It said 76 percent of workers surveyed witnessed illegal or unethical incidents at work within the year. Employee discrimination, fraud, sexual harassment, deceptive sales practices and environmental breaches are among the biggest business concerns today, according to the survey. But Jim Weber, professor of management and director of the Beard Center for Leadership in Ethics at Duquesne University, said such statistics may distort reality. It's human nature. I don't think most people do bad things often.
Trouble comes, however, when the pressure is on.
The KPMG study bears this out. The study said companies are sending the wrong messages to workers on how to meet goals. Although Mr. Weber's job at the Beard Center focuses on instructing business people how to stay away from and prevent unethical behavior, he believes ethics problems are exaggerated by studies. One lapse is recorded as being equivalent to repeated bad behavior, he said. I don't think so.