New Link Between Professionalism and Unethical Behavior

New research shows that professionalism and integrity do little to protect against unwanted influence.

Employees or managers who view themselves as professionals are more vulnerable to unethical behavior such as conflicts of interest finds a new Cornell University study. The findings are published in the journal Academy of Management Perspectives.

Professionalism has evolved from a feature of traditional professions, such as medicine and law, to a concept describing how individuals conduct themselves at work.

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‘People with a high self-concept of professionalism are more likely to fail in safeguarding from bias.’

Professionalism can be redefined not as an individual characteristic or feeling, but as a set of observable repeated behavioral practices that demonstrates a deep understanding of the concept and promotes outcomes in the interest of clients and the societal good.

“I noticed that many professional advisors, such as financial advisors and physicians, claim that their ‘professionalism’ protects them from corruption and unwanted influence from conflicts of interest; that they can ‘manage their brains,’” said the study’s author, Sunita Sah, associate professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

To know more about the impact of professionalism, researchers surveyed 400 managers on multiple conflicts of interest scenarios and asked whether they would accept or reject the gift offered in each circumstance.

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Participants were further asked to imagine they accepted a gift and to predict the influence if any, it would have on them.

Before viewing the scenarios, each respondent’s perception of their professionalism was measured by assessing their personal view of their ability to remain objective and self-regulate unwanted influence.

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Greater the managers’ sense of professionalism, the more likely they were to report that they would accept gifts from people with questionable or ambiguous agendas, and less likely to be influenced by the specific gifts in the scenarios.

These findings indicate that a high sense of professionalism with a shallow understanding of the concept may lead to greater acceptance of conflicts and potentially more bias.

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Efforts to progress one’s cognitive moral development and empathy would help in understanding one’s limitations and fallibilities.

Greater humility and the ability to articulate and acknowledge doubts concerning [conflicts of interests] and other ethical problems is critical to developing and maintaining an ethical self.

Source-Medindia