Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
• In 2020, Facebook had 2.5 billion monthly users, of which 1.7 billion were daily
users, which is 22 percent of the world’s population.
• Approximately half of human resource managers surveyed perform due diligence by
inserting a job candidate’s name in an Internet search engine. These searches can
result in a list of websites highlighting a potential employee’s ethical, or unethical,
activities.
• Be careful when reviewing this information. The Internet is easy to abuse and may
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Request that all students bring a laptop to class. Put students in pairs. Tell Student 1 that s/he is
applying for a job and Student 2 is an HR manager. Request that the job applicant permit the HR
manager access to the job applicant’s Facebook page. Then have the HR manager highlight
positive character items and fired flag” items on the Facebook page that raise questions about the
INTEGRITY TESTS
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
• Integrity tests, also referred to as honesty tests, typically gather information about
the job candidate’s behaviors and attitudes toward unethical workplace activities,
such as theft.
• Integrity tests may take any of the following four approaches:
1. Direct admission of performing an illegal or questionable activity: fiI stole money
from my previous employer.”
• In 1990, with more than 5,000 businesses using integrity tests, the federal
government’s Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) published a report
summarizing research on the validity (did the tests really measure integrity or
something other than integrity?) and reliability (would the same person taking the test
twice receive similar scores?) of integrity tests.
o The findings noted that 94 to 99 percent of the individuals who passed an integrity
test (and thus classified as honest) did not later steal from their employer.
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
o Tutorials and coaches are available to help individuals score high on integrity
tests.
CHAPTER QUESTION 5: WHICH OF THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY MODEL
FACTORS ARE THE MOST RELEVANT FOR UNDERSTANDING A JOB
CANDIDATE’S ETHICS?
STEP 4: Personality Traits and Related Characteristics
BIG FIVE PERSONALITY MODEL
Personality tests offer a much broad psychological understanding of the job candidate and
can identify characteristics associated with ethical or unethical behaviors.
Personality theorists and researchers have reached a general consensus on a Big Five
Model consisting of five broad dimensions or factors that describe human personality:
• Extraversion (talkative, assertive, energetic, ambitious)
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
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Collins, Business Ethics 3e
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• Individuals who behave ethically are also responsible, dependable, and
hardworking. This is particularly noteworthy because conscientiousness is also a
strong predictor of job performance.
ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) refers to work-related helping behaviors that go
beyond normal job requirements, such as aiding others with job-related problems. Researchers
report that individuals who score high on OCB also score high for performance quantity,
performance quality, and customer service.
OCB is typically measured based on seven factors:
1. Helping behavior: Voluntarily helping others with, or preventing the
occurrence of, work-related problems.
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
5. Civic virtue: Willingness to engage in organizational governance activities,
monitoring the environment for threats and opportunities, and looking out for
Researchers have developed shorter OCB scales that tap into some of these factors. Review
Survey 4.1, which provides a five-item overall OCB scale.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Have students think about a part-time or full-time job or volunteer activity. They then should
independently complete the Organizational Citizenship Behavior survey (Survey 4.1) as a self-
MENTAL DISABILITY TESTS
• tests that measure general personality traits must be differentiated from those that
diagnose personality disorders or mental disabilities
CHAPTER QUESTION 6: WHAT TYPES OF QUESTIONS WOULD YOU ASK JOB
CANDIDATES DURING AN INTERVIEW TO UNDERSTAND THEIR ETHICS?
STEP 5: Interview Questions
BACKGROUND
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The in-person interview provides another opportunity to obtain relevant information
about a job candidate’s ethics. The interviewer can ask for clarifications on the ethics-
PREVIOUS ETHICAL DILEMMAS
• Asking job candidates to describe how they managed an ethical dilemma at a
previous employer can be very useful. Human beings are creatures of habit and the
job candidate will bring these response patterns to work.
• Some individuals do not know what is meant by the words ethics or ethical dilemma.
work, that bothered your conscience. How did you respond?
• If the individual has not experienced any ethical dilemmas, the issue can be
transformed into a hypothetical situation: fiWould you accept a free lunch from a
client wanting to do business with the organization?”
• Job candidates can be sensitized to real-life ethical dilemmas current employees have
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Put students in pairs. Tell Student 1 that s/he is applying for a job and Student 2 is an HR
manager. Then have the HR manager ask the job applicant the five questions noted above (i.e.,
Tell me about a time when you observed an employee or customer stealing product. How did
you respond?).
VISUAL LIE DETECTION
According to researchers, there is no particular fiPinocchio effect,” where, similar to the
Walt Disney character, an individual’s nose grows whenever he or she tells a lie.
Researchers examined 1,338 estimates of 158 different bodily and verbal cues for lying,
and found no single cue compelling. Behavioral responses assumed to be cues for
detecting a lie include:
• Bodily tendencies: Less eye contact, increased blinking, pupil dilation,
fidgeting, shaking knee, tapping fingers, sweating, pressing lips together,
There is some truth that these bodily and verbal tendencies, or a combination of them,
may suggest lying, but not enough truth to generalize to the specific person being
interviewed.
• Sometimes honest individuals exhibit the assumed tendencies of liars. For
instance, a person might avoid eye contact with the interviewer because she
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
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or he is shy, nervous about not getting the highly desired job, or lost in
thought.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Ask students to think about several times when they knowingly told a bold lie or observed
someone else doing so. Are there particular bodily tendencies and verbal tendencies from the list
above that they tend to exhibit in these high stress situations?
REALISTIC JOB PREVIEWS
• Present finalists with a realistic job preview, an honest description of daily work
activities that highlights both the exciting and tedious aspects of the job.
• If only the most exciting aspects of the job are discussed, the new employee will
CHAPTER QUESTION 7: UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS CAN A JOB CANDIDATE BE
GIVEN A DRUG AND POLYGRAPH TEST?
STEP 6: Post-Interview Tests
After interviewing the finalists, some organizations make the job offer contingent on passing a
drug test and polygraph test. When appropriate, conduct drug and polygraph tests as a final test
of the job finalist’s integrity. Some jobs, such as those at a nuclear reactor facility, require these
tests.
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
BACKGROUND
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2015, 27.1 million people
aged 12 or older used an illicit drug during the past 30 days, mostly marijuana.
• The typical illegal drug user is a low-paid white male between the ages of 18 and 25.
• Industries with the highest rates of illicit drug use are food preparation, restaurants
DRUG TESTING OPTIONS
• Drug use can be determined by an analysis of blood, urine, hair, or saliva.
• Marijuana, the most commonly tested-for drug, can be detected in the blood system
for 2 days, in urine from 2 to 14 days, and in hair follicles for up to 90 days.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Ask students if anyone has been tested for drug use? What was the experience like? Would it be
easy for someone taking drugs to fake the results?
POLYGRAPH TESTING BACKGROUND
Polygraphs, also known as lie detectors, can be used as a job screen by federal, state, and
local government agencies, as well as businesses, engaged in national security issues.
HISTORY
• The first lie detector machine, designed in 1917 by a Harvard-trained psychologist,
measured an individual’s blood pressure.
• The scientific community concluded that polygraphs detected anxieties, not lies.
• The court system agreed with the scientific community in United States v. Frye
(1923) and ruled that polygraph results could not be presented in a court of law.
• Nonetheless, the lie detector market expanded from police department to private
employers wanting to determine the source of employee theft, and then as a job
EMPLOYEE POLYGRAPH PROTECTION ACT OF 1988
• These findings led to the passage of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988,
which prohibits most companies from using polygraph testing as a preemployment tool.
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
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o The prohibition does not apply to federal, state, and local governments.
RECENT EVENTS
• Polygraph testing has improved since the 1980s and, with a skilled operator, accuracy
rates range from 81 to 98 percent.
• The modern polygraph collects data on at least three physiological systems associated
with honesty and lying: respiration, sweat gland activity, and blood pressure.
• As these measures suggest, the polygraph still only detects for nervousness, not lying.
• A new type of polygraph test being developed by brain researchers uses functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners.
o Researchers have isolated the section of the brain where lying occurs.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Ask students if all employers should be able to use lie detector test to verify the reliability of
information provided by job applicants. Why?
Instructor Resource
Collins, Business Ethics 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2022