The Influence of Religion and Gender on Utah Employee Perceptions of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

SquareTwo

Volume

4

Issue

2

Publication Date

1-1-2011

Abstract

There is much debate regarding the level of ethical responsibility a business has to its local community as well as to society as a whole. Although extensive research has been published in the U.S. on this debate (e.g., Carroll, 1999; Daft, 2003; Wherther & Chandler, 2006), related studies have not been conducted within Utah. To remedy this gap, we investigated employee perceptions of the ethical and social responsibilities of businesses, their organization’s related actions and priorities, and their own related actions and behaviors in the workplace. The overall purpose of this research study was to better understand how Utah workers feel about business ethics and corporate social responsibility. The larger study (Madsen, 2011; [1]) had nine areas of focus, namely, (1) corporate social responsibility (CSR) [2], (2) treatment of customers and clients, (3) treatment of employees, (4) legal compliance, (5) “going green” [3], (6) moral agency, (7) multiple values, (8) endurance of threats and (9) moral goals. The survey also asked a few questions about employee perceptions of multi-level marketing (MLM). The demographics explored included age, marital status, highest education level, workplace location, ethnicity, yearly household income, position in organization, industry, hours worked per week, religion, and religious activity. The survey had 295 participants who consisted of workers of various ages and both genders working in Salt Lake and Utah Counties. A Likert-type scale (“1” through “7”) for survey question responses was used. The purpose of this paper is to briefly share findings specifically related to two demographic variables: religion and gender.

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