Why do honest and decent employees sometimes overstep the mark? What makes managers with integrity go off the rails? What causes well-meaning organizations to deceive their clients, employees and shareholders? Social psychology offers surprising answers to these intriguing and timely questions. Drawing on scientific experiments and examples from business practice, Muel Kaptein discusses why good people sometimes do bad things and how they rise above this behavior. He explains why cheats wear sunglasses, why overstepping the mark could be a good thing, how a surplus of rules creates offenders and why we should be suspicious of colleagues who wash their hands after meetings.
Industry Reviews
"I loved the book. It is up-to-date, easy and quick to read, accessible to students, brings relevant social psychology and cognitive science material to practical application in Business Ethics. It is very good for ethics at work themes and takes seriously both individual character and the workplace environment as contexts influencing ethical behavior and decision-making. The organization of the book into 7 social factors at work provide a well structured manner to present the research findings relevant to each factor. Finally, the book is positive, practical and accessible for the undergraduate college student and lends itself to discussion and application by the teacher." Lecturer Michael McKay, Rady School of Management, University in San Diego, California, USA; "Kaptein's book goes straight to the shortlist of the 'Management Book of the Year' election early next year, and is a contender for the title" Management Team (Netherland's most read management magazine); "Surprisingly engaging...this work will enlighten business people about the ethicality of their own and others' behaviors...it will benefit students and lay audiences as well as experts. Recommended." M. R. Hyman, New Mexico State University for Choice Magazine, June 2014 (vol. 51, no. 10); "Professor Kaptein has written a very intelligent account of what I would call the 'social psychology of ethical dilemmas'. The short and concise chapters not only give abundant illustrations of why people do bad things (the moral dimension), but also include creative experiments through which some of these behaviorist dilemmas can be realistically managed (the practical dimension). A stimulating and thought-provoking read!" Rob van Tulder, Professor of International Business-Society Management, RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam; "The book provides clear insight into the why of unethical behavior." Intermediar; "Vivid examples from practice and well-founded by many social-psychological experiments...an interesting and entertaining book." NRC Newspaper; "Dr. Muel Kaptein gives an astute summation of the scientific literature that evaluates how different surroundings can affect decision making" Gregory Ciotti, Huffington Post
