Managers who see themselves as professionals may in fact be more corruptible, study says
Managers who see themselves as embodying professional values may in fact be more susceptible to corruption and more likely to partake in unethical behaviour, according to a new study, which says that those who view themselves as professionals may be less likely to critically scrutinize their own decisions.
The study, from Professor Sunita Sah of Cornell University, says managers who see themselves as professionals are more likely to believe that they are incorruptible.
The paper also found that believing you are professional does not actually prevent you from being corrupted.
Instead, the study warns that believing oneself to be more professional than ones colleagues may actually cause a person to “put themselves in the way of temptation.”
The study also found that having a “high sense of professionalism” made managers and executive less likely to scrutinize their decisions or interrogate their thought processes, in the face of conflicts of interest.
It also argues that on individual basis, a high sense of professionalism often coincides with a shallow understanding of the concept.
All in all, managers with a high sense of their own professional values had greater confidence in their ability to scrutinize their own decisions and were thus more likely to accept gifts from people with dubious motives – even though professionalism actually made them less critical of their own actions and decisions.
Meanwhile, those managers who perceived themselves as less professional than others were more likely to believe that a gift may influence their behaviour and more likely to question the motives and agendas of others.
In response, the study argues that external controls are needed to prevent corruption, as it claims that organisations cannot rely on individuals to regulate themselves. The paper says that cultivating a culture of professional is not enough to limit corruption.