personality etc.; organizational factors
such as culture, climate etc., and social, economical, and political factors etc.
We believe that this study is an important step toward understanding the
relationship between religiosity and ethical attitudes of people in the organizations.
However, the field of business ethics, religiosity, and the relationship between
business ethics and religiosity require further empirical studies.

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Muzaffer AYDEMİR & Özüm EĞİLMEZ

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