The Impact of Stress Levels on Ethicality for Employees

Keywords: ethics, ethical conduct, stress, stress level

Abstract: This research seeks to fill a gap in the occupational stress literature by making a tentative step toward examining the extent to which stress is related to ethicality. A sample of 370 business employees at companies of various sizes were surveyed. The survey included twenty-two questions, was both age and gender-balanced, and well represented the U.S. We have examined the role of perceived stress on employees in organizations to understand the extent to which they may be conducive or debilitating to ethical conduct. As hypothesized, we find that stress is negatively related to ethics. In addition, we find a non-linear relationship such that high levels of stress result in negative ethicality while lower levels result in comparatively less negative ethicality.